Curiosity and Willingness to Become Involved

Abstract

Teachers' College students were asked to select from a list of problem-solving situations the content areas, and within areas the level of complexity or ambiguity, in which they would be willing to participate as experimental Ss. When each S's interest area subscale scores on the Ontario Test of Intrinsic Motivation (OTIM) were ranked, volunteering at the medium, and particularly the high, complex levels was more frequent in higher ranked interest areas. Correlations showed that the mechanical, computational, and musical subscales were positively related to the complexity level chosen in their respective experimental areas, and the mechanical and scientific subscales predicted the average level chosen. OTIM total scores were more related to the amount of volunteering than to the complexity level favored.