DOES INTEREST JUSTIFY FURTHER RESEARCH - COMMENTS

Meta-analytic techniques are extremely useful for providing empirical support for conventional wisdom and identifying key variables, designs, or sample characteristics that can explain conflicting results in the literature (Light and Pillmer, 1984). In this regard, Tang and Hall's review is to be commended in that it is the first of its kind to analyse in a systematic fashion the extant research on the overjustification effect. Moreover, their review was designed to answer several unresolved issues concerning the influence of study characteristics (age of subjects, design, and dependent variable) and theoretically important moderator variables (interest levels, reward characteristics, and types of feedback) on the robustness of the effect. In the present paper, I will comment on two specific aspects of Tang and Hall's review, their analysis strategy and the implications of their findings for understanding the intersection of cognition and instruction.