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Structural and dynamic aspects of interest development: Theoretical

considerations from an ontogenetic perspective
Article in Learning and Instruction · August 2002

DOI: 10.1016/S0959-4752(01)00011-1
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Learning and
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Pergamon Learning and Instruction 12 (2002) 383 - 409
www.elsevier.com/locate/learninstruc
Structural and dynamic aspects of interest

development: theoretical considerations from an
ontogenetic perspective
Andreas Krapp *
Fakultät Sozialwissenschaften, Universität der Bundeswehr München, 85577 Neubiberg, Germany
Abstract
Empirical research on the development of individual interests is mostly concerned with the
analysis of developmental trends in groups or populations. However, there is a distinct lack
of theoretical constructs that describe and explain interest development from the perspective
of the growing individual. This article presents a collection of theoretical concepts and models
that can be used to describe and explore structural and dynamic aspects of interest development
from an ontogenetic research perspective. Basic ideas of an educational-psychological concep-
tualization of interest are outlined that—contrary to many other conceptualizations in this
field—is based on a dynamic theory of personality. Such an approach provides an opportunity
to analyze and reconstruct the manifold interrelations between the changing structure of a
person's pattern of interests and the developing personal "self during ontogenesis. Exemplary
selected theoretical models and ideas are presented, including the question of general stages
during the course of interest development from childhood to early adulthood, models to
describe and theoretically reconstruct structural changes in an individual's pattern of personal
interests over a longer period of time, ideas of how to conceptualize the transition from situ-
ational to individual interest, and theoretical considerations about the structure and function
of the psychological regulation-system that is assumed to be responsible for establishing and
stabilizing motivational preferences. Although these concepts and considerations are not yet
integrated into a coherent ontogenetic theory, they may serve as a basis for a theoretical dis-
cussion on how to achieve this aim. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
* Tel.: +49-089-6011449: fax: +49-89-6004-3128.

E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Krapp).
0959-4752/02/S - see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII:S0959-4752(01)OOOI 1-1
384 A. Krapp /Learning and Instruction 12 (2002) 383-409
1. Introduction
Over the past decades, educational research has increasingly studied the influence
of interest on learning and development in various educational settings. According
to a proposal made by Krapp, Hidi, and Renninger (1992), most researchers differen-
tiate between situational interest and individual or personal interest. The empirical
findings show that learning motivation based on interest tends to have many positive
effects on the process and the results of learning. Both individual interest and situ-
ational interest (or text-based interest) have a profound facilitative effect on cognitive
functioning and learning (Hidi, 1990). In a large number of studies, substantial posi-
tive correlations were found between different indicators of interest and different
learning outcome criteria (Schiefele, Krapp, & Winteler, 1992). Most of the results
on the positive influence of interest in learning and achievement are from corre-
lational studies. There are also, however, several results from experimental studies
which support the generally positive evaluation of learning motivation based on inter-
est. The findings of empirical research have been reviewed comprehensively from
different theoretical perspectives (e.g., Alexander, Kulikowich, & Jetton, 1994; Alex-
ander & Murphy, 1998; Baumert & Köller, 1998; Hidi, 1990; Hidi & Berndorff,
1998; Krapp, 1992; Krapp et al., 1992; Renninger 1990, 1992, 2000; Schiefele,
1996a, 1998, 2001; Prenzel, 1998). Although there are several contradictory results,
especially with respect to the impact of interest on achievement and learning in
mathematics at the secondary level (Köller, 1998; Köller, Baumert, & Schnabel,
2000), the conclusion seems to be justified that an interest-triggered learning activity
leads to better learning results, especially with respect to qualitative criteria (e.g., a
higher degree of deep-level learning).
The finding has important educational implications; it suggests ways to improve
the quality of learning in schools and other educational settings (e.g., college, univer-
sity or vocational training), especially with respect to lifelong learning. Theories and
results from this line of research can be used to show that it is worth fostering
interest-triggered learning in school and elsewhere, but they do not say very much
about how this goal can be achieved. Theories and concepts are therefore needed
about the genesis and further development of subject-related interests. Which factors,
for example, are responsible for arousing a new interest in a current situation? How
can this situational interest be sustained for a longer period of time in order to create
a sufficiently stable willingness to occupy oneself with something new? Under which
conditions is it reasonable to expect that such a longer-lasting situational interest
will become a new thematic focal point in the interest profile of the developing per-
sonality?
These questions concern both actual-genetic and ontogenetic aspects of interest
development. Actual-genetic approaches describe and explain the
emergence/appearance of a "working interest" in an actual situation. From the per-
spective of motivation research, this aspect refers to the question of how an individual
becomes motivated to occupy him/herself in an activity in a certain way. This process
is sometimes characterized as "development" of a situational interest or as "actualiz-
ation" of an already existing personal interest (Krapp et al., 1992). Here, the concept
A. Krapp / Learning and Instruction 12 (2002) 383-409 385
of development is used in the meaning of a rather short-term process which describes

the actual-genetic changes of a person's interactions with his or her learning environ-
ment. The ontogenetic perspective is more general. It refers to longer-lasting changes
in the structure of an individual's pattern of traits or characteristics which can be
interpreted as more or less stable "dispositions" for thinking and acting in a certain
way. Ontogenetic analyses of interest development describe and explain the emerg-
ence, stabilization and change of individual interests.
There are many research approaches that investigate specific aspects of these
developmental processes at both levels of analysis. But there are hardly any attempts
to integrate the empirical findings on the basis of an overarching theory of interest
development (Krapp, Renninger, & Hoffmann, 1998). As in other fields of empirical
research, the researchers' main effort is often to explore and test a specific hypothesis
and not so much to discuss and develop components of a general theory. Theory
development, however, is an important goal because practitioners who are the ulti-
mate users of empirical research need more than just a collection of unconnected
"interesting" empirical findings. In the long run, the aim of psychological research
must be the development of coherent and convincing theories that provide an inte-
grated picture of structural and functional principles in a certain field. In the field
of interest development, such a theory is not yet in sight. Nevertheless, we should
start a discussion about how this goal could be reached. What kinds of theoretical
concepts are necessary to inform educational practice in an adequate manner? Is it
possible to explicate general psychological principles that can describe and explain
certain aspects of interest development? Does it make sense to integrate theoretical
constructs and/or functional hypotheses from other fields of psychological research?
This paper proposes to supply a basis for such a theoretical discussion. What I
am going to present are theoretical considerations about selected structural and
dynamic aspects of interest development. The main focus is on intraindividual
changes and not so much on developmental trends in groups or populations. Since
any concept of interest is characterized by its content-specificity, a developmental
theory must be able to explain why a person develops an interest in a certain domain
but not in another one, or why an existing interest is changed or abandoned entirely.
A central point in this paper deals with the question of how and under what con-
ditions a relatively lasting individual interest grows out of an interest that has been
triggered in a specific situation and can thus been characterized as "situational inter-
est". In the following section I will first outline the basic ideas of an educational-
psychological conceptualization of interest, which not only describes criteria for the
operationalization (measurement) of this theoretical construct, but also makes state-
ments about the central role of interest in the process of human growth and the
functional relations between a person's pattern of interest and the development of a
person's self-system or identity. Although these kinds of questions are rarely brought
into the focus of empirical research, they are central for a comprehensive ontogenetic
interpretation of interest development.
2. An educational-psychological conceptualization of interest
In recent theories, interest is mostly understood as a phenomenon that emerges

