Abstract
A person-oriented approach was applied to the study of early adolescents’ learning orientations to identify different profiles and their association with school achievement. A total of 244 middle-school students (male: 128; female: 116; M-age ± SD = 12.51 ± .93) completed a self-report questionnaire to explore cognitive, metacognitive, and affective dimensions of learning orientations. School achievements were collected in a range of school subjects. Cluster analyses and one-way MANOVA were carried out to verify the existence of profiles. Chi-square tests were used to test the association between profiles of learning orientations and school achievement. The results showed two profiles differently associated with school achievement: students “Dragged by the current” (Profile 1) showed low school achievement across school subjects, meanwhile students “At the helm” (Profile 2) reached excellent school achievement. In promoting middle-school students’ achievement, it is important for teachers to consider students’ profiles of learning orientations.
Highlights
The aims of the present study were the following: 1. to identify the profiles of aggregation between cognitive, metacognitive, and affective dimensions of learning orientations measured by LO-COMPASS in middle-school students; 2. to test the association between the profiles of aggregation between cognitive, metacognitive, and affective dimensions of learning orientations measured by LOCOMPASS and school achievement in middle-school students
We considered school achievement obtained in the three school subject areas of Language and Literature, Foreign Language, and Mathematics, given their academic and curriculum relevance
The results of cluster analysis allowed us to identify the existence of two meaningful profiles of learning orientations among middle-school students
Summary
The aims of the present study were the following: 1. to identify the profiles of aggregation between cognitive, metacognitive, and affective dimensions of learning orientations measured by LO-COMPASS in middle-school students; 2. to test the association between the profiles of aggregation between cognitive, metacognitive, and affective dimensions of learning orientations measured by LOCOMPASS and school achievement in middle-school students. We expected that students with a profile of learning orientation including deep cognitive processing, self-regulation strategies, a view of learning as construction of knowledge, and a personal learning orientation would reach higher school achievement with respect to those students with a profile of learning orientation including reproductive and rehearsal cognitive processing, scarce self-regulation strategies, a view of learning as gaining information role, and scarce personal involvement in learning. This expectation is in line with results in the literature (Vermunt 1998, 2005). We ascertained whether this relation is different with respect to school subjects or whether it underlies school achievement in general
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