There is an old adage that goes
something like this: If we make education
activities fun, kids will want to keep coming back to learn more. Of course, there is a lot of truth to that
adage. Social science studies have shown
that exposing youth (and adults) to new, surprising, or unexpected ideas
through fun activities is a great way to stimulate situational interest in a
given topic area, like birding, ecology, or science (Shraw and Lehman 2001). This kind of interest most often develops
from “gee-whiz” experiences that are a lot like going to watch fireworks. You may not know exactly what you’re going to
see, but you have a pretty good idea that you’ll have fun watching fireworks. So, you make plans to go watch them every 4th
of July or at the county fair, or even at a ballgame. It can be similar with informal education opportunities that might occur through birding events. If kids had a pretty good idea that they were
going to have fun, why wouldn’t they want to keep coming back?
Of course, getting the kids to want
to keep coming back is just part what is important. One of the main points of informal education is the idea of
positive youth development and facilitating the emergence of character,
competence and connections to other people among other outcomes. How does this relate to fireworks and having
fun? Perhaps the surprising answer is
that there is very little relationship!
Social science research over
several decades (e.g., see Shraw and Lehman 2001) has shown that situational
interest most often results from some external stimuli – somebody else has to
set off the fireworks for you. So the
fun that results depends pretty much entirely on someone else orchestrating the
situation. Experiencing fun from
situational interest requires no particular competency on the part of the
person having the fun, nor does it necessitate any real connection to those
orchestrating the event. People who
experience this kind of externally-produced fun from having their situational
interest piqued, but who do not develop much competency in terms of
understanding what underlies the “gee-whiz” aspects of the experience, are not
able to reproduce that fun in another setting (for example, at home, or with
friends in their neighborhood). So, the
risk is very high that they will become what evaluators sometimes call “program
junkies.” They keep coming back for the
fun, but can’t replicate it on their own.
So, they become locked into a cycle of attending the program activity to
experience that “gee-whiz” fun without ever developing deeper competence or
connections (Hidi and Renninger 2006).
So, how can educators and students
have fun, get interested in things like birds, ecology, or science, and develop
some competence and connectedness? One
of the keys is to facilitate deep, reflective thinking as a part of activities
that provide some fun fireworks. Providing
some new information about birds (Bluebirds and Wild Turkeys have different
kinds of beaks and can eat different kinds of foods, Bluebirds typically lay 4
bluish eggs whereas Turkeys lay about 11-12 whitish eggs, and Bluebirds and
Turkeys use somewhat different habitats) can be done through fun games and can
result in an increase in content knowledge (i.e., learning) on the part of
youth.
Why are these facts important to
the birds? Why would it matter to
Bluebirds that they lay 4 eggs instead of 11, or blue eggs rather than white,
or have different habitat requirements compared to Turkeys? And, why do any of these things matter to the
kids who are learning them?
Reflection guided by someone who
thinks like a science-person leads to deeper scientific understanding and
meaning-making (Eberbach and Crowley 2009).
Social science research (Hidi and Renninger 2006) has shown that such
reflection is essential to result in those situations where someone stops in
their tracks and exclaims, “Now I get!” These
“a-ha” moments are more like light bulbs going on inside one’s head rather than
fireworks being observed passively. The
light bulb going on signifies a depth of understanding and meaning about what
one knows. It signifies a level of
competence unachievable through the combination of knowledge accumulation and
skill development in the absence of reflection.
Social science research also has
shown that competence emerging from understanding and meaning-making often
leads to enhanced self-esteem and internal motivation to want even deeper
understanding. This is what social
scientists refer to as internal interest in a topic area
(e.g., Krapp 2002, Hidi and Renninger 2006). Each “now I get it” experience is fun in its
own right. Perhaps even more important
is that fun based on internal interest is under the control of the individual
rather than some external source. Greater
understanding fuels more internal interest, which leads to more fun “a-ha”
moments, which builds even more competency.
Instead of being locked into a cycle of depending on a program to
experience science-related fun, youth have sufficient competency to replicate
the fun associated with “a-ha” moments in other settings.
Caption for this over-sized figure: Model showing development of a science person identity along a pathway (in arrow) with four stages: un-science person, potential science person, apprentice science person, and fully-recruited science person. Note the places of situational interest and personal interest (in hexagons) in the pathway. Development of situational interest is relatively easy to facilitate through exposure to material resources someone can see or hear, and situational interest has little influence on identity development. Development of personal interest takes longer, requires deeper internal processes, and is instrumental in progressing through the potential science person stage in preparation for entering an apprentice science person stage.
You can never have too much fun in education programming. The key is to have a balance of externally-driven fireworks that spark and maintain a certain amount of situational interest while also developing enough competency in the subject area to fuel the emergence of internal interest and the fun that is associated from “getting” the topic area at a deeper level.
Literature Cited
Eberbach, C. and K.
Crowley. 2009. From everyday to scientific observation: how
children learn to
observe
the biologist’s world. Review of
Education Research 79(1):39-68.
Hidi, S. and K. A.
Renninger. 2006. The four-phase model of interest
development. Educational
Psychologist 41(2):111-127.
Krapp, A. 2002.
Structural and dynamic aspects of interest development: theoretical
considerations
from an ontogenetic perspective. Learning and Instruction 12(4):383-409.
Shraw, G. and S.
Lehman. 2001. Situational interest: a review of the literature
and directions for
future research. Educational Psychology Review 13(1):23-52.
