This study investigates the influence of hands-on activities on students' interest. We researched whether students with experience in specific hands-on activities show higher interest in these activities than students without experience. Furthermore, the relationship between the quality of the hands-on experience and interest in the respective activity was examined. In total, 28 typical hands-on activities of biology education were considered. The activities were divided into the categories experimentation, dissection, work with microscopes, and classification. A total of 141 students from the 11th grade completed questionnaires on interest in the hands-on activities, their experience with each activity, and the quality of the respective experience. Students' interest in experimenting, working with microscopes, dissecting and classifying tends to benefit from performing hands-on activities. However, findings indicated that the performance of various hands-on activities can influence students' interest differently. For seven hands-on activities, we identified a positive effect of hands-on experience on interest, while in one case, practical work appeared to have influenced students' interest negatively. However, for most hands-on activities, no effect of experience on interest was found. The quality of hands-on experiences showed positive correlations with interest in the respective hands-on activities. Therefore, this paper argues in favour of designing biology lessons that allow for experiences with hands-on activities that also interest students. Our findings underline the necessity of investigating the effects of various hands-on activities in a differentiated manner.

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This paper investigates the issue of how emotions such as disgust influence students' self-efficacy belief in terms of mastering a dissection task and also how these affect their interest in the biology of the heart. Following models of intrinsic motivation and the development of motivation, we expected disgust to negatively impact on students' self-efficacy belief and their interest levels. Ninety-two secondary school students completed questionnaires on disgust, self-efficacy belief and interest before and during the dissection of a pig's heart. We compared two groups of students, one that felt disgusted during dissection and one that did not. No differences in self-efficacy belief and interest were shown between the two groups before the dissection. The development of self-efficacy belief and interest proved to be significantly affected by the disgust experienced during dissection. During dissection, disgusted students saw themselves as less effective at mastering the dissection and reported lower interest in the heart than students who did not feel that emotion. These findings suggest that teachers should try to reduce disgust-provoking stimuli during dissection, since self-efficacy and interest can influence cognitive as well as motivational and affective processes.