Third party funded individual grant
Start date : 01.02.2027
End date : 31.01.2030
Why does chemistry capture some teenagers and leave others cold? This project pursues a hunch familiar to every teacher: chemistry catches on when it feels real — when students can see that it has something to do with their own lives. We work with topics from medicine: what keeps bones strong, how wounds heal, how cancer drugs do their work. These teaching materials are developed and tested jointly by both research groups, in outreach laboratories and in ordinary chemistry lessons in Bavaria and Lower Saxony. The novel part is how we measure: students report back several times on a tablet during the lesson itself, rather than only before and after. That lets us see the moment interest takes hold, for whom it lasts, and how much a teacher’s own enthusiasm contributes. The aim is practical guidance for teaching that does not merely spark interest, but sustains it.
This DFG-funded project examines the conditions and mechanisms through which authentic learning contexts foster interest in chemistry: when authentically framed instruction triggers situational interest, and when that interest consolidates into stable individual interest. Its theoretical core is perceived authenticity as an indicator of person–environment fit, situated within Situated Expectancy-Value Theory and the four-phase model of interest development. The empirical objects are medically contextualised learning environments (bone health, blood circulation, wound care, cancer therapy), developed and investigated jointly across the consortium. Data are collected in two settings — outreach laboratories and regular classroom instruction — in Bavaria and Lower Saxony, using a pre-process-post design with tablet-based Experience Sampling. The explanatory sequential mixed-methods design combines latent profile analyses and multilevel path models across at least 30 classes with qualitative interviews; teacher characteristics such as enthusiasm and self-efficacy enter as predictors. A joint project of FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg and the University of Oldenburg, running for 36 months.