A person-centered approach to homework behavior: Students' characteristics predict their homework learning type

- Using a person-centered approach proved to be valuable for homework research.
- LPAs with covariates showed that student characteristics can predict learning types.
- Homework value beliefs are a key predictor of students' homework learning types.
- Conscientiousness is a second central predictor of students' homework learning types.

Homework time (i.e., the total amount of time spent on homework) and homework effort (i.e., the extent to which students work seriously on their homework) are defined as two central aspects that characterize students' homework behavior. Recent research has identified homework learning types by considering differences in students in both homework effort and homework time with a person-centered approach (Flunger et al., 2015). The present study investigated how students' characteristics (i.e., motivation, conscientiousness, gender, and verbal abilities) are associated with these homework behavior profiles. To this end, data on homework behavior in the subject of French as a second language of 1649 Swiss eighth-grade students were reanalyzed by applying latent profile analyses (LPAs) with covariates in a modified three-step method (Vermunt, 2010). The findings suggest that large amounts of homework time can be a characteristic of favorable homework behavior: When students simultaneously invested a great deal of effort in their homework, spending a lot of time on homework was associated with high motivation and high conscientiousness. By contrast, when students exerted low effort, large amounts of homework time were found to be associated with low motivation and low conscientiousness.