from an individual's interaction with his or her environment. This postulate is also
a starting point of a theoretical approach that has been variously discussed under the
label "person-object theory of interest" (POI). The central ideas are based on work
by H. Schiefele and colleagues in the 1970s and 1980s (Schiefele, 1974, 1981; Schie-
fele, Krapp, Prenzel, Heiland, & Kasten, 1983; Prenzel, Krapp, & Schiefele, 1986;
Krapp, 1989) and have been further developed by Prenzel (1988, 1992), Krapp (1992,
1993, 1999, 2002), U. Schiefele (1991, 1996a, 1999, 2001) and others (e.g., Fink
1989, 1991).
2.1. Interest and the development of the human personality
Contrary to many other approaches, POI is more strongly directed towards a view
of ontogenetic development that takes into account the reciprocal relations between
the changing structure of an individual's longer-lasting personal interests and the
establishing of a stable personality structure. Behind all of this are the metatheoretical
premises which have already played a prominent role in the preliminary outline for
an educationally fitting interest theory (Schiefele, 1974; Schiefele, Hausser, &
Schneider, 1979; Schiefele et al., 1983). Thus, it is postulated that it is not sufficient
to describe and explain the motivational aspects of single "learning episodes"
(Boekaerts 1997, 1999), but it is also necessary to describe and explain the role of
motivation in the course of lifelong human development.
In order to be able to reconstruct the motivation process from an ontogenetic
perspective, a developmental theory of interest has to make statements about the
structure and development of the human personality. POI uses an approach to person-
ality that describes and explains motivational aspects of the developing person not
only with respect to individual differences but, even more importantly, with respect
to functional relations and general "laws" of human development (Krapp, 2002). A
personality theory that considers these aspects of human development has to consider
the fact that the person is aware of himself or herself, and that the "object" of this
awareness is some sort of representation of the individual's personal "self (Hannover
1997, 1998; Fend, 1994; Deci, 1998; Ryan 1991, 1993). The self can be seen as the
central area of an individual's structure of personality, it represents a person's ident-
ity. Under normal circumstances, the different components of the self represent a
unified structure: a mentally healthy person lives in relative harmony with his or her
attitudes, goals and accumulated capacities and knowledge structures.
2.2. Interest as a specific person-object relationship
In accordance with the ideas of Lewin (1936), Nuttin (1984), Oerter (1995),
Deci & Ryan (1985, 1991), Renninger (1992) and many others, it has been postulated"
that the individual, as a potential source of action, and the environment, as the object
of action, constitute a bipolar unit. Therefore, the interest construct is conceptualized
A. Krapp/Learning and Instruction 12 (2002) 383-409 387
as a relational concept. An interest represents a more or less enduring specific

relationship between a person and an object in his or her "life-space" (Lebensraum;
cf. Lewin, 1936). Within the entirety of available/possible PO-relationships a person
will develop a closer relationship only to a few objects (or object areas) for a longer
period of time. Under certain conditions such a relationship will become a genuine
personal interest. Unlike many other motivational constructs, interest is always
directed at certain contents or objects. Thus, content-specificity is one central charac-
teristic of the interest construct.
An object of interest can refer to concrete things (Csikszentmihalyi & Rochberg-
Halton, 1981), a topic, an abstract idea, or any other content of the cognitively rep-
resented life-space. With a view to the processes of (intentional) learning and the
development of the personality, the person's "epistemic interests" play an especially
centralized role. They induce a person to acquire new knowledge and competencies
related to these areas (cf. Renninger, Ewen, & Lasher, 2002). The definition of inter-
est proposed by Schiefele and Rheinberg (1997) explicitly refers to only epistemic
interests. In their view, the construct of individual interest should only refer to knowl-
edge domains and not to activities or events. According to Renninger (1990, 2000)
and Schiefele and Rheinberg (1997), it is possible to think of interest as a specific
part of the network of knowledge stored in long-term memory.
In principle, every area of a person's knowledge can sooner or later become the
object of a situational or personal interest. Furthermore, the contents of an individ-
ual's pattern of interest is to a high degree individualistic. This, however, does not
mean that all interests are totally idiosyncratic. On the contrary, many object areas
of interest in school (or other educational settings) are standardized to a high degree
through the entirety of contents, activities and events in a certain subject or a certain
field of academic or professional training. For example, in empirical studies about
the development of and the effect on scholastic achievement, the "object" of interest
under consideration is usually defined by a certain school subject. Thus, one speaks
of an interest in physics, in mathematics or in biology. Hoffmann (2002) points out
that a subject-related interest can have two different meanings: first, to have an inter-
est in the learning content of the subject—this would be a pure epistemic interest.
Second, to have an interest in the whole arrangement of teaching, learning and acting
in the field of a certain school subject. In addition to content, certain other compo-
nents and qualities of subject-related activities (e.g., experimenting and solving math-
ematical equations as part of the subject physics, or debating in language arts) are
also important. In empirical studies about the role of interest in text learning, authors
often use the term "topic interest", which can either refer to a short-term situational
interest (Hidi & McLaren, 1990, 1991; Hidi, 2000) or to an individual interest in
the sense of a longer-term willingness to confront a certain thematic area (Schiefele,
1996b; Schiefele & Krapp, 1996).
2.3. Level of analysis (situational and individual interest)
Conceptualizing interest as an interactive relation between an individual and cer-

