Second-Language Selves, Predictors, and L2 Learning Experience: An Explanatory Mixed-Method Study of Chinese STEM Students' English Learning Motivation

Drawing upon the model of the L2 Motivational Self System (L2MSS), this explanatory mixed-method study examined STEM students’ future L2 selves as guiding their motivated experiences. It first proposed a validated structural equation model of 480 participants’ future L2 selves through a large-scale survey. The SEM model highlights the predictive power of attitudes, anxiety, family, and ethnocentrism towards Ideal and Ought-to L2 selves. The model also investigates the moderating effect of gender and first language on the predictive relationship. Then, the study explored the motivational trajectories of five selected survey respondents and how they negotiated their L2 selves across time. The findings fill in the gap of lacking empirical evidence of L2 learning experience/behaviors and predictors of L2 selves in L2MSS, which can provide important sociopolitical and pedagogical implications for enhancing students' learning motivation.