Students’ Profiles and the Relationship between Learning Approach and Achievement

Abstract

The current study investigates if groups of students with distinctive deep approach and superficial approach profiles present differences in achievement. Data was analyzed from 679 middle school and high school students of one Belo Horizonte school. The classifying method k-means and ANOVA were used to identify e compare groups. Four students profiles were identified: deep (high AP and low AS), superficial (low AP and high AS), strategic (high AP and high AS), and not strategic (low AP and low AS). The deep students show superior achievement in all scholar contents and the superficial students show inferior achievement. These differences are discussed like the implications for the learning approaches theory.