tain aspects of his/her life-space makes it possible to study the conditions for and
effects on interest from various research perspectives. Two typical levels of analysis
can be differentiated (cf. Krapp, 1999, 2000; Krapp et al., 1992; Schiefele, 1996a,
2001). On the first level, interest refers to the dispositional (or "habitual") structure
of an individual. Here, interest is interpreted as a relatively stable tendency to occupy
oneself with an object of interest. On this level, one usually speaks of individual or
personal interest (cf. Renninger, 1990, 1992; Renninger et al., 2002). On the second
level, interest refers to current engagements. It describes a state or an ongoing process
during an actual learning activity. This is the case when we observe the learning
behavior of a student and characterize his or her motivational state as "being inter-
ested". According to Hidi (2000), this "psychological state" involves focused atten-
tion, increased cognitive functioning, persistence, and affective involvement.
A "working" interest can be caused either by an already existing dispositional
interest (personal interest) or by the special conditions of a teaching or learning
situation ("interestingness"). An interest that is caused primarily by external factors
is called a situational interest (Hidi & Baird, 1988; Hidi & Anderson, 1992; Hidi &
Berndorff, 1998; Krapp et al., 1992). A situational interest, thus, represents a more
immediate affective reaction that may or may not last (Hidi, 1990, 2000; Hidi &
Harackiewicz, 2001).
2.4. General characteristics of the interest construct
Independent of whether interest is examined on the level of dispositional person-

ality structures or on the level of current processes, the specificity of this concept
can be more closely characterized by a series of theoretically derived features. The
most important characteristics refer to one's values and feelings. Seen from a more
cognitive perspective, an interest is composed of value-related and feeling-related
valences (or valence beliefs; Schiefele, 1991, 1999, 2001; Krapp, 1992, 1993). The
value-related valences refer to the assumption that an interest has the quality of
personal significance. The question here is how these value components are anchored
psychologically, that is, how the different degrees of value attachment and the corres-
ponding change over time can be described. As indicated above, POI prefers a per-
sonality theory interpretation. In accordance with earlier as well as more recent
theories about personality development (cf. Allport, 1961; Fend 1991, 1994; Deci &
Ryan, 1985) it is assumed that a person's individual interests are closely related to
his or her self-system (cf. Hannover 1997,1998; Todt, 1978; Renninger, 1992). From
such a theoretical perspective, the fact of positive evaluation results from a person's
experienced relevance and the degree of identification with the object of interest.
The person feels subjectively affected because it has a more or less stable relevance
for his or her sense of self. Therefore, in POI the value component of an interest is
also referred to by using the concept of "self-intentionality" to make it clear that the
goals and intentions related to the object area of a (developed) individual interest
are compatible with the attitudes, expectations and values a person has identified
with, thus belonging to his or her self-system. We will come back to this point later
and find that there are close theoretical cross-connections to most recent theories
about "personal goals" (Pervin, 1989; Brunstein & Maier, 1993; Brunstein, Maier, &
Schultheiss, 1999).
The feeling-related valences refer to positive experiential states while being
engaged in an interest-based activity. According to Prenzel (1988), Schiefele (1992)
and Schiefele and Krapp (1996), feelings of enjoyment, involvement and stimulation
are seen as most typical for an interest-based activity. This, of course, does not
exclude the occurrence of negative experiential qualities being found in the actual
process of an interest-based activity (e.g., feelings of pressure through increased
efforts). Yet, on the whole, most aspects of an interest-triggered action are connected
with positive emotional experiences. Under extremely congenial conditions, flow may
be experienced (Csikszentmihalyi 1975, 1990), a state which has also been charac-
terized as "optimal experience" (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). In a
person's cognitive-emotional representation system these states and experiences that
precede, accompany or follow an interest-triggered activity are stored as positive
feeling-related valence beliefs (Schiefele 1992, 1999; Schiefele & Rheinberg, 1997).
Taken together, interest-based interactions with the environment are characterized
by optimal experiential modes that combine positive cognitive qualities (e.g.,
thoughts on meaningful goals) and positive affective qualities (e.g., "good mood";
cf. Rathunde, 1998). The assumption that an interest is characterized be a close
combination of emotional and value-oriented components is quite close to the con-
cept of "undivided interest" or "serious play" which is used by Rathunde (1993,
1998) and Rathunde and Csikszentmihalyi (1993) to describe an optimal mode of
task engagement. Dewey (1913) had already characterized an interest as an "undiv-
ided activity" in which no contradiction is experienced between the assessment of
personal importance of an action and positive emotional evaluations of the activity
itself. From my point of view, this is one of the reasons why an interest-based action
(including knowledge acquisition in the area of interest) has the quality of intrinsic
motivation: there is no gap between what a person has to do in a specific situation
and what the person wishes (or likes) to do.
The intrinsic nature of an interest also plays an important role in more cognitive-
oriented approaches to interest (cf. Schiefele & Rheinberg, 1997; Schiefele, 1999).
From this perspective the intrinsic quality results from the fact that both value-related
and feeling-related valences are directly related to the object of interest, and are not
based on the relation of this object-domain to other domains (or future events). For
example, if a student associates mathematics with high personal significance because
knowledge in this domain helps him or her to achieve good grades and/or a pres-
tigious job, then one would not speak of interest.
3. Components of an ontogenetic theory of interest development
Since Herbart (1806), educational theorists have always maintained the importance
of motivational dispositions and demanded to foster the development of lasting
(educationally valuable) interests in school, which are seen as a supraordinate goal
of education (Dewey, 1913; H. Schiefele, 1981; Wittemöller-Förster, 1993). It is also
390 A. Krapp / Learning and Instruction 12 (2002) 383-409
assumed that stable and satisfactory interest-based relations to freely selected object
areas in the "life-space" of a person are an important basis for human growth and
mental health (H. Schiefele, 1986). In order to be able to support the actual-genetic
and ontogenetic processes of interest development, educational applicable theoretical
knowledge is necessary. Related research has to clarify different questions. Some
refer to the entirety of students to be taught and are mainly descriptive (e.g., "how
does the average interest in physics change during secondary level and are there
major differences between boys and girls?"); others refer to the conditions or
"causes" of interest development and aim at explanations for the individual case
(e.g., "why does a once highly interested student now contribute much less to class
and seem to give up his interest in a certain subject?"). Most empirical research
approaches in the past few years have been concerned mainly with the analyses of
general development trends in the area of school-related interests. Descriptive studies
about the changes in average interest in a certain subject over a longer period of
time provide important information about what is going on in certain age-groups or
populations of students. But from these findings one cannot directly draw conclusions
about psychological regularities and principles that characterize the process of inter-
est development at the level of intraindividual changes. This second type of questions
has been much less investigated.
3.1. Descriptive analyses of general developmental trends in populations
Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies with students at different grade levels

