ABSTRACT
Before “motivation” became prevalent as a scientific concept in psychology, many important issues related to motivational phenomena have been dealt with under the label of interest. It is not surprising, therefore, that there is a long list of educational and psychological scientists who have put special emphasis on interest in their theories (e.g., Dewey, 1913; Herbart, 1806/1965; Kerschensteiner, 1922; see overviews by Krapp, Hidi, & Renninger, 1992; and Prenzel, 1988). When the term interest was replaced by motivation, not all aspects of the meaning of interest were transferred to the concept of motivation. There was only one major research area in which the term interest continued to be used, namely diagnostic approaches to vocational interests (cf. Walsh & Osipow, 1986). According to these theories, specific vocational interests are rooted in stable personal traits such as realistic interest, social interest, or artistic interest (Holland, 1985). A typical definition of vocational interest was provided by Todt (1978). He defined vocational interests as general and stable dispositional tendencies that are directed at relatively broad classes of activities or subject areas and include affective, cognitive, and conative components. In contrast to this approach, I do not define interests as “traits” in the traditional sense of the term. It is also noteworthy that vocational interest research mainly serves diagnostic and counseling purposes and is neither related to other motivational concepts nor to learning processes.
