''Situational interest'' is a short-term form of motivation which occurs when a specific situation stimulates the focused attention of students (e.g., a spectacular science demonstration could arouse transient interest amongst nearly all the students in a class, even those who are not normally interested in science). However, there have been very few studies of situational interest and its potential to motivate students in science classrooms. The purpose of this project was to investigate situational interest and its sources. Small groups of grade 9 students participated in a science lesson which focused on inquiry skills, and data were obtained on their interest levels and sources of interest. The results indicated that interest arousal was substantial but did fluctuate throughout the lesson, according to the types of activities in which students were involved. The main source of interest was novelty, although choice, physical activity, and social involvement were also implicated. ß

Self-efficacy has been shown to be an issue of concern for primary teacher education students Y many of them have low self-efficacy and this can negatively affect their future teaching of science. Previous research has identified four factors that may contribute towards self-efficacy: enactive mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion and physiological/affective states. It could also be argued that there are additional sources of self-efficacy that apply to primary teacher education students, namely cognitive content mastery, cognitive pedagogical mastery and simulated modelling. The main purpose of the present paper was to investigate the relative importance of the various sources of self-efficacy in a primary science methods course. Data on changes in self-efficacy and sources of self-efficacy were collected throughout the course using formal and informal surveys. It was found that the main source of self-efficacy was cognitive pedagogical mastery.

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