Regulating interest when learning online: Potential motivation and performance trade-offs

Online learning may be particularly sensitive to self-regulatory trade-offs between maintaining interest and performance. Undergraduates in online or on-campus sections of the same course rated strategies used to motivate studying for the first exam, and interest after the first exam and at semester's end. First exam and final class grades were obtained. We compared online and on-campus students in reported use of strategies to enhance the importance of studying-related outcomes (goals-defined) and to enhance the studying experience (experience-defined). The latter included an Internet-based strategy (i.e., making studying more enjoyable by exploring class web page). Online and on-campus students did not differ in reported use of outcome-focused strategies but online students were more likely to report exploring the class web page. For online students, greater exploration was associated with higher interest but lower first exam grades, which predicted final interest and grades. Implications for regulating interest and online learning are discussed.