Making learning interesting and its application to the science classroom

Abstract

Generations of students are graduating from secondary school disinterested in post-secondary study of science or pursuing careers in science-related fields beyond formal education. We propose that destabilising such disinterest among future students requires science educators to begin listening to secondary school students regarding their views of how science learning is made interesting within the science classroom. Studies on students’ interest in response to instructional strategies applied in the classroom communicate the opinions (i.e. the ‘voice’) of students about the strategies they believe make their classroom learning interesting. To this end, this scoping study (1) collects empirical studies that present from various science and non-science academic domains students’ views about how to make classroom learning interesting; (2) identifies common instructional strategies across these domains that make learning interesting; and (3) forwards an instructional framework called TEDI ([T]ransdisciplinary Connections; Mediated [E]ngagement; Meaningful [D]iscovery; and Self-determined [I]nquiry), which may provide secondary school science teachers with a practical instructional approach for making learning science genuinely interesting among their students within the secondary school science classroom context.

Keywords:

• Affect
• inquiry
• make learning interesting
• nature of interest
• scoping study
• secondary science education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This work was supported by the Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) [grant number MOST 104-2511-S-110-013-MY3].

Supplemental data

The supplemental data for this article can be accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057267.2017.1305543.