The predictive effects of motivation, enjoyment, and self-efficacy on informal digital learning of LOTE: Evidence from French and German learners in China

Abstract

This article highlights the prevalent bias on global English in the existing informal digital language learning (IDLL) research and draws attention to informal digital learning of language other than English (IDL-LOTE) as a highly under-researched area in computer-assisted language learning. Recognizing how motivation, enjoyment, and self-efficacy serve as three crucial individual differences factors in second language (L2) development, the study sets out to examine the predictive effects of the three variables on IDL-LOTE. Drawing upon questionnaire data collected from 862 Chinese university students learning French or German as their LOTE, a structural equation modeling analysis was conducted. Our findings highlight that 1) promotion-focused motivation, enjoyment, and self-efficacy can significantly and directly influence IDL-LOTE, but prevention-focused motivation fails to generate such a direct impact; 2) enjoyment and self-efficacy can respectively act as a full mediator in the indirect effect of prevention-focused motivation on IDL-LOTE, and they can also partially channel the indirect influence of promotion-focused motivation on IDL-LOTE; 3) the specific language being learned (i.e., French or German) does not moderate the predictive effects of motivation, enjoyment, and self-efficacy on IDL-LOTE. These findings enable us to propose pedagogical implications and point out future research directions to advance the agenda of IDLL.