Within-students variability in learning experiences, and teachers' perceptions of students' task-focus

Abstract

In order to advance our understanding of educational processes, we present a tutorial of intraindividual variability. An adaptive educational process is characterised by stable (less variability), and a maladaptive process is characterised by instable (more variability) learning experiences from one learning situation to the next. We outline step by step how we specify a multilevel structural equation model of state, trait and individual differences in intraindividual variability constructs, which can be appropriately fitted to intraindividual data (e.g., time-points nested in persons, intensive longitudinal data). In total 285 primary school students’ (Years 5 and 6) completed the Learning Experience Questionnaire using handheld computers, on average 13.6 learning episodes during one week (SD = 4.6; Range = 5-29; nepisodes = 3,433). We defined mean squared successive differences (MSSD) for each manifest indicator of task difficulty, competence evaluation and intrinsic motivation. We also demonstrate how to specify multivariate models for investigating convergent validity of the variability constructs. Overall, our study provides support for intraindividual variability as a construct in its own right, which has the potential to provide novel insight into students’ learning processes.