The relationship between secondary school students’ situational interest and their collaborative learning interactions

Situational interest can be a prominent driver for learning, but little is known about how it is connected to the type of interactions students engage in during collaborative learning. To address this gap, we collected data from 94 secondary school students who worked on collaborative tasks during a five-session science course. Students reported their situational interest before and after every collaborative task. The collaborative sessions were videotaped. Based on the differences in situational interest variation, the students were assigned to three situational interest clusters. The differences in the level and trend of interactions were then statistically examined between the clusters. The results showed that the students whose situational interest increased had a higher level of cognitive interaction (U = 6704.5, p = 0.04) and more rapid growth in cognitive (t (196) = − 2.42 and − 3.62, p < 0.01) and socio-emotional (t (196) = − 1.81 and − 3.48, p < 0.05) interaction than other students. Instead, those students whose situational interest decreased showed more rapid growth in off-task interaction (t (196) = 2.59, p = 0.01). To maintain an optimal level of situational interest, the findings also suggest paying attention to off-task interactions during collaboration, in addition to cognitive interaction.