Feedback literacy for EFL speaking among first- and second-year Chinese English majors: structural associations and...

Feedback literacy concerns learners' capacities and dispositions to recognize the value of feedback, make evaluative judgments, manage affective responses, and take action. This quantitatively dominant mixed-methods study examined theory-informed associations among these four features using questionnaire data from 2,116 first- and second-year Chinese English majors, two student open-ended items, and interviews with 18 instructors. Data analysis used reflective Mode A partial least squares path modeling, 5,000 bootstrap resamples, and 10-fold PLSpredict repeated 10 times. All four hypothesized paths were positive (beta = 0.457-0.830, p < 0.001), with R ² values of 0.532-0.730. However, HTMT values ranged from 0.921 to 1.022 and all exceeded 0.90, indicating inadequate discriminant validity. SRMR was 0.071 for the saturated model and 0.079 for the estimated model. Q2_predict values were positive (0.257-0.531), but the linear benchmark had lower RMSE for 13 of 14 indicators, indicating limited out-of-sample predictive advantage. Qualitative themes emphasized targeted practice, self-assessment, feedback seeking, actionable comments, affective support, and structured peer dialogue. The findings support an intertwined rather than fixed developmental view of speaking-feedback literacy and require cautious interpretation because of construct overlap and cross-sectional self-report data.