Profiling the Differences in Students' Knowledge, Interest, and Strategic Processing

The purpose for this research was threefold: to determine whether distinct and informative student profiles would emerge from knowledge, interest, and strategy measures specific to educational psychology; to compare these profiles with prior studies; and to explore changes in student profiles across an academic semester. As a result of cluster-analytic procedures, 3 distinct groups of participants emerged at pretest, and 4 emerged at posttest. One of the profiles that remained fairly consistent from pretest to posttest was the Learning-Oriented cluster. Students fitting this profile began the semester with the highest means in interest and strategic processing and with a moderate level of domain knowledge. By the end of the semester, this cluster obtained the highest means also on the domain knowledge test. Yet, the largest cluster at posttest seemed unable or unwilling to learn from demanding exposition.