explore general developmental trends in a student population. Although there are
some serious methodological problems (e.g., the changing content in a certain schol-
astic or academic subject area which does not allow the use of exactly the same
instruments over many years), the entirety of available empirical results from various
research approaches provides a rather differentiated and assertive picture (cf. Gardner
1985, 1998). For example, the results clearly show that the average interest in any
subject tends to decrease at all levels of the school system. This is in accord with
results in other areas of research about learning motivation which also found that as
children get older, their task-value beliefs or attitudes toward school in general and
toward specific subject areas tend to deteriorate (Anderman & Maehr, 1994; Eccles &
Wigfield, 1992). This negative trend has already been observed in elementary school
(Helmke, 1993). The drop in interest is even clearer at secondary level (Gardner,
1985, 1998; Travers, 1978; Baumert & Keller, 1998; Prenzel, 1998; Todt, 1990).
The trend towards a decrease is mainly to be found in mathematics, physics and
chemistry and is less evident in biology (Todt, 1978; Todt & Schreiber, 1998;
Eccles & Wigfield, 1992; L6we, 1987). Furthermore, the negative developmental
slope in the area of science-related interests is much more evident among girls than
among boys (Kubli, 1987; Hoffmann, Häußler, & Peters-Haft, 1997; cf. Hoffmann,
this issue).
Several studies have tried to differentiate the developmental trajectories according
to a subject's topic areas, context conditions, school type or gender. On closer obser-
vation, considerable differences and sometimes even contrary trends can be found.
Todt, Arbinger, Seitz, and Wildgrube (1974) found in the area of biology interest
that the attractiveness of zoological and botanical topics decreases for girls; at the
same time there is a clear increase in interest in mankind and ecology. This type of
differential effect can also be observed in other subjects, physics for example, or
sociology/political science (Todt & Schreiber, 1998; Birnstengel, 1989). In a longi-
tudinal study about the development of physics interest in fifth- to tenth-grade stu-
dents (Hoffmann, Lehrke, & Todt, 1985; Häußler, 1987), various areas of physics
(e.g. optics, mechanics or radioactivity) were taken into consideration as well as
contexts within which each of the physics themes were taught in class (e.g., in the
context of scientific argumentation, proving the validity of a scientific hypothesis or
in the context of practically important problem solutions, which require basic knowl-
edge in physics). When analyzing the general (global) developmental trajectories,
again a continually negative trend can be found, especially with girls. However, very
different development trends can be observed when the analysis is broken down to
certain topic areas and/or contexts (cf. Hoffmann, this issue). In lessons where phys-
ics is taught primarily as a scientific endeavour (proving the validity of a general
physical laws), neither girls nor boys judge the contents of this subject as being very
attractive. On the other hand, both genders show a very strong interest when the
contents of the lessons and the way physics is taught can be related to their own
world of experience. Girls react especially sensitively to this kind of contextual inte-
gration.
3.2. Limitations of the theoretical usefulness of these studies
One must be careful when deriving statements about actual development in indi-
vidual cases. In recent interest research this problem in mostly discussed with respect
to methodological implications. However, as Valsiner (1986) has shown, this is a
somewhat superficial interpretation of a much more severe problem which refers to
the validity and theoretical usefulness of empirical results gained in group-based
developmental studies. According to Valsiner (1986) and others it is not justifiable,
in principle, to draw conclusions from population data about "general laws" that can
be used to describe and explain developmental processes at the intraindividual level.
Even the estimation of the likelihood for the occurrence of a certain event with
respect to an individual case cannot be derived directly from population data.1
The fact that group-related results allow no reliable conclusions about the direction
and principles of interest development in the individual case can also be demon-
strated empirically on the basis of results from our own longitudinal study on the
development of job-related interests during a two-year vocational training of
insurance salespeople (Krapp & Lewalter, 2001; Wild & Krapp, 1996; Wild, Krapp,
Schreyer, & Lewalter, 1998). In this research project we studied the interest develop-
1
This can be made clear in a prototypical way with the following example from criminal research:
"If in a population (or representative sample) of delinquents, 80% of those come from broken homes, it
does not necessarily follow that this particular delinquent from a broken home has an 80% chance of
becoming recidivistic" (Valsiner, 1986, p. 133).
ment process in two ways: first, by means of descriptive analyses of the average
level of interest in the entire sample (n=117) using data from a questionnaire; second,
on the basis of individual reconstructions of specific job-related interests using data
from retrospective interviews at the end of the first and of the second year of
vocational training in a smaller group of randomly selected subjects from the entire
sample (n=49 in the first year; n=71 in the second year). The descriptive analyses
in the entire sample revealed the same negative trend found in other longitudinal
studies—interest decreases markedly during the first year of training (Lewalter,
Wild, & Krapp, 2001). The intraindividual analyses deliver a rather different result.
Here, we find a marked positive developmental trend: in both the first and the second
year of apprenticeship all subjects report—without exception—that they had disco-
vered new areas of interest during the past year of vocational education. Thus, their
profile of job-related interests showed a general increase.
The apparent contradiction disappears when one realizes that the two research
strategies involve different aspects of interest development. In the first case, it is a
matter of describing (and explaining) general developmental trajectories in popu-
lations, whereby interest is measured at a relatively abstract level (interest in a subject
and/or all of the contents and events in vocational training). In the second case, the
focus is on the description of intraindividual changes in the structure of a subject's
pattern of job-related interests. The ultimate goal of this research approach is the
exploration of possible general principles of interest development that govern the
developmental processes in all cases. In the remainder of this paper I want to discuss
a few theoretical ideas and concepts that try to describe and explain the course of
interest development from such a general point of view.
3.3. The idea of general stages of interest development
Some authors question whether there is a lawful succession of typical stages in the
development of interest in children and adolescents. Gottfredson (1981), for example,
postulated a sequence of developmental stages from childhood to late adolescence.
This model was developed primarily to describe the course of development of
vocational interests. Todt (1990) started with the basic idea of this model and
expanded it for educational-psychological purposes (cf. Todt, Drewes, & Heils,
1991; Todt & Schreiber, 1998). According to this theoretical perspective, the typical
contents and direction of interests are determined mainly by their specific function
within the wider context of ontogenesis.
In early childhood universal interests dominate, that is interests that are almost
identical for all children at a particular level of development. Referring to Piaget's
theory on the development of intelligence, Travers (1978) and Todt (1990) maintain
that these early interests are closely connected to the sequence of cognitive develop-
ment and serve primarily to foster and stabilize age-related cognitive strategies and
general mental structures (schemata). Piaget has interpreted the functional role of a
child's interests as the "affective-dynamic complement" to intelligence (Piaget,
1981): it is always an actualized interest that produces the motivational dynamics
for the accommodation and assimilation processes during cognitive growth.
At the second stage (at about the age of four) an important mechanism for the
reorganization of a child's pattern of interests is the beginning awareness of one's
own gender and the establishment of an appropriate gender role. Referring to
Kohlberg's (1967) theory, it can be postulated that in the early stages gender roles
are rather stereotypical. As a consequence, all interests that do not fit into this stereo-
typical role are pushed to the background and will soon or later be completely elimin-
ated. In this way, group-specific preferences for and aversions to certain objects of
interest are held equally by the age-group. Todt has proposed the label collective
interests to refer to interests of these kind.
The third stage of development usually begins between the ages of 11 and 13,
when children start to become conscious of the social structure of society and place
themselves and their families in this (hierarchical) structure. Identification with a
subgroup or a certain social class not only determines the expectations with regard
to their future position in society, but also leads to another revision of values, goals,
preferences, and aversions. Again, these new orientations lead to a critical evaluation
of the existing pattern of personal interests and to those PO-relations that do not fit
the now accepted goals and the newly established self concept. Furthermore, the
reorganization of the pattern of personal interests is determined by the estimations
of one's own abilities and talents—which also play an important role in the manifold
processes of identity-formation.
The fourth and last stage of interest development has been reached when—during
adolescence—young people ask which specific interests characterize them as a
(unique) person. Thus, a person's structure of individual interests takes on an increas-
ingly individualized character, determining both the later path of education as well
as their choice of profession (cf. Krapp, 2000).
On the basis of such a "functional" interpretation of developmental stages of inter-
est development a number of phenomena can be explained which are typical for
certain age groups and sometimes seem mysterious at first glance, for example the
radical new orientation of interests during early adolescence. As in other critical
transitions in one's life (Wapner, 1981; Krapp & Fink, 1992), the individual has to
find an appropriate way to cope with the demands of the developmental tasks
(Havinghurst, 1982) that have to be solved in the new life situation. One possibility
is the adoption of a person's self system, including goals and interests that are recog-
nized as relevant components of one's identity. The results mentioned above concern-
ing the continual decline of school-oriented interests at secondary level can in part
be due to this. When at this age the structure of individual interests becomes increas-
ingly focused on certain points, this necessarily leads to a reduction of individual
interests in other areas. On the whole, this inevitably leads to a negative trend in
the average level of any subject-related interest in the student population.
3.4. Interest development as structural change
Longitudinal studies exploring general trends of interest development usually rely

