In research on motivation and learning, two theories have come to represent powerful frameworks for explaining learners’ motivation and engagement: Goal orientation theory and interest theory. Goal orientation theory, as an achievement motivation theory, broadly investigates the reasons why learners engage in achievement-related behaviors (e.g. school work). Interest theory (Renninger & Hidi, 2011), as a person object theory of motivation,examines learners’ motivational orientation towards a specific learning content (e.g. science-related topics). In exploring the links between the two theories, interest is usually treated as an outcome of education whereas goal orientations are thought of as a motivational basis that learners bring to educational environments (Tapola & Niemivierta, 2008). Experimental research (Rawsthorne & Elliot, 1999) has generally shown that mastery goals (focus on learning and mastering a task) are positively related to interest, as both concepts highlight an intrinsic quality of motivation. Research on the effects of performance-approach goals (focus on the demonstration of competence relative to others) yielded mixed results. The body of research indicates that the adoption of performance-approach goals produces significantly less interest than the adoption of mastery goals. The pursuit of performance-avoidance goals or work avoidance goals (Nicholls et. al., 1985) (focus on minimizing effort in achievement settings) had a general negative effect on interest. Several field studies (e.g. Harakiewicz & Hulleman, 2010; Barron & Harackiewicz, 2003) have shown that college students who adopted a higher level of mastery goals were more likely to show higher levels of interest in a course at the end of the semester, whereas work avoidance goals were negatively linked to interest and performance-approach had no effect on interest. To date, however, it remains an empirical question whether these results are stable in populations beyond college students, such as students in K-12 education.

This study seeks to replicate and extend the above findings with regard to the K-12 population. In line with the content focus of interest theory we adopted a focused perspective where we tied our interest measures and research design to a particular topic and to the implementation of a topic-related intervention. We also adopted a longitudinal approach, in which we measured student interest before and after the intervention to explore the influence of goal orientations at both occasions.  Grounded in interest theory and goal orientation theory we formulated three hypotheses: Firstly, we assumed that mastery-goal orientation is positively related to student interest (before and after the intervention). Secondly, we hypothesized that work-avoidance orientation negatively predicts student interest. And thirdly, we assumed that students’ initial interest mediates the effects of goal orientations on outcome interest.

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