Acceso usuarios
Bea Mertens
, Sven De Maeyer, Vincent Donche
Research on learning strategies and learning motivation in different educational contexts has provided valuable insights, but in this field, low-educated adults remain an understudied population. This study addresses this gap by means of a person-oriented approach and seeks to investigate whether quantitatively and qualitatively different learner profiles can be distinguished among low-educated adults in second-chance education (SCE) by relating three key components of learning: learning motivation, regulation and processing strategies. Five hundred twelve adult learners of six SCE-institutions filled in a Learning and Motivation questionnaire. Latent profile analysis showed the presence of motivational profiles differing both in quantity and quality (i.e. good- versus poor-quality and high- versus low-quantity motivational profiles) and regulatory profiles being distinct in the use of regulation strategies (i.e. self-regulated versus unregulated profiles). Mainly quantitatively different processing profiles were found among low-educated adults (i.e. active, moderate, inactive processing profiles). When integrating all three components of learning, analyses identified two more optimal motivational-learning profiles, combining good-quality motivation with a moderately active use of self-regulation and processing strategies (i.e. good-quality motivation – self-regulated – active processing profile and good-quality motivation – moderate profile) and two more suboptimal profiles in which poor-quality or low-quantity motivation was combined with the inactive use of self-regulation and processing strategies (i.e. poor-quality motivation – unregulated – inactive processing profile, low-quantity motivation – unregulated – inactive processing profile). A fifth motivational-learning profile exhibited a pattern of poor-quality motivation combined with a moderately-active use of self- regulation and processing strategies.
