A Study On The Correlations Among Non-English Major Students’ Affective Engagement In English Learning,ideal L2 Self And English Achievement From The Perspective Of Positive Psychology

Positive Psychology is a discipline that deals with individual well-being and aims to help people achieve their full potentials and self-development.Educational research is inseparable from Psychology,and with the development of Positive Psychology,a“positive turn” has emerged in the field of SLA.Since Positive Psychology was explicitly introduced into the SLA field,SLA research has gained its new momentum,and many positive socio-psychological variables have begun to be noticed by SLA researchers,such as positive affective engagement and ideal L2 self.Affective engagement is a part of learning engagement that refers to learners’ affective experiences in school and learning activities.L2 learning is a complex and dynamic process,and the degree of learners’ affective engagement in it influences their L2 learning effectiveness.Ideal L2 self,which is derived from the L2 Motivational Self System proposed by D?rnyei,refers to the ideal part of learners regarding L2 learning,which is a positive future self-orientation.Ideal L2 self has been validated to be related to learners’ motivated learning behavior and academic performance.What is learned from previous studies is that very few studies pay attention to the correlation between affective engagement and ideal L2 self,and also few studies have explored the influence mechanism of affective engagement and ideal L2 self on English achievement.Therefore,the present study attempts to explore the correlations among non-English major students’ affective engagement in English learning,ideal L2 self,and English achievement based on Broaden-and-Build Theory and Control-Value Theory under the canopy of Positive Psychology.Specifically,the present study aims to answer the following three research questions:(1)What are the current situations of non-English major students’ affective engagement in English learning and their ideal L2 self?(2)What are the correlations among affective engagement in English learning,ideal L2 self,and English achievement?(3)Does ideal L2 self mediate the relation between affective engagement in English learning and English achievement? If so,what is the mediating effect of ideal L2 self?The present study took sophomore non-English majors from a comprehensive university in Southwest China as the research participants,and adopted a mixed research method to collect data through questionnaire survey and semi-structured interview.The study sent out a total of 420 questionnaires in the offline English classes,and 407 valid questionnaires were collected.Then,six students were invited to attend semi-structured interview based on the completion of the questionnaires and their own subjective willingness.For this study,the quantitative data were processed and analyzed by SPSS 24.0,AMOS 24.0,PROCESS v4.1 and Exps.exe.The study first verified the reliability and validity of the questionnaire by using SPSS 24.0,AMOS 24.0 and Exps.exe,and then descriptive analysis,correlation analysis,and mediating effect test were conducted with SPSS 24.0 and PROCESS v4.1.The processing of qualitative data in this study was mainly achieved by manual-transcription,and the correlations among variables were explored by analyzing the interview texts.After the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data,the results of the study were summarized as follows:(1)Non-English major students’ affective engagement in English learning and their ideal L2 self were at moderate levels.(2)There were significant correlations among affective engagement in English learning,ideal L2 self and English achievement.Specifically,affective engagement in English learning was significantly and positively correlated with English achievement;ideal L2 self was also significantly and positively correlated with English achievement;moreover,affective engagement in English learning was significantly and positively correlated with ideal L2 self.(3)Ideal L2 self partially mediated the relation between affective engagement in English learning and English achievement,indicating that affective engagement in English learning could not only directly influence English achievement,but also had an indirect impact on English achievement by influencing students’ ideal L2 self.This study not only verified the correlation between affective engagement and ideal L2 self,but also identified the influence mechanism of affective engagement and ideal L2 self on English achievement,which could arouse English educators’ attention to students’ positive affective experiences and positive individual traits.This study introduced intervention programmes to help students visualize their ideal L2 self and also suggested the ways to enhance students’ affective engagement in English learning,which could offer valuable enlightenment for research and practice in language teaching and learning.