Situational Interest and Informational Text Comprehension: A Game-Based Learning Perspective

Abstract

Motivated by disturbing national educational statistics, the newly adopted Common Core State Standards [1] prioritize reading instruction across the content areas. This will significantly increase students’ exposure to informational texts that are notorious for low comprehension rates and less than engaging content. Given the substantial literature supporting the positive relationship between situational interest and reading comprehension [2,3], this study will address whether game-based learning environments generate situational interest and, more importantly, whether the produced situational interest increases students’ reading comprehension for informational texts. Using an explanatory sequential mixed methods design, eighth-grade students’ situational interest and comprehension of texts embedded within a science game-based learning environment will be measured. Implications for this research include the design of intelligent game-based learning environments, the extent to which game elements generate situational interest, and techniques for capitalizing on this situational interest by intelligently and automatically integrating texts to challenge each reader.