Individual Differences in Interest and Narrative Writing

Two hundred twenty-four undergraduate students wrote about one-half of an inning of a baseball game and about one-half of a soccer game, counterbalanced, for 20 min each. Students then completed two six-item interest inventories-one each on the topics of baseball and soccer-and tests of baseball knowledge and soccer knowledge. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that individual interest in baseball was significantly related to the proportions of game actions and irrelevant-nongame actions, controlling for gender, discourse knowledge, and topic knowledge. Topic knowledge was significantly related to thematic maturity, controlling for gender and discourse knowledge. Students wrote more topic-relevant information on the baseball story-a relatively high-interest topic-than on the soccer story, a relatively low-interest topic. Implications for the Flower and Hayes (1981) writing model and for assigning students writing topics are discussed.