Every human being has a tendency to always interact with something in the surrounding environment. When something gives a sense of pleasure and feels beneficial to him, it is likely that someone will be interested in that something . Interest is one of the psychological factors that help and encourage individuals in providing incentives for an activity that is carried out to achieve the goal to be achieved.
Factors Affecting Interest in Learning
Interest arises when individuals are interested in something that they consider important for themselves and can meet the needs they want. Susanto (2013: 16) argues that “ interest means a high tendency and enthusiasm or a great desire for something “. Meanwhile Arikunto (1990: 103) states that interest or attention is a person’s tendency to choose or reject an activity. According to Alya (2009: 469) interest is a high tendency of the heart towards something, passion, desire.
Hansen (in Susanto, 2013: 57) states that student learning interest is closely related to personality, motivation, expression and self-concept or identification, heredity and external or environmental influences.
Susanto further explained that interest is an encouragement in a person or a factor that generates interest or attention effectively, which causes the choice of an object or activity that is profitable, enjoyable and brings satisfaction to him.
Interest is a force that encourages a person to pay attention to a particular activity, so that there is a desire to do or do something according to his wishes. An interest can be expressed through a statement indicating that students prefer something that can be manifested through participation in an activity.
From the explanation of several experts about this interest , it can be concluded that interest is a feeling of liking or desire for an object in something, and the desire to achieve or study the object because it suits his needs and satisfies his soul’s desires so that it can influence what is in himself, knowledge and skills
While learning according to Alya (2009: 8) is changing behavior or responses caused by experience. Furthermore, according to Gagne (in Aunurahman, 2014), learning is not something that occurs naturally, but will only occur with certain conditions, namely: internal conditions include the readiness of students and something that has been learned, external is a situation learning that is deliberately arranged by educators with the aim of facilitating the learning process.
From the description of interest and learning above, it can be concluded that interest in learning is the tendency of the heart and soul towards something that can be learned which is considered important and useful so that something is needed, paid attention to and then followed by feelings of pleasure.
- Characteristics of Interest
- The characteristics that someone has an interest according to Elzabeth Hurlock (in Susanto, 2013: 62), namely:
- 1). Interest grows together with physical and mental development
- 2). Interest depends on learning activities
- 3). Interest depends on learning opportunities
- 4). The development of interest may be limited which may be due to physical conditions that do not allow it
- 5). Interest is influenced by culture, if culture has begun to fade, maybe interest will also fade
- 6). Emotional interest. Interest is related to feelings, meaning that if an object is internalized as something very valuable, a feeling of pleasure will arise which can finally be of interest to him.
- 7). Interest is egocentric, meaning that if someone is happy with something, a desire to have it will arise.
- Factors Affecting Interest in Learning
The factors that influence the emergence of interest in learning about something, which in general can be grouped into two, namely originating from within the individual concerned and originating from outside which includes the family environment, school environment and school environment.
According to Ruben (in Tesis.co) that interest in learning depends a lot on internal factors, such as: concentration, curiosity, motivation, and needs.