At the beginning of 11th grade, students in Germany have the opportunity – and the obligation – to choose between different academic tracks to attend during upper secondary school. These decisions go hand in hand with the choice between basic and advanced course levels for all subjects. Empirical studies show that these educational decisions concerning the aspiration level of the subjects the students attend in upper secondary school influence future long-term educational ambitions such as study and career choices (Ayalon, 2003; Guo et al., 2015). Based on these observations, one important question is, which individual student characteristics do predict course selection in upper secondary school.
One of the most influential theories for explaining students’ academic choices is expectancy-value theory (e.g., Eccles & Wigfield, 2002). A key assumption of the theory is, that academic choices are directly influenced by students’ relative expectancies of succeeding in a task or a given academic domain and the relative subjective task value they attach to the task or domain, compared to other options. Following the fundamental assumptions of the expectancy-value theory, students at the beginning of the upper secondary school should be more likely to choose an advanced course level in a specific subject if they have higher expectancies and values in this subject or domain and, accordingly, students should be more likely to choose a basic course level in a specific subject if they have relatively lower expectancies and values in the respective subject or domain. In line with these assumptions, recent empirical findings show that the most powerful determinants of course selection in upper secondary school are students’ self-concept (Nagy et al., 2008; Saß & Kampa, 2019) and intrinsic task values (Guo et al., 2015; Steinmayr & Spinath, 2010). Even though there is a significant amount of studies within the framework of course selections in upper secondary schools, most of the previous research refers to STEM subjects, whereas research focusing on German language subject is quite limited (Dreiling & Willems, 2020; Steinmayr & Spinath, 2010). From a methodological point of view, different findings stress the interaction of expectancies and values (e.g. Trautwein et al., 2012). In line with these findings, researchers have only recently begun to use person-centered approaches – like Latent Profile Analyses (Nylund et al., 2007) – to investigate such intraindividual hierarchies and interactions in expectancies and values within individual persons. However, studies using such person-centered approaches analyzed student profiles either with respect to the students’ expectancies (e.g., Saß & Kampa, 2019) or their values (e.g., Steinmayr & Spinath, 2010), whereas research investigating complex student profiles based on both expectancy variables and value variables is limited (e.g., Gaspard et al., 2019).
Based on these theoretical, empirical, and methodological considerations, the major aim of our study is to analyze how upper secondary school students’ profiles in expectancy-value beliefs influence their choices of advanced course levels in German language classes. From a conceptual point of view, we consider that expectancies and values interact within individuals and should therefore be modeled as multifaceted profiles by applying person-centered approaches. Accordingly, the purpose of our study is (i) to identify individual student profiles based on expectancies and task values at the beginning of upper secondary school and (ii) to investigate the effects of these profiles on the students’ course selection of advanced and basic German language classes. In line with previous findings, we expect specific expectancy-value profiles – which differ in quality and quantity – to emerge and that students’ course affiliation varies according to their individual expectancy-value profiles (Gaspard et al., 2019).

The presented results are based on data of the German study FeeHe 2016 – 2019 (Feedback im Kontext von Heterogenität – Feedback in light of heterogeneity). To the best of our knowledge, FeeHe is the first study in which different learning characteristics are systematically measured from the perspective of upper secondary school students in German language classes. A repeated-measurement design with two measurement points was used in order to assess different students motivational, cognitive, and social learning characteristics such as subject-specific achievement, intrinsic motivation, individual interest, achievement goal orientation and academic self-concept as well as numerous variables which describe the quality of instruction in German language classes. At the beginning of a school semester (t1) a total of n = 810 students (Meanage = 16.69 [SD = .84]; female = 53.8 %) attending the 11th and 12th grade in 49 German language courses participated in the questionnaire study. After one school semester (t2) n = 696 of the students (Meanage = 17.17 [SD = .90]; female = 55. 2%) were surveyed again. In this paper we analyzed a subsample consisting of n = 487 students (Meanage = 16.27 [SD =.66]; female = 54.2 %) who entered upper secondary education at t1 (28 German language courses; advanced course level = 52.9 %). To assess students’ expectancies and values, different multiple item scales were used (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002): In line with other empirical studies (e.g., Gaspard et al., 2019; Saß & Kampa, 2019), students’ expectancies were assessed by a scale measuring academic self-concept consisting of three items (α = .82). The individual task values were measured using three subscales, consisting of three items each, representing (i) the intrinsic value (α = .88), (ii) the attainment value (α = .82) and (iii) the utility value (α = .74). Confirmatory factor analyses revealed a good fit of the four-factor structure of the different expectancy-value dimensions (CFI = .99, RMSEA = .04, p(RMSEA) = n.s., χ2[df] = 87.89[47], p(χ2) < .001). To describe and identify the number of student expectancy-value profiles, Latent Profile Analyses were conducted using the 12 individual item means as latent class indicators (Geiser et al., 2014). Subsequently, logistic regression was used to examine the impact of the students’ initial expectancy-value profiles on their course selection in German language classes. We also incorporated control variables such as gender and subject-specific achievement (measured by the previous school grade) into our models.

The Latent Profile Analyses revealed three distinct student expectancy-value profiles with different combinations of expectation and value characteristics: Students in Profile 1 (30.6 %) are characterized by high levels of both self-concept and task values, whereas students in Profile 2 (27.1 %) are characterized by rather high levels of self-concept with overall low levels of task values. Students in Profile 3 (42.3 %) are characterized by medium levels of self-concept and utility value and – at the same time – low to medium levels of intrinsic and attainment values. The logistic regression analyses showed that expectancy-value profile membership significantly predicted students’ course selection of advanced German language classes over and above gender and prior achievement. In line with our hypotheses, students in Profile 1 (high self-concept and task values) were most likely to choose an advanced German language class, whereas students in Profile 2 were most likely to choose a basic German language class. Our results are thus in line with previous findings which point out the importance of expectancy and value variables in order to explain academic choices in general and course selection in upper secondary school specifically. However, by identifying characteristic profiles of students, the results also expand our knowledge on the interaction of different expectancy and value variables within individuals. Furthermore, these findings support the importance of considering intraindividual comparisons of expectancies and values for students’ achievement-related behavior and choices.

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