Relationship Between Individual Factors And Situational Factors, And Situational Interest

For a long time, many researchers have focused their studies about situational interest on: find out the character of situational stimuli which can induce the situational interest. However, all these studies ignored the impact of differences between people, because different people have different feelings about interest though they are facing the same stimuli. So, in this research we will add the individual factors to study the impact of the combined factors of individual and situational factors to situational interest.In study 1, we set a general situation, choose trait anxiety as the individual factor and complexity as the situational factor. The results show, these tow factors have interaction on the situational interest.In study 2, we set a reading situation, choose achievement goal orientation and study anxiety as the individual factors, choose the complexity of the reading material as the situational factor. The results show, these three factors have interaction on the situational interest.In order to find out the mechanism of the situational interest, we did the correlation analysis and made the path model. We find that the mechanisms are different in different situations. When the complexity of the reading material is low, the impact of the performance goal orientation and study anxiety to situational interest are indirect, when the complexity of the reading material is high, the impact of learning goal orientation and study anxiety to situational interest is both direct and indirect. The indirect impact is the individual factors (learning goal orientation and study anxiety) impact the feeling about complexity, then the feeling about complexity impact the feeling about situational interest.