Unraveling the interplay between social-emotional need satisfaction and self-regulated learning: Longitudinal evidence from university students in China’s EMI programs

The study examined the relationship between social-emotional need satisfaction and self-regulated learning (SRL) of English-medium instruction (EMI) university students in China. Guided by self-determination theory and a social cognitive understanding of self-regulation, the study conceptualized basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness as socially constructed to interact with self-regulated strategic behavior. The study is situated in an EMI higher education context, where students’ needs for social interactions are more likely to suffer from an expectation to use English, a second language (L2) that students have limited proficiency in, for academic communications and interactions. A longitudinal mixed-methods design was adopted, collecting questionnaire data from 392 participants twice during an academic semester followed by semi-structured interviews with a sub-cohort of 13 students. Results from a cross-lagged panel modeling analysis revealed a bi-directional, reciprocal relationship between social-emotional need satisfaction and SRL strategy use. Thematic analysis of the interview data further illustrated that the satisfaction of specific types of need such as autonomy facilitated metacognitive and social regulation strategy use. In turn, social regulation, among all SRL strategy types, most heavily affected the satisfaction of various types of social-emotional needs. Implications are offered to EMI policymaking and teaching to create a social-emotionally supportive environment for cultivating self-regulated L2 learners.