Understanding the Nature and Correlates of Students’ Heterogeneous Perceptions of Opportunities for Deeper Learning

Opportunities in school provide important
building blocks for students to develop three essential competencies for academic
success: confidence, value for academic tasks, and self-regulatory behaviors. However, students’
varying perceptions of such opportunities have received little attention in
extant research. Using data from the Study of Deeper Learning, this study focused
on students’ perceptions of opportunities that align with recommendations from robust
psychological theory and research: real-world connections, personalized
supports, and academic press. After examining the factor structure of student
perceptions, latent profile analyses revealed five groups of students differentiated
by distinct patterns (profiles) of perceptions. Gender predicted profile
membership, and profiles showed significant differences on both distal and
proximal success indicators. Results underscore the importance of perceived
deeper learning opportunities for students’ thriving, suggest directions for
developing school supports, and contribute much-needed insights about the
structure, common patterns, and correlates of heterogeneous perceptions of
opportunities for deeper learning.