Situational Interest and Instructional Design

The education reformer, Horace Mann once suggested that trying to teach a learner without creating interest is like hammering cold iron. All too often, health care educators begin an instructional session while the mind of the learner is focused on places other than on the subject to be learned. Regardless of specialization, understanding situational interest and ways to nurture it in the facilitation process is important for educators. However, it is especially important for the health care community as it helps us to develop best practices in instructional design and facilitation that can improve simulation-based instruction. This article defines situational interest and explains how instructional design can generate such interest with the use of advance organizers, active learning strategies, and the practices of effective reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. Developing situational interest may lead to an individual interest or passion for the subject, foster lifelong learning, and encourage learners to return for additional simulation-based learning experiences.