The relationship between instructional scaffolding strategies and maintained situational interest

Although widely used, video lectures may have negative effects on maintaining student interest. When content is presented in video lectures, information processing issues can contribute to a decrease in interest and engagement. One solution is to scaffold instruction so that information is processed efficiently, and interest is maintained. While extant research examines two known scaffolding strategies (strategic and conceptual) in isolation, the current study combines the two to see if a more complete instructional scaffolding model leads to higher levels of maintained situational interest. A group of university students studying online in South Korea (n = 2,183) were surveyed about their perceptions of the way in which scaffolding occurred in their courses, with items focusing on the presence of the following: explanatory direct instruction early in the lectures, reduction of instructional support involving worked examples in the heart of the lecture (conceptual scaffolding) and an overall separation of content in a simple to the complex manner (strategic scaffolding). The results show a positive relationship between these combined instructional scaffolding strategies and the maintained situational interest of the students. Therefore, these strategies can be used to maintain student interest and engagement with online learning materials.