Development for scientific literacy about sustainable and alternative energy involving solar energy
has been the subject of science education so as to create a better future. In this context, the purpose of this
research is to provide implications before the development of the unit of solar energy by developing
instrument for measuring elementary school students’ interest on their solar energy learning. By modeling
of previous researches which were based on multi-dimensionality of interest factors we developed the three
dimensional interest instrument which has comparatively a small number of questionnaires and using images
for Likert-scales. As a result of factor analysis, the elementary school students’ interest towards the solar
energy learning suggested those interests were divided into Topic, Motive and Activity dimensions. While
there were no meaningful sub-dimensions in a Topic dimension, on the other hand, a Motive dimension
could be divided into an instrumental motive and a process motive, and an Activity dimension could also
be divided into information receptive, knowledge productive, and experience activity. The instrument for
measuring elementary school students’ multi-dimensional characteristics of interest on solar energy will help
to develop effective solar energy unit which reflect students’ interest.