# From constraints to innovations: a student agency typology and its implications for pedagogical change

## TL;DR

This study explores how Chinese students adapt to a rigid education system by identifying different learning behaviors and their implications for educational reform.

## Contribution

The paper introduces a typology of student agency based on goal orientation and proactivity, offering a new analytical framework for understanding educational dynamics.

## Key findings

- Four distinct student agency patterns were identified based on goal orientation and proactivity.
- Institutional performativity encourages performative labor and educational involution.
- Reforms to institutional logics are needed to foster authentic learning-oriented agency.

## Abstract

This qualitative study investigates how Chinese undergraduates navigate the rigid, credential-driven framework of contemporary higher education by examining the interplay between institutional structure and individual agency. Through in-depth interviews with 25 students and a critical typological analysis, this study develops a typology of situated student learning behaviors, grounded in the dimensions of goal orientation (mastery vs. performance) and proactivity (active vs. passive). Four patterns are identified: Active Learning-Oriented, Active Performance-Oriented, Passive Learning-Oriented, and Passive Performance-Oriented. The analysis reveals that students tactically employ a spectrum of strategies—from proactive knowledge pursuit to ritualized compliance—often shifting across contexts. The findings demonstrate how institutional designs centered on performativity and audit culture can incentivize performative labor and educational involution (neijuan), thereby constraining authentic epistemic engagement. The study challenges monolithic views of student passivity and underscores that fostering more learning-oriented agency requires reforms to the underlying institutional logics and reward systems, rather than focusing solely on pedagogical techniques. The typology provides an analytical framework for critically examining performative systems in mass higher education.