on fairly simple scales to measure the "amount" or "degree" of an individual's inter-
est in a certain domain. Similar to the idea of measuring intelligence by means of
an IQ, such an interest score is interpreted as a valid measure of a more or less

stable characteristic of the person. Irrespective of whether or not an interest score
is made up of various partial scores, this one figure is also viewed as being a suf-
ficiently valid indicator of the level of interest development reached by an individual.
Furthermore, it is assumed that changes in the interest scores over a period of time
provide an adequate picture of the progress or decline of development. This is, how-
ever, a questionable postulate when interest is interpreted according to the theoretical
framework of POI outlined above. Developmental modifications in a person's pat-
terns of interest refer not only to the experienced intensity of the emotional and
value-related characteristics of one or more PO-relationships but also to the structure
of the content of an individual's pattern of interests. These aspects of developmental
growth, however, cannot be made visible by using simple measures of individual
interests.
This methodical deficit is—at least to some degree—a result of the dominance of
research approaches and (diagnostic) methods developed in the tradition of differen-
tial psychology. They are very useful to measure and explore individual differences
on the basis of hypothetical constructs referring to personal traits; on the other hand,
however, they have severe shortcomings with respect to the exploration of develop-
mental processes. The primary aim of the differential research approach is to measure
those aspects of behavior that allow a reliable and valid differentiation between other
people and not so much to identify characteristics that allow a differentiation between
the behavior of a person in different situations or at different stages of development.
From the perspective of differential psychology, the most useful measure is one that
provides data about stable characteristics of a person and consists of only a few
highly reliable items. But such a measure is, in principle, "blind" to those aspects
of personal growth that can only be detected by analyzing the changing structures
within the domain of a certain trait or that refer to ongoing processes like situation-
specific emotional experiences.
Also missing are conceptual models that could be used to describe ontogenetic
transitions and structural changes in a person's pattern of interests. One of the few
exceptions is a model developed by members of the Institute of Science Education
(IPN) in Kiel, Germany. It consists of three orthogonal dimensions, and it is postu-
lated that an individual's structure of interest in physics can be measured by using
indicators from each of these dimensions (for further description of this approach,
see Hoffmann, 2002). This model, however, has been used mostly for the identifi-
cation of qualitatively different types of interest in physics among sixth- to tenth-
grade students (Häußler, Hoffmann, Langeheine, Rost, & Sievers, 1998; Rost, Siev-
ers, Häußler, Hoffmann, & Langeheine, 1999), and not for the reconstruction of
intraindividual changes in the domain of physics-related interest objects.
Only a few research approaches have tried to explore the course of interest devel-
opment with respect to structural changes within an individual's pattern of interests
over a longer period of time. Using POI as a theoretical background, Kasten and
Krapp (1986) conducted a longitudinal study to explore early stages of interest devel-
opment in preschool and elementary school children. A broad variety of data was
collected continuously over a 5-year period from a small group of children (n=12),
starting with their entry in pre-school (e.g. observations, interviews with the children
and their parents and kindergarten teachers; cf. Kasten, 1991). A central aim of this
study involving several case studies was to develop methodical tools and theoretical
concepts for analyzing structural changes from an intraindividual research perspec-
tive (cf. Fink, 1991; Krapp & Fink, 1992). Without going into the details of the
procedure we used to reconstruct an individual's pattern of interests at a certain point
of time, Fig. 1 can demonstrate in a prototypical way the kind of information we
gained from these structural analyses. The figure shows the result of our reconstruc-
tions for one child over four measuring points (tl-t4). The components of the central
interest objects show that this child has a high preference for everything that has to
do with animals, and she likes to be read to. As is often the case, we found a rather
high stability of the main components in a child's pattern of interests. The picture
changes, however, when we go into detail and try to reconstruct the themes, activities
and topics on a more concrete level. Here we find many changes during the different
stages indicated by the reconstructions at time points one to four.
A second, even more important result is that new interests of a child, as a rule,
have their source in the component of an already existing interest. In this case, there
was some evidence that the components "being read to", and "looking at animal
books" were the beginnings of a more general interest in reading. The results, thus,
Fig. 1. Reconstruction of structural changes in an individual's pattern of interest over time (from Fink,
1991, p. 194).
396
confirm the general thesis that any interest has a history; it does not develop out of
nowhere. Even the occurrence of a pure situational interest depends on preconditions
that might result partly from our biological endowment and partly from prior experi-
ences or already existing personal interests (cf. Hidi & Harackiewicz, 2001). There-
fore, the emergence of a new interest—even a new situational interest—cannot be
seen as the construction of a totally new PO-relationship. Rather, it builds upon
structural and dynamic components the individual has acquired in earlier stages of
his or her development.
Reconstructions of the course of development found in particular cases lead to
the specification of hypothetical developmental models that offer an impression of
how the occurrence and growth of an individual interest can be interpreted as specific
kind of structural changes in a person's already existing pattern of interest-related
PO-relationships (see Fig. 2).
The growth model describes the way we tend to think about the normal way of
interest development. According to this concept, the successive steps of structural
reorganization of a certain PO-relationship are directed towards increased differen-
tiation. It is not only the structure of declarative and procedural knowledge that
becomes more and more complex, but also the structure of the feeling-related and
value-related valences that qualify certain knowledge areas as more or less central
components in a person's actual structure of interests. The "channeling model" rep-
resents one possible way to describe and explain the emergence of a new topic-
related interest. According to this model, the structural reorganization of a growing
interest occurs through increased differentiation of one particular aspect of an already
existing PO-relationship. This component comes to be of central importance, while

