Proximal affect versus distal self-guides in dual-processing EMI environments: Testing control-value theory in higher...

Grounded in Control-Value Theory (CVT), this study examines how proximal achievement emotions (enjoyment, anxiety, and boredom) predict communicative intention-operationalized as willingness to communicate (WTC)-in English-Medium Instruction (EMI) higher education-a context typically characterized by dual processing of disciplinary content and a foreign language, and whether distal self-guides (ideal language and disciplinary selves) mediate these relationships. Survey data from 350 Chinese EMI students in higher education-a context characterized by dual processing of disciplinary content and foreign language-were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results showed significant direct associations of enjoyment, anxiety, and boredom with both in-class and out-of-class WTC, with enjoyment showing the largest positive coefficient and anxiety showing the largest negative coefficient among the observed emotion-WTC associations. Crucially, boredom exerted a distinct negative effect independent of anxiety, supporting the theoretical separation of low-arousal deactivating negativity from high-arousal activating negativity. Rather than framing Control-Value Theory (CVT) and the L2 Motivational Self System (L2MSS) in binary opposition, the present findings highlight their complementary roles across distinct explanatory levels. Structural equation modeling revealed that proximal achievement emotions directly predicted both in-class and out-of-class communicative intentions. Although ideal self-guides did not exhibit statistically significant indirect effects in this specific sample-partially attributable to observed ceiling effects and restricted variance-these results point to a preliminary boundary condition regarding the localized reach of distal self-schemas under processing-intensive academic conditions, rather than a fundamental refutation of self-guide theories. While high cognitive load was not directly measured, the findings are consistent with the possibility that, under processing-intensive academic conditions, immediate affective appraisals may show more readily observable associations with communicative intentions than distal future self-schemas in this sample. This interpretation should be treated as a hypothesis for future research rather than as evidence of a general priority of affect over distal motivational structures.