Abstract
Each time new PISA results are presented, they gain a lot of attention. However, there are many factors that lie behind the results, and they get less attention. In this study, we take a person-centered approach and focus on students’ motivation and beliefs, and how these predict students’ effort and performance on the PISA 2015 assessment of scientific literacy. Moreover, we use both subjective (self-report) and objective (time-based) measures of effort, which allows us to compare these different types of measures. Latent profile analysis was used to group students in profiles based on their instrumental motivation, enjoyment, interest, self-efficacy, and epistemic beliefs (all with regard to science). A solution with four profiles proved to be best. When comparing the effort and performance of these four profiles, we saw several significant differences, but many of these differences disappeared when we added gender and the PISA index of economic, social, and cultural status (ESCS) as control variables. The main difference between the profiles, after adding control variables, was that the students in the profile with most positive motivation and sophisticated epistemic beliefs performed best and put in the most effort. Students in the profile with unsophisticated epistemic beliefs and low intrinsic values (enjoyment and interest) were most likely to be classified as low-effort responders. We conclude that strong motivation and sophisticated epistemic beliefs are important for both the effort students put into the PISA assessment and their performance, but also that ESCS had an unexpectedly large impact on the results.
Highlights
Students’ performances on large international studies such as Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) gain a lot of attention in the public debate
The Swedish sample was chosen as Sweden was one of few countries that included a measure of self-reported effort in the PISA 2015 student questionnaire, allowing us to include both time-based and self-reported effort measures
Our results indicated that the 5 s might be too strict as many responses that were categorized as low effort responses by the other two thresholds were categorized as solution behavior
Summary
Students’ performances on large international studies such as Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) gain a lot of attention in the public debate. We used latent profile analysis (LPA) to group students into profiles based on six motivation and belief variables One advantage of such an approach over traditional variable-centered approaches is that it allows us to study how combinations of variables jointly predict a given outcome, and whether certain combinations are more beneficial than others in terms of outcomes. The outcomes of interest in the current study are 1) student performance on the PISA science test, and 2) student selfreported and behavioral effort when completing the test Both effort and performance can be assumed—and has been shown–to be affected by students’ epistemic and motivational beliefs, but we know little about how different combinations of these beliefs together relate to outcome measures: whether patterns look the same as in linear, variable-centered analyses or if there is added value in taking a more person-centered approach
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