People’s naïve belief about curiosity and interest: A qualitative study

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to critically examine how people perceive the definitions, differences and similarities of interest and curiosity, and address the subjective boundaries between interest and curiosity. We used a qualitative research approach given the research questions and the goal to develop an in-depth understanding of people’s meaning of interest and curiosity. We used data from a sample of 126 U.S. adults (48.5% male) recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (Mage = 40.7, SDage = 11.7). Semi-structured questions were used and thematic analysis was applied. The results showed two themes relating to differences between curiosity and interest; active/stable feelings and certainty/uncertainty. Curiosity was defined as an active feeling (more specifically a first, fleeting feeling) and a child-like emotion that often involves a strong urge to think actively and differently, whereas interest was described as stable and sustainable feeling, which is characterized as involved engagement and personal preferences (e.g., hobbies). In addition, participants related curiosity to uncertainty, e.g., trying new things and risk-taking behaviour. Certainty, on the other hand, was deemed as an important component in the definition of interest, which helps individuals acquire deep knowledge. Both curiosity and interest were reported to be innate and positive feelings that support motivation and knowledge-seeking during the learning process.

A reward-learning framework of knowledge acquisition: An integrated account of curiosity, interest, and intrinsic–extrinsic rewards.

“…First, our proposed framework sheds new light on how we understand the developmental trajectories of curiosity and interest. There are common beliefs about the developmental changes of curiosity and interest, such as “younger children are more curious” and “older adults lose curiosity and interest as they age” (see Aslan et al, 2021). Some research findings support this view: Previous studies using survey questions have found that curiosity and interest in school-aged children decreases over time (Gottfried et al, 2001; Spinath & Steinmayr, 2008; Wigfield et al, 2006), and that older adults exhibit decreased curiosity in comparison to younger adults (Robinson et al, 2017; Ziegler et al, 2015).…”

“…and interest as they age" (see Aslan et al, 2021). Some research findings support this view: Previous studies using survey questions have found that curiosity and interest in school-aged children decreases over time (Gottfried et al, 2001;Spinath & Steinmayr, 2008;Wigfield et al, 2006), and that older adults exhibit decreased curiosity in comparison to younger adults (Robinson et al, 2017;Ziegler et al, 2015).…”

Protecting Philippine Dance Traditions via Education of Tomorrow's Pedagogues: The Role of Individual Interest and School Engagement

“…In addition, this construct is always intellectualized as being content-specific (Kang et al, 2021;Wild, 2022), which proposes that a student may be interested in a particular subject but not in the other way around, or vice versa. Also, interest has been characterized as a complex construct that encompasses two domains: the affective (e.g., positive feeling) and cognitive (e.g., perceived importance) domains (Aslan et al, 2021;Svenningsson et al, 2022). Concerning this particular concept, educational researchers have concentrated their attention on the study of situational interest, establishing it as superior to individual interest in terms of both its level and the amount of motivational potential it possesses.…”

The Nexus between individual interest and school engagement in bolstering Physical Culture for a habitual healthy régime: a case of a state university

“…Thus, there is a wide range in how seriously different students take Physical Education or other subjects. Affective (such as a good feeling) and cognitive (such as perceived importance) categories have also been identified in the conceptualization of the idea [39,40]. Regrettably, pedagogical experts have argued that situational interest, especially in a daily teaching-learning scenario, has significantly greater positive consequences than its counterpart.…”