Sixth Graders' Views of Activities That Do and Do Not Help Them Learn

We used Dewey's theoretical formulation of interest and effort to examine the meanings of the views expressed by 47 middle school students from 1 class in a rural school in the United States on the usefulness of activities in terms of helping them to learn. Students brainstormed and ranked activities and chose from a list of 20 activities the 3 that "helped them learn best" and the 3 that "helped them learn least well." Students also participated in individual structured interviews. Students most often identified building models, doing an experiment, and working with friends as activities that facilitated their learning, whereas they identified activities such as watching movies, drawing, and snacking as not facilitating their learning. Much of the variability in these activities relative to learning was explained by 3 dimensions: distractibility, diverse representations, and skill. Our examination complemented situational interest research by suggesting the components of these activities that may be most salient to students at this age and underlining the difficulty of identifying activities that will interest all students.