The aim of this dissertation was to examine how individual’s motivational aspects, more precisely achievement goal orientations and interest, develop over time and relate to different types of learning outcomes. The different ways in which learners’ set goals in achievement situations and how interested they are in the task or topic have been found to relate to their learning outcomes in school context, and transfer of training to workplaces in organizational training context. Achievement goal orientations were defined as established tendencies and preferences for an individual to choose certain types of goals in achievement situations. They were conceptualized in a trichotomous model that consisted of mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance orientations. Mastery-orientation refers to individual´s tendency to choose the type of goals which aim to increase one’s knowledge, improve a skill, or master a task. Performance-approach orientation, then, refers to situations in which the individual concentrates on displaying competence in relation to others, and performance-avoidance oriented individual would try to avoid displaying incompetence to others. Interest was conceptualized based on the theoretical division between the more emotion-based, short-lived, fluctuating and situationspecific situational interest, and the more stable, cognition- and value-based individual interest. The developmental framework in which these were examined was the four-phase model of interest development. It separates four different developmental stages of interest, namely triggered situational, maintained situational, emerging individual, and well-established individual interest.

The aim of this dissertation was to examine how individual’s motivational aspects, more precisely achievement goal orientations and interest, develop over time and relate to different types of learning outcomes. The general research questions were: 1) How do achievement goal orientations relate to transfer of learning and are these relationships affected by the length of the training program or by the time lag between the end of training and measurement time? 2) How students’ domain specific interest in science and mathematics is generated and develops in an inquirybased mobile learning environment? 3) How students’ interest in biology and in mathematics are connected to learning and interest and learning predict each other over the course of a school year.

Three empirical studies addressed these questions: Study I looked at adult learners’ achievement goal orientations and transfer of training in organizational and higher education context. It consisted of a meta-analysis of 17 empirical studies conducted over time span of 30 years. The aim was to clarify how the three different achievement goal orientations related to training transfer and whether this relation was affected by the length of the training program or how long after its completion training transfer was measured. Study II concentrated on 18 experimental group students who had been allocated to a paperless classroom project which aimed to utilize a mobile learning environment along with inquiry learning approach in science and mathematics education. The focus was to investigate how their interest in science and mathematics developed during the school year and what factors were influencing their interest generation and development. Study III explored the dynamics of interest development and learning outcomes, this time with students that received regular classroom teaching in science (N=104). The aim was to empirically test three possible hypotheses on the interaction between interest and learning: whether interest predicts learning outcomes, learning outcomes predict learning, or that they influence each other reciprocally.

The results from the empirical studies showed that only mastery goal orientation had a positive correlation with training transfer. Performance-approach did not correlate and performance-avoidance orientation had a small negative correlation with training transfer. All of these relationships were unaffected by either the length of training or the time lag between transfer measures. These findings indicate that trainees with a mastery goal orientation that are more concerned about improving their knowledge and skills are more open to productive use of training content to improve their practices beyond the context of the training. Findings from the interest development studies showed in Study II that the introduction of a new approach in the classroom may trigger an inverse novelty effect if the ‘new’ is not meeting the expectations. Study III found that the students’ interest in mathematics and science subjects varied throughout the school year and that this variation extended to their grades in these subjects. Interest predicted students’ grades in mathematics and biology during the autumn semester, but in spring semester the relationship shifted so that grades were the predictor of subject interest at the end of the school year. This seemed to indicate that parts of the students were going through a transitional phase in their study motivation and their interest may have been affected by the normative evaluation of their learning. This is in line with previous research which has found that the transitioning from primary to secondary school is especially critical time in the development of students mastery-orientation and interest towards studying.