Relationships Between Students' Situational Interest, Experience, and Engagement in DDR

Background/Purpose

Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) has been integrated as part of physical education (PE) curriculum in the U.S. Although empirical studies investigated the use of DDR in PE and relevant physiological changes (Sell et al., 2008), no research has focused on situational interest in DDR. In PE, situational interest is dependent on various personal factors including previous experiences and learning tasks, and is highly related to students' engagement. Therefore the purpose of this study was to examine the influence of previous experiences on students' situational interest and physical activity (PA) engagement, as well as the relationships between situational interest and engagement.

Method

A total of 135 seventh through ninth graders participated in DDR unit for two weeks, and reported their previous DDR experiences. Students' PA levels were measured by ActiGraph GT1M accelerometers (Pensacola, FL) for three classes. They also responded to the Situational Interest Scale (Chen et al., 1999) at the end of each class. The scale consists of 24 items measuring students' feelings about five dimensions of situational interest (novelty, challenge, attention demand, exploration intention, and instant enjoyment) in DDR. One way MANOVA was used to examine the effect of previous experiences on students' situational interest and percentages of time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity (TMVPA). Multiple regression analysis was employed to determine how students' situational interest predicted TMVPA.

Analysis/Results

The MANOVA yielded a significant main effect for experience, Wilks' Lambda = .88, F(6, 128) =3.03, p<.01, η²=.12. Follow-up tests revealed that students with DDR experiences scored significantly higher than those without experiences at following dimensions: challenge, F(1,133) =4.02, p<.05; exploration intention, F(1,133) = 6.67, p<.05; instant enjoyment, F(1,133) =16.71, p<.01; attention demand, F(1,133) = 6.17, p<.05. There was no significant difference on students' novelty and TMVPA. Regression analysis yielded that novelty emerged as the only significant predictor for TMVPA, β= .20, p<.05, and accounted for 3.9% of the variance.

Conclusions

The findings suggested that four dimensions of situational interest differed between students with- and without- previous experiences. Therefore, physical educators should consider the effects that different experiences may have on students when implementing PE units that attempt to promote students' interest. Novelty emerged as the only predictor for TMVPA, suggesting that students would have higher PA engagement when they feel the activity provides new information. However, the small variance implies that other factors might affect students' engagement.