Toward a “budding” individual interest: evidence for a fifth phase of development in four years of an automated greenhouse project

Background and Context: We report on four years of a design-based research project with all grade-eight students in two urban-ring schools of the Northeast US. Youth built automated tabletop “smart” greenhouses. Objective: We addressed the research questions, (1) In what ways did four iterations of the smart-greenhouse project support students’ inflections of interest in STEM+C? and (2) How, if at all, did rightful presence foster development of interest? Method: This mixed-methods study for convergence includes paired-sample t-tests of means for surveys (N = 599) and descriptive, in vivo, and inductive team-coding for interviews (25 focal students). Findings: We found evidence to extend Hidi and Renninger’s four-phase model of interest development, with a phase we call “budding individual interest”, including five tensions thereof. Implications: We share educational design considerations related to curriculum, instruction, and follow-up activities, and we explore the potential role of regular access, personal significance, and contextual expectations in students.