Emergence and maintenance of student teachers' ‘interest’ within the context of two‐hour lectures: an actual genetic perspective

Abstract

The study investigates the actual genetic development of student teachers' interest in lectures given in a postgraduate language teacher education programme. Students recorded the nature and level of interest at various points of the lecture. The results show that students go through diverse patterns of interest trajectories and that, for the majority, interest development fluctuates between gain and loss. Four types of factors are proposed: triggering, holding, preventing and losing factors. The prospective and retrospective effects of these factors are also examined. For interest to be maintained over a longer period within a two‐hour lecture, students must experience a combination of factors. In case of regression, if students demonstrate awareness of the source or solution to the problem, the loss is temporary, tending to recover at the next interval. Some factors, such as use of tasks and interesting specific topics, also help regenerate interest after a loss of interest has occurred.

Keywords:

• academic lectures
• individual interest
• interest factor
• interest and learning
• language teacher education
• motivation
• situational interest

Acknowledgements

The study was funded by the University of Auckland, New Zealand. I sincerely thank the lecturers and students who participated in the study. I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments, which have greatly shaped my conceptualization of the nature of interest development.

Notes

1. Non‐native English‐speaking students need to have a minimum of IELTS average score 6.5.

2. Some students answered the checklists for more than one course.

3. The code SAME is assigned when the interest level remains at the same average level (e.g. ‘interested’ or ‘neutral’ or ‘not interested’, excluding ‘very interested’) consecutively.

4. Out of 189 checklists collected, only those checklists (150) in which students answered questions at all five measure points are selected here.

5. Percentage is calculated based on the total number of checklists (n = 189).

6. Owing to space constraints, the interest trajectories are presented in this manner. But their position in the table does not represent the position in the lecture. For example, a sequence such as U‐U (15,14) does not necessarily occur at the first two positions in the lecture, but may appear anywhere in the lecture. However, a sequence such as U‐S‐U‐S (1,1) represents the whole sequence of the lecture.

7. This category (‘relatedness’) can be seen as falling in the middle of the situational–individual continuum and seems somewhat similar to ‘personal significance of the topic’ (a category coded under individual factors). However, there are differences. Although in the category ‘personal significance of the topic’ the student expresses positive stance towards the topic, using value components such as ‘useful’, ‘meaningful’ and ‘significant’, in the category ‘relatedness’, the focus is more on the connection between the lecture topic and others (e.g. real‐life experience, another course). Although ‘personal significance of the topic’ focuses more on the significance and personal meaningfulness, ‘relatedness’ focuses more on the connectedness without explicit statement concerning the importance of the connection made or the topic.

8. Discourse analysis of the features of language used in C2, C4, B1, B2 is reported in Tan Bee Tin (in press).