Multidimensional Profiles of Critical Thinking in Physics Labs: Latent Structure, Instructional Change, and Connections to Physics Identity

TL;DR

This study uses latent profile analysis on the PLIC to identify student critical thinking patterns in physics labs, revealing how these profiles change over instruction and relate to identity and affective factors.

Contribution

It introduces a person-centered, multidimensional analysis of PLIC data, linking critical thinking profiles to physics identity and affective development.

Findings

Two-profile solution best fit the data at both pre- and post-instruction.

Nearly half of students transitioned from lower to higher profiles after instruction.

Belonging predicted profile transitions and was linked to identity development.

Abstract

The Physics Lab Inventory of Critical Thinking (PLIC) measures three components of students' critical thinking in physics labs: evaluating data, evaluating methods, and proposing next steps. Prior work has analyzed these components in isolation or as a composite score. In this study, we apply latent profile analysis (LPA) to the three PLIC scales using a large, multi-institutional dataset of 5,513 matched pre/post student records to identify characteristic response patterns across the three components simultaneously. At both pre- and post-instruction, a two-profile solution best fit the data. Profile composition shifted substantially over instruction, with 48.4\% of students in the lower-performing profile at pre-test transitioning to the higher-performing profile at post-test, while 43.6\% of students moved in the opposite direction. Course type was statistically associated with profile membership at both timepoints, though the effect was small (Cram\'er's $V \approx 0.10$). To examine the relationship between profile transitions and students' affective development, we estimated cross-lagged panel models (CLPMs) linking profile membership to belonging, recognition, self-efficacy, and agency. Belonging emerged as the principal upstream predictor, prospectively predicting recognition, self-efficacy, agency, and higher-knowledge profile membership. Agency and self-efficacy formed a reciprocal but asymmetric loop, with the path from agency to later self-efficacy being stronger. Recognition functioned primarily as a downstream construct over this timescale. These results provide the first person-centered, multidimensional characterization of PLIC performance and demonstrate that epistemic and identity-related constructs are interlinked in physics lab learning.