The student questionnaire study was included in Phase 2 of the research project “in order to triangulate classroom data and provide multiple perspectives by accessing the learners’ insights into the events that have been observed” (Mackey & Gass, 2005, p. 201). Accordingly, this study sought to investigate the perceptions of students taught by the participating primary and secondary school teachers regarding their teachers’ TEDI practices. More specifically, it examined the extent to which students perceived TEDI as responsive to their interests, learning profiles and readiness levels, as well as the possible relationship between these perceptions of TEDI and students’ motivated learning behaviour, language learning experience and self-efficacy beliefs, i.e., the individual difference (ID) variables that have been found to improve in technology-enhanced differentiated learning contexts (e.g., Hustinx et al., 2019; Vargas-Parra et al., 2018). Correspondingly, the study examined two research questions (RQs):

 

To what extent do students of the participating teachers perceive technology-enhanced differentiated instruction as responsive to their readiness levels, interests, and learning profiles? (RQ 3.5)

What are the relationships between students’ perceptions of technology-enhanced differentiated instruction and the variables of motivated learning behaviour, language learning experience, and self-efficacy beliefs? (RQ 3.6)

 

Information about the participants and the development and validation of the questionnaire is presented in Section 3.3.4, while the English translation of the questionnaire items is provided in Appendix N. The present section reports the results of the questionnaire study, starting with the descriptive statistics of students’ perceptions of TEDI, followed by the results of the correlation and regression analyses that examined the relationship between these perceptions and students’ motivated learning behaviour, language learning experience, and self-efficacy beliefs.

 

4.2.3.1 Students’ Perceptions of TEDI (RQ 3.5). The calculation of descriptive statistics helped to answer RQ 3.5, which examined the extent to which students perceive TEDI as responsive to their interests, learning profiles and readiness levels (see Table 31).

 

 

As can be seen in Table 31, students perceived TEDI to be responsive to their needs, with readiness-based TEDI perceptions (M = 4.27, SD = 0.62), learning profile-based TEDI perceptions (M = 4.14, SD = 0.76) and interest-based TEDI perceptions (M = 3.97, SD = 0.77) all having a mean value higher than moderate. Besides, paired-samples t tests were run to examine whether there were any statistically significant differences between the mean values of these scales. The results showed that the mean value of readiness-based TEDI perceptions was significantly higher than the mean value of interest-based TEDI perceptions (t(38) = 2.31, p = .026), which suggests that students perceive TEDI to attend more to their readiness levels than to their interests.

 

4.2.3.2 Relationships Between Students’ Perceptions of TEDI, Motivated Learning Behaviour, Language Learning Experience and Self-Efficacy Beliefs (RQ 3.6). Bivariate Pearson correlation analyses and regression analyses were conducted to answer RQ 3.6, i.e., to find out if there were any statistically significant relationships between the scales measuring the three dimensions of TEDI perceptions and the variables of motivated learning behaviour, language learning experience and self-efficacy beliefs.

 

 

To check whether there are any causal links between students’ perceptions of TEDI and their self-efficacy beliefs, more specifically, to see if any of the three dimensions of TEDI perceptions acts as a predictor variable of students’ self-efficacy beliefs, multiple linear regression analyses with a stepwise approach were carried out. As Table 33 shows, the analysis yielded a simple linear model with readiness-based TEDI perceptions having a positive medium impact on self-efficacy beliefs (β = .56, p < .001). This result, however, needs to be interpreted with caution as the explanatory power of the model is relatively low (R2 = .31), which may be explained by the exclusion of other predictor variables from the investigation, such as vicarious experiences and verbal persuasion, which are traditionally considered to influence students’ self-efficacy beliefs (Bandura, 1997). Nevertheless, it can be cautiously concluded that there exists a direct causal relationship between readiness-based TEDI perceptions and self-efficacy beliefs. In other words, when students perceive that the technology-enhanced tasks respond to their readiness levels, it can strengthen their beliefs in their ability to perform these tasks successfully.

 

 

Secondly, results of the correlation analysis indicate that language learning experience has a moderate positive relationship with interest-based TEDI perceptions (r = .57, p < .001) and a weak positive relationship with learning profile-based TEDI perceptions (r = .34, p = .033), suggesting that students who perceive TEDI as responsive to their interests and learning profiles also tend to have positive language learning experience.

 

 

While the model’s explanatory power is relatively low (R² = .34)—which suggests that other variables not investigated in this analysis may also be at play—these results imply that to a moderate extent, interest-based TEDI perceptions positively impact students’ language learning experience. In other words, when students perceive that the technology-enhanced tasks accord with their interests, it can enhance their language learning experience.