English language learning in an international context: psychological factors among Chinese graduate students in the...

This study investigated the relationship between motivation and anxiety among Chinese graduate students (N = 300) studying in the Philippines in the post-pandemic era, a distinctive Southeast Asian English-medium instruction context, using adapted versions of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) and the Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB). The descriptive results show that both integrative motivation and instrumental motivation are high. Doctoral students are a little more motivated and a little less anxious than master's students. Nonetheless, discriminant validity assessments employing the HTMT criteria indicated that integrative motivation and fear of negative evaluations (HTMT=0.94), along with instrumental motivation and test anxiety (HTMT=0.91), cannot be empirically differentiated. These results show that there is a lot of conceptual overlap and measurement contamination. Consequently, the significant correlation observed between motivation and anxiety (ranging from 0.66 to 0.90) cannot be interpreted as indicative of a robust relationship between distinct psychological constructs. Because of this, this study should be seen as exploratory research. Its main contribution is in terms of method: it shows that you need to be careful when using Western-developed scales with Chinese students in cross-border educational settings, and it stresses how important it is to do strict discriminant validity tests. Be careful when interpreting the results of cross-cultural second language acquisition research that uses existing scales before making tools for cultural adaptation.