curiosity and ingrained interest. In recent studies, we have been more effec-
tive at overcoming those methodological concerns by taking an activity-
based approach to gauging individual interest (Schiefele & Csikszentmihalyi,
1994). In this approach, we ask respondents to document how often they en-
gage in a range of domain-related activities during the past year. Those fre-
quencies serve as indicators of their personal and professional investment in
the target domain.
The rise in individual interest during competence emerged more clearly
when we used this alternative assessment. Individual interest apparently be-
comes a particularly important dimension during competence. Perhaps that
is because individuals’ level of personal and professional involvement at this
juncture must exceed whatever engagement is required of students in the
K–12 system (Alexander, 2000). In our recent study of special education, for
example, we found just such a high level of personal engagement in the com-
petence cluster dominated by graduate students from that field. We see a sim-
ilar level of interest in our history buff Evie, whose activities reflect personal
choices not required from any external source.
In the MDL, I (1997) also predicted that the period of competence would be
fertile ground for strategic processing. The quantitative and qualitative shifts
in learners’ knowledge, combined with their growing familiarity with problems
typical of the domain, allow competent learners to delve into domain tasks
with an orchestration of surface-level and deep-processing strategies. Compe-
tent learners’ individual interest adds to this strategic performance since these
individuals often have reason to ponder and persist at demanding domain
tasks. Such predictions have been supported by several of our cluster analytic
studies (e.g., Alexander et al., 1995; Alexander & Murphy, 1998).
The recent study of expertise in the domain of special education afforded
us new insights into the stage of competence (Alexander et al., 2002). The
four educational communities we studied in that investigation (i.e., under-
graduate nonspecial education majors, and undergraduates, graduate stu-
dents, and faculty in special education) pointed to some important differ-
ences between individuals in the early period of competence and those
progressing deeper into that stage. Specifically, the Early Competence clus-
ter we identified, which consisted primarily of undergraduate special educa-
tion majors, performed better on the domain knowledge test and the inter-
active analogy task, and they reported greater individual interest in special
education, general and professional, than those in the Acclimation cluster.
Those in the Mid-Competence cluster, by comparison, used significantly
fewer text-based strategies and descriptively more deep-processing strate-
gies than individuals in the Early Competence cluster. The Mid-Com-
petence cluster also reported a higher level of professional interest than
members of either the Acclimation or Early Competence cluster. Thus, it
would appear that the relatively different positions of knowledge, interest,
- MODEL OF DOMAIN LEARNING 291