Identifying Taiwanese junior-high school students' mathematics learning profiles and their roles in mathematics learning self-efficacy and academic performance

Conceptions of learning mathematics and their relations to academic self-efficacy and performance have recently received much attention. However, a forced dichotomization of the conceptions of learning and discussing a single conception at a time may provide limited information because students may simultaneously hold multiple conceptions of learning rather than using a dominant one while learning. Accordingly, it would be more comprehensive to characterize students according to several critical conceptions, forming mathematics learning profiles. In so doing, students with a specific profile could be portrayed with an outline of various conceptions of learning mathematics. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the role of students' mathematics learning profiles in terms of three critical conceptions of learning mathematics (learning as preparing for tests, learning as calculating and practicing, and learning as achieving understanding) in their mathematics learning self-efficacy and academic performance. A total of 422 students were solicited from junior-high schools in Taiwan. The results of the latent profile analysis revealed four learning profiles that were able to characterize students, namely the high-engagement, mixed, passive, and surface-understanding learning profiles. Furthermore, the MANOVA results indicated that students with a high-engagement learning profile displayed the best mean value for mathematics learning self-efficacy, as well as the best academic performance; on the other hand, the students with a passive learning profile showed the lowest mean value for mathematics learning self-efficacy as well as inferior academic performance.