It’s the Situation That Matters: Affective Involvement in Context-Oriented Learnin Tasks - Affective Dimensions in Chemistry Education - page 167

Fig. 7 Measures of topic-related situational interest in one context (swimming lake) with different
situations and underlying content knowledge (K ¨ lbach 2011 )

The results are in line with results from earlier studies. In a comparison study,
the intervention study of Fechner ( 2009 ) was replicated in biology education
(Haugwitz, 2009 ). As biology is more related to the students everyday lives, the

subject ranges high in interest rankings (Merzyn, 2008 ). Based on the assumption
that cbl is only effective if the context situation and the underlying content
knowledge have a high discrepancy with regard to their interestingness, cbl should
have minor effects in biology. Results confirm this assumption although some
contexts also show effects in biology (e.g., playing football as a context situation).
Applying the results of Van Vorst ( 2013 ) to this comparison study, learning biology
should be even more interesting if unique and risky phenomena are included into
the learning task as situations to evoke a need-to-know.

'

6 Discussion of Findings

Large-scale studies like the Relevance of Science Education (ROSE) study have
pointed at the need to differentiate between learner prerequisites (e.g., gender,
culture) and specific areas of interest. They confirm earlier interest studies provid-
ing evidence that science contents and the contexts used to show the application of
content knowledge in industry or society should be evaluated separately (cf. IPN
study, Gr¨ber, 1992 ).
However, research evidence up to today has mainly focused on whole courses
without the purpose to investigate the effects of single units in more detail.
Evidence points at

the fact that effects on attitudes and learning are highly