other parts of the actual components in this PO-relationship are excluded. This results
in a topological "channeling", and after some time a thematically complete newly
structured interest is established. In some respects, this model represents what Allport
(1961, p. 226ff) described in his famous principle of functional autonomy—an
activity that at first had only a peripheral meaning for the person or was only instru-
mental to some other end can later become a central "intrinsic motive" or interest
in itself. The "overlap model" represents another hypothesis about the origin of a
new interest. It is a result of the learner recognizing that relations can be made
between various areas of interest that until then did not belong together. A develop-
mental shift occurs when qualitatively different PO-relationships become structurally
intertwined, leading to the formation or discovery of new, shared structural elements.
A good example is a case study with a boy of elementary-school age who had two
highly preferred activities: playing with "Fischer-Technik", a construction game, and
developing computer programs on a simple basis. When he found out that he could
use the computer to steer the mobiles of Fischer-Technik, he became fascinated in
writing computer programs and constructing all kinds of robots. Thus, the detection
of "overlapping structural components" in two areas which—until then—constituted
two totally different but highly evaluated objects of interest lead to a new and long-
lasting personal interest.
3.5. The transition from situational to individual interest
The considerations and theoretical models we have discussed so far provide some
ideas of how the course of interest development can be described as structural
changes during ontogenesis. However, they do not say very much about how an
interest develops. Which factors are responsible for the specific direction of this
development, and how can the emergence and stabilization of a relatively enduring
personal interest be explained? Referring to the above-mentioned conceptual differ-
entiation between situational and individual interests, these questions can be
expressed more precisely according to the process by which externally stimulated
situational interest is stabilized and maintained and finally becomes a longer-lasting
personal interest (see Fig. 3).
The experience of being interested in a concrete learning situation is always the
result of an interaction between personal and situational factors (Hidi & Baird, 1986;
Bergin, 1999; Krapp et al., 1992). In contrast to a situation where the actualized
state of interest is caused primarily by a strong and highly developed individual
interest, the prototypical case of a situational interest is initiated primarily by external
factors in a given learning environment (Hidi, 1990; Krapp et al., 1992; Murphy &
Alexander, 2001). In school, for example, it is assumed that a situational interest is
created by the interesting "composition" of a teaching situation and/or an interesting
presentation of a lesson. In text-based learning a situational interest is the result of
certain text characteristics (Hidi & Baird, 1986; Ainley et al., in press). Stated more
generally: "situational interest is generated by particular conditions and/or objects in
the environment that focus attention, and it represents an affective reaction that may
Fig. 3. The ontogenetic transition from situational to individual interest (Krapp, 1998, p. 191).
or may not last" (Hidi, 2000). The content of the learning material presented is not
part of the subject area of the learner's already existing individual interests, rather
the interesting factors in this specific situation "awaken" the interest for a shorter or
longer period of time. Under certain conditions, a longer-lasting PO-relationship
which meets the criteria of a personal interest can grow out of such a situational
interest. The central psychological "mechanisms" that supports this ontogenetic trans-
formation are internalization and identification (see below).
This process, however, is usually a multistage process which cannot be sufficiently
described by the two concepts situational and individual interest. In fact, we must
consider a developmental continuum between the very beginning of a situational
interest, a state which might be close to the experience of curiosity, on the one hand,
and a stabilized interest of a grown-up who has totally identified with the related
object of interest, on the other. In order to be able to adequately illustrate the develop-
mental processes from an actual-genetic as well as an ontogenetic point of view, a
model that takes into account possible interim levels of interest genesis is necessary.
This problem has been pointed out already by Dewey (1913), and it is also an
important topic in the current discussions about the role of interest in teaching and
learning (e.g. Hidi & Baird, 1988; Hidi, 2000; Mitchell, 1993; Krapp, 1998).
Fig. 4 represents a model which expresses the central idea of such a multistage
concept. Thus, one has to differentiate between three types of interest, which,
from
an ontogenetic perspective, represent three prototypical stages of interest develop-
ment: (1) a situational interest awakened or triggered by external stimuli for the first
time; (2) a situational interest that lasts during a certain learning phase and (3) an
individual interest that represents a relatively enduring predisposition to engage a
certain object-area of interest.
The first occurrence of a situational interest is primarily a matter of actual-genetic
processes. From an ontogenetic perspective, the next two levels of interest develop-
ment are of central importance. They include two qualitatively different steps
of
interest development (Krapp, 1998): first, the shift from the transitional state of actual
attraction or curiosity to a more stable motivational state which is a necessary con-
dition for effective learning; and second, the shift from a rather stabilized situational
interest to a more or less enduring individual interest.
The theoretical need for separating two levels of situational interest has been dis-
cussed recently in more detail by Mitchell (1993) and Hidi (2000). Referring to a
notion of Hidi and Baird (1986, p. 191) that situational interest as a process has a
durational aspect, and that besides triggering conditions there are also "conditions
which ensure the continuation of interest", Mitchell (1993) has suggested differen-
tiating between a "catch" and a "hold" facet of situational interest. The essence of
catching interest lies in finding various ways to stimulate individuals' attention,
whereas the essence of holding interest lies in finding ways to empower students.
A stimulant is commonly defined as a variable that temporarily increases the activity
of an organism. Besides the already mentioned studies on interestingness and situ-
ational interest, various research approaches dealing with curiosity and exploration
(Berlyne, 1960, 1974; Keller, Schneider, & Henderson, 1994; Krapp, 1994) or "atten-
tion and arousal" (Eysenck, 1982) have provided many important insights into the
conditions of catching an interest. Hidi (2000) has proposed to use the term triggering
instead of catching interest, since trigger and catch are not synonymous verbs. "Trig-
gering interest describes an initial beginning phase of the psychological state of inter-
est in which attention is increased and arousal generated in disengaged individuals.
On the other hand, catching interest suggests that the interest that individuals already
experience is being diverted towards the situation" (Hidi, 2000, p. 313).
Much more important with respect to learning and instruction is the question of
how to hold an interest for some period of time in order to stimulate a more or less
lasting state, which can be characterized as "working interest" representing a more
or less enduring state of intrinsic motivation in a single learning situation or across
a sequence of situations (e.g. lessons covering a certain topic of a school subject).
This is the first step in the proposed three-stage model of interest development.
According to Mitchell (1993) the shift from "catching" to "holding" an individual's
situational interest requires learning conditions that make the content of learning
meaningful for students according to their actual goals and longer-lasting motives
and values. It seems to me that this idea is very close to Boekaerts' notion that an
effective state of learning motivation can only be expected when a student interprets
a "learning opportunity" provided by the teacher as a "meaningful learning episode".

