Emotional vigilance under perceived continuous evaluation in foreign language classrooms: evidence from Chinese...

Evaluation activities in foreign language classrooms have increasingly become embedded in everyday instructional practice rather than remaining occasional measurement events. Yet empirical evidence remains limited regarding how students' perceived exposure to continuously evaluative classroom conditions is associated with learning-related functioning through emotion-regulation processes. Drawing on data from Chinese university students in foreign language learning contexts, this study examines an integrated model linking contextual exposure, primary emotional vigilance, secondary emotional vigilance, and perceived learning outcomes. The results show that contextual exposure is positively associated with perceived learning outcomes across the sample. Primary emotional vigilance emerged as the main mediating mechanism through which perceived evaluative classroom conditions were associated with learning-related functioning, whereas secondary emotional vigilance showed an additional positive contribution in the full model. Multi-group analyses further indicate that these associations remain broadly consistent across learner subgroups, suggesting that evaluative classroom conditions may operate as a shared organizational feature rather than a pattern driven primarily by group-specific differences. Overall, the findings suggest that learning in evaluative foreign language classrooms is associated not only with linguistic development but also with students' psychological adaptation to conditions of visibility, feedback, and judgment. These results highlight the importance of assessment designs that preserve instructional effectiveness while also supporting psychologically sustainable classroom evaluation practices.