ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Investigating the Roles of Academic Emotions in the relationship between Agentic Engagement and EFL Achievement among Chinese Undergraduate Students
Provisionally accepted
- Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China
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This study examines the relationships among agentic engagement, academic emotions, and English as a foreign language (EFL) achievement in Chinese undergraduate students, with a focus on variations across grade levels. Utilizing a quantitative design, data were collected from 221 English majors (111 first-year and 110 fourth-year undergraduate students) via questionnaires assessing agentic engagement and academic emotions, alongside English examination scores. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS Amos to explore moderating and mediating effects. Results reveal that none of the academic emotions showed significant moderating effects. Pride stands out because it fully mediated the impact of agentic engagement on English achievement across the entire sample (indirect effect = 0.246, p<0.05), while hopelessness and anxiety demonstrated partial mediating effects. Grade-level differences were stark: for first-year undergraduate students, agentic engagement directly boosted EFL achievement, with emotions playing a negligible role. Conversely, among fourth-year undergraduate students, positive emotions fully mediated this relationship (indirect effect = 0.174, p<0.05), with no significant direct effect. These findings highlight the stage-specific roles of academic emotions, with hopelessness amplifying engagement's effect broadly and positive emotions like pride driving achievement in later years. Theoretically, this enriches models of engagement and emotion in EFL learning, emphasizing cultural and developmental nuances in China's educational context. Practically, it suggests tailored strategies—promoting proactive engagement for novices and fostering positive emotions for advanced learners—to enhance EFL outcomes.
Keywords: academic emotions, Agentic engagement, EFL achievement, grade level comparison, Chinese undergraduate students
Received: 07 Jul 2025; Accepted: 25 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 He. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hongwu He
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