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Researchers are often interested in identifying homogeneous subgroups within heterogeneous samples on the basis of a set of measures, such as profiles of individuals' motivation (i.e., their values, competence beliefs, and achievement goals). Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) is a statistical method for identifying such groups, or latent profiles, and is a special case of the general mixture model where all measured variables are continuous (Harring & Hodis, 2016; Pastor, Barron, Miller, & Davis, 2007). The tidyLPA package allows users to specify different models that determine whether and how different parameters (i.e., means, variances, and covariances) are estimated, and to specify and compare different solutions based on the number of profiles extracted. The aim of the tidyLPA package is to provide a simple interface for conducting and evaluating LPA models. Given that LPA is only one type of mixture model, we do not expect it to replace the more general functionality of other tools that allow for the estimation of wider range of models. Nevertheless, this package provides convenient methods for conducting LPA using both open-source and commercial software, while aligning with a widely used coding framework (i.e., tidy data, described more below). In doing so, tidyLPA allows researchers with and without access to proprietary tools, such as MPlus, to conduct LPA.

Science education reform efforts in the Unites States call for a dramatic shift in the way students are expected to engage with scientific concepts, core ideas, and practices in the classroom. This new vision of science learning demands a more complex conceptual understanding of student engagement and research models that capture both the multidimensionality and contextual specificity of student engagement in science. In a unique application of person-oriented analysis of experience sampling data, we employ cluster analysis to identify six distinct momentary engagement profiles representing different combinations of the behavioral, cognitive, and affective dimensions of student engagement in high school science classrooms. Students spend a majority of their classroom time in one of several engagement profiles characterized by high engagement on one dimension, but low levels on the others. Students exhibited low engagement across all three dimensions of engagement in about 22% of our observations. Full engagement, or high levels across all three dimensions, is the least frequent profile, occurring in only 11% of the observations. Students' momentary engagement profiles are related in meaningful ways to both the learning activity in which students are engaged and the types of choices they are afforded. Laboratory activities provided especially polarized engagement experiences, producing full engagement, universally low engagement, and pleasurable engagement in which students are affectively engaged but are not engaged cognitively or behaviorally. Student choice is generally associated with more optimal engagement profiles and the specific type of choice matters in important ways. Choices about how to frame the learning activity have the most positive effects relative to other types of choices, such as choosing whom to work with or how much time to take. Results are discussed in terms of implications for practice and the utility of the methodological approach for evaluating the complexities of student engagement in science classrooms.

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This study explored associations between students’ perceptions of challenge, teacher-provided support and obstruction, and students’ momentary academic engagement in high school science classrooms. Instrumental and emotional dimensions of support and obstruction were examined separately, and analyses tested whether the relationship between challenge and engagement was moderated by teacher support, teacher obstruction, and individual characteristics like gender and grade level. Students’ perceptions of challenge were positively related to their momentary reports of engagement in science learning activities, while teachers’ instrumental support was positively associated with engagement across all levels of perceived challenge. Even though teachers’ provision of emotional support was not predictive of student engagement, teachers’ emotional obstruction was negatively associated with student engagement. Teachers’ instrumental obstruction had less consistent associations with student engagement, and was only associated with declines in engagement during those moments when students perceived greater challenge in class. Both gender and grade level emerged as moderators of the relationship between challenge and engagement. Results are discussed in terms of implications for future research and instructional practice.