Markku Niemivirta

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined change in students' situational interest as a function of student and task characteristics and found that students working with the more concrete version of the simulation reported an increase in their interest while the opposite was true for students working in the more abstract version.

Abstract: The relations and possible interaction of students' motivational orientation and the quality of their inquiry in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) were examined. The study was performed among ten-year-old students (N = 26) in a Finnish elementary school. At the beginning of the learning project, the students were administered similar self-report questionnaires to identify their motivational tendencies. In order to compare the students' general motivational tendencies with their actual engagement, the lessons were videotaped for collecting data on the students' learning and social interaction processes during CSILE (Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environment) work. Furthermore, CSILE students' written work was analyzed to examine their practices of knowledge production and the epistemological nature of their inquiry. The study indicates that CSCL may facilitate the active participation of students who have a lot of difficulties in traditional school learning. In addition, regardless...

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined how possible changes in selfefficacy and interest during a task relate to each other and whether such changes independently predict overall task performance, and found that changes in interest and self-efficacy were positively correlated, and, after controlling for the effects of prior mathematics achievement, both the initial level of self efficacy and the rate of change in interest independently predicted final task performance.