Otherwise it is perceived as mere extrinsic task-fulfillment (Boekaerts, 1999, p. 42).
In contrast to the first step which can occur frequently as a person is, in principle,
able to develop many different short-lasting situational interests, the second step
from a stabilized situational interest to a longer-lasting individual interest seldom
happens. According to POI, an individual interest is integrated into the structure of
the individual's self-system. This means that the person has identified with the goals,
actions and topics related to this interest and, therefore, will not change his or her
intentions easily and develop an entirely new pattern of personal interests from one
day to the next. Looking at the ontogenetic process of interest development from
such a theoretical perspective, the question arises as to under which circumstances
does this integration process take place. Research approaches that analyze interest
development primarily from the perspective of differential psychology focus only
on the description and "explanation" of interindividual differences and do not con-
sider general psychological principles that can explain the "normal" course of onto-
genesis. I have already pointed out that POI, therefore, advocates a dynamic concep-
tion of personality that provides a functional interpretation of this second step of
interest development.
3.6. Interest development and the growing "self"
As mentioned above, POI postulates that within the complex structure of person-
ality there are areas which are central to the person. They are recognized as compo-
nents of the "self that represent a person's identity. Here, POI has adopted several
postulates and hypotheses from theoretical approaches that interpret the course of
human development from the perspective of a dynamic theory of personality (Fend,
1994; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan, 1993; cf. Krapp, 2002). For example, it is assumed
that the self is not simply a social construct or a reflection of social appraisals; rather,
we are convinced that the individual has great influence on his or her own develop-
ment from earliest childhood onwards. Human beings are active by nature: there is
an inborn tendency to interact with the social and physical environment in a self-
determined way. At a very young age, a person already tries to affect the "objects"
in the social and physical environment in dependence on his or her needs and per-
sonal goals. The ongoing developmental changes lead to a continuous differentiation
of the individual's structure of self, and it is only because there is an inborn propen-
sity towards integration that this process of differentiation and reorganization does
not lead to a compartmentalization of the self. Thus, the person tries to create and
maintain a coherent image, a "good Gestalt" of his or her sense of self. As a conse-
quence, he or she cannot identify completely with all thoughts, actions, tasks, and
strivings, even when they are experienced as being important for the individual's
wishes and future goals at the moment. With respect to an ontogenetic theory of
interest development the question arises as to why a person identifies himself or
herself with exactly these specific objects of interest. Which psychological principles
govern the process of internalization that is the basis for an expanding self-system?
A. Krapp / Learning and Instruction 12 (2002) 383^(09 401
And what kind of regulation system is responsible for the emergence and stabilization
of motivational dispositions?
3.7. The concept of a dual regulation system
In accordance with theoretical paradigms discussed in other fields of psychological

