Predicting situational interest by individual interest and instructional activities in physics lessons: An experience sampling approach

Enhancing interest in physics learning has been an important component of education policy and policy implementation for decades. However, in many countries, student interest in physics has not increased. The aim of this study was to predict situational interest using individual interest and the instructional activities students engaged in. Also, the suitability of the data collection approach to measure situational interest was assessed. A teaching module about real-world oscillations was implemented to 179 Estonian lower secondary school students. Data about situational interest were collected using the experience sampling method (ESM), which was measured three times during the module. The results indicated that gender, grade, and instructional activities did not predict situational interest. Individual interest was a significant predictor and correlation with situational interest increased with time, contrary to previous findings. The ESM approach used in this study was considered to be effective in disturbing students’ study flow minimally but may have affected the amount of missing data. This study contributes to the research done on student interest in a classroom setting by indicating a more complex relationship between situational and individual interest than previously suggested.Peer reviewe

Alkoxide-based precursors for direct drawing of metal oxide micro- and nanofibres

The invention of electrospinning has solved the problem of producing micro- and nanoscaled metal oxide fibres in bulk quantities. However, until now no methods have been available for preparing a single nanofibre of a metal oxide. In this work, the direct drawing method was successfully applied to produce metal oxide (SnO2, TiO2, ZrO2, HfO2 and CeO2) fibres with a high aspect ratio (up to 10 000) and a diameter as small as 200 nm. The sol–gel processing includes consumption of precursors obtained from alkoxides by aqueous or non-aqueous polymerization. Shear thinning of the precursors enables pulling a material into a fibre. This rheological behaviour can be explained by sliding of particles owing to external forces. Transmission (propagation) of light along microscaled fibres and their excellent surface morphology suggest that metal oxide nanofibres can be directly drawn from sol precursors for use in integrated photonic systems