Science students develop arts interest after research intervention

Researchers from the University of Exeter have designed an intervention to help students who see themselves as ‘science people’ develop an interest in arts and humanities.

The research, available in the Contemporary Educational Psychology journal, focused on A-Level students at a Singapore school who identified with science rather than arts.

Participants in the research completed a series of reading and reflective writing tasks before beginning their two years of study, which covered the nature of interest and how interests develop. Another group was given a module similar in structure that addressed useful study skills rather than interest.

Near the end of the school year, the students who completed the tasks based on interest identified more strongly with the arts than those who had learned about study skills, while still maintaining their strong science interests.

“Our intervention helped remove a psychological barrier – the belief that interests can’t change much – which might be preventing students from developing new interests,” said senior research fellow Dr Liz Hoberg.

At the time of the research, the school was expanding into a multidisciplinary curriculum that gave arts and humanities equal weight to science. The researchers also found students that completed the reading and writing tasks felt a stronger sense of belonging to their school and its new multidisciplinary focus.

“It’s important that our intervention was able to make students feel they belonged at their school,”  Hoberg added. “A lot of students feel they don’t fit in, which can interfere with their studies and reduce performance, but at least academically they can feel they’re in the right place.”

Professor Paul O’Keefe, another of the research paper’s authors, commented that introducing policy to increase value and appreciation of the arts into a school culture where arts are not highly valued among students “could fall flat or even backfire”.

“However, we show that by addressing people’s preconceptions about whether new interests can be developed, an ambitious shift in policy such as this has a greater chance of success,” he added.