research referring to developmental aspects in human motivation (Brunstein et al.,
1999; Heckhausen, 2000), POI postulates a psychological control system which oper-
ates at two different levels of human experience. The assumption that human
behavior and thus motivation is directed by a complex system of influence factors
which are found at various levels of consciousness and act in part independently
from each other has been stated in many psychological theories. Freud was probably
the most prominent representative of this belief. His psychodynamic theory, however,
was too speculative, and behaviorists as well as cognitive researchers rejected this
multilevel theory as being unscientific. In the meantime, the trend has taken a change
in direction due to the influence of new research findings, e.g. in neuropsychology
(cf. LeDoux, 1995). The available results appear to confirm the idea that human
experience and behavior are directed by two regulation systems and that these sys-
tems are based on different psychological function principles (Spangler & Zimmerm-
ann, 1999; McClelland, Koestner, & Weinberger, 1989).
According to Brunstein et al. (1999, p. 157), the first system has a strongly biologi-
cal anchor. It is based on highly generalized preferences for emotional states, and
the motivational dynamics are a direct function of the quality of emotional experi-
ences during the course of action. The tendencies to act resulting from this subcon-
sciously working regulation system do not succumb to critical self-regulation and
require no self-regulatory measures (e.g. conscious volitional controls). The second
system is mainly based on decisions a person consciously makes with respect to
future goals and intentions. According to Brunstein et al. (1999, p. 157), this explicit
personal goal-system is closely tied to the person's self-concept and directed to
fulfilling social demands which, for example, result from "developmental tasks" at
hand. When realizing personal goals, difficulties usually have to be conquered and
obstacles overcome. This requires the use of volitionally directed strategies of
action control.
The concept of a "dual motivation system" (Brunstein et al., 1999, p. 157) concurs
with the main premises of Epstein's "cognitive-experiential self-theory" (1990).
Epstein also postulates two rather independently working control systems, a rational
system and an experiential system. The rational system operates at the conscious
level and is primarily guided by cognitions. The experiential system operates nor-
mally at the subconscious level and is primarily guided by emotions. It is a highly
efficient system that automatically interprets reality, organizes experiences and
directs behavior without conscious effort. Human behavior always operates on both
levels. For our discussion, we have to recognize that the two different systems can
direct the individual to two different ends. Thus, conflict between the two occurs,
commonly identified as conflict "between heart and mind".
These psychological concepts about the interplay of cognitive and affective
components in the human system of action control support the hypothesis formulated
in earlier papers (cf. Krapp, 1996, 1998, 2000) that the development and maintenance
of personal interests are directed by two functional systems which mainly act inde-
pendently of each other. According to this hypothesis, two kinds of determining
factors have to be taken into account: first, cognitively represented factors, especially
with respect to personal values and goals; second, feeling-related experiences during
the ongoing actions which are connected to the object-area of an individual's interest.
Taking the three-stage model of interest development into consideration (Fig. 4),
POI postulates that both steps of interest development will only occur if both factors
are experienced together in a positive way. More specifically, if a person experiences
his or her actual engagements (e.g. a learning task) as personally relevant or "mean-
ingful" because they are related to personal goals, and if the emotion-related
(affective) experiences during these engagements reach a certain qualitative level of
positive feedback. The basic principle of this idea is not a new one. In the tradition
of Dewey's conceptualization of the developing person, such a "cognitive-affective"
synthesis has been postulated repeatedly as a central condition of the emergence of
a lasting or "abiding interest" (e.g. Dewey, 1913; Rathunde & Csikszentmihalyi,
1993; Rathunde, 1998).
In interest development, cognitive-rational processes play an important role, for
example in deciding on special educational and professional careers. I believe that
modern cognitive approaches to human motivation provide a great variety of con-
cepts, models and research results that refer to psychological principles "working"
at the "upper" level of action and motivation control. Theories in the tradition of
achievement motivation that describe the process of intention-formation (Heckhausen
1989, 1991), or theories about self-regulated learning (Boekaerts, Pintrich, &
Zeidner, 2000), self-concept and self-efficacy (Schunk, 1991; Bandura, 1997;
Schwarzer, 1992), or the process of volitional action-control (Kuhl, 1983) contain
many specific empirically tested hypotheses which specify important cognitive con-
ditions for the evaluation of the (possible) outcomes of an action that can be based
more or less on an individual's actualized interest. However, with the conceptual
"tools" of cognitive motivational theories, the process of interest development cannot
be described and explained comprehensively. I assume that subconscious experiences
and emotionally controlled qualities of experience play at least an equally important
role in addition to the consciously rational processes of longer-term goal decisions.
Following Deci and Ryan's (1985, 1991) self-determination theory (SDT) and
other process-oriented concepts of motivational action control (e.g. Boekaerts, 1997;
Nuttin, 1984; Epstein, 1990), a regulation system working partly autonomously
beside or "beneath" the system of conscious-cognitive control can be postulated.
Informational processes on this level occur mostly without conscious-reflexive con-
trol. Instead, we experience the mechanisms and feedback processes as specific
emotional qualities of experience accompanying an action. In the past few years we
have tried to specify those emotional experiences on the basis of the concept of "basic
psychological needs". According to Nuttin's (1984) "relational theory of behavioral
dynamics" and to SDT (Deci & Ryan 1985, 1991; Ryan, 1995), it is assumed that
living organisms are naturally endowed with a system of primary innate and basic
biological and psychological needs. During ontogenesis, these needs become more
and more integrated into the increasingly complex systems of behavior control. The
power/strength of these needs is not negated, however. Besides the rather clearly
defined system of primary biological needs, a less clearly definable system of primary
psychological needs is postulated. Based on SDT (Ryan, 1995; Deci, 1998), three
qualitatively different needs can be distinguished within this system; namely, com-
petence, self-determination, and social relatedness. Just as the fulfillment of basic
biological needs is a natural necessity, sufficient fulfillment of the three psychological
needs is a necessary requirement for optimal functioning of the psychological system
(Deci & Ryan, 1985; Nuttin, 1984; Ryan, 1995). The system of basic psychological
needs has to be understood as a holistically working system that provides continual
signals about the functional effectivity of the current person-environment interac-
tions. With respect to interest development, the need-related qualities of experience
are important because they provide permanent emotional feedback on the micro-
level of behavior regulation and thus contribute to the emergence of object-related
preferences or aversions. It is postulated that a person will only engage continuously
in a certain area of tasks or topic-related objects if he or she assesses these engage-
ments, on the basis of rational considerations, as sufficiently important (value-related
valency) and if he or she experiences the course of interactions on the whole as
positive and emotionally satisfactory (Krapp 1999, 2000; see also Deci 1992, 1998).
There are a number of findings that seem to support this hypothesis. The majority
of these studies were carried out with students and young adults in vocational settings
(Lewalter et al., in press; Prenzel, Kramer, & Drechsel, 1998; Kleinmann, Straka, &
Hinz, 1998). In a longitudinal study with apprentices we have tried to test this
hypothesis directly using quantitative as well as qualitative data. The sample con-
sisted of 117 trainees from the insurance business. The quantitative analyses are
based on data from questionnaires, ESM (Experience Sampling Method) measures
and observational techniques. The qualitative analyses are based on retrospective
interviews with a smaller number of randomly chosen subjects from the main study.
In both the quantitative and the qualitative analyses, statistically significant relations
between the occurrence of positive need-related experience and different indicators of
interest development could be observed in the retrospective interviews (cf. Krapp &
Lewalter, 2001; Wild et al., 1998; Lewalter & Schreyer, 2000; Lewalter, Wild, &
Krapp, 2001).
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Structural and dynamic aspects of interest development: Theoretical

Article in Learning and Instruction · August 2002

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Pergamon Learning and Instruction 12 (2002) 383 - 409

Structural and dynamic aspects of interest

Fakultät Sozialwissenschaften, Universität der Bundeswehr München, 85577 Neubiberg, Germany

* Tel.: +49-089-6011449: fax: +49-89-6004-3128.

of development is used in the meaning of a rather short-term process which describes

2. An educational-psychological conceptualization of interest

In recent theories, interest is mostly understood as a phenomenon that emerges

2.1. Interest and the development of the human personality

2.2. Interest as a specific person-object relationship

as a relational concept. An interest represents a more or less enduring specific

2.3. Level of analysis (situational and individual interest)

Conceptualizing interest as an interactive relation between an individual and cer-

2.4. General characteristics of the interest construct

Independent of whether interest is examined on the level of dispositional person-

3. Components of an ontogenetic theory of interest development

3.1. Descriptive analyses of general developmental trends in populations

Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies with students at different grade levels

3.2. Limitations of the theoretical usefulness of these studies

3.3. The idea of general stages of interest development

3.4. Interest development as structural change

Longitudinal studies exploring general trends of interest development usually rely

an IQ, such an interest score is interpreted as a valid measure of a more or less

existing PO-relationship. This component comes to be of central importance, while

3.5. The transition from situational to individual interest

a "learning opportunity" provided by the teacher as a "meaningful learning episode".

3.6. Interest development and the growing "self"

3.7. The concept of a dual regulation system

In accordance with theoretical paradigms discussed in other fields of psychological

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman.

Löwe, B. (1987). Interessenverfall im Biologieunterricht. Unterricht Biologie, 124, 62-65.

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