Assessing L2 Regulatory Mode Scales in Chinese Undergraduate Students

Motivation is a key predictor of students’ cognitive manifestations, emotional responses to success/failure, and behaviour in second language acquisition (SLA or L2). These aspects are directed by two important motivation systems: assessment and locomotion. The two motivation constructs in SLA, measured by Regulatory mode scales (RMS, Teimouri et al., 2022), have been validated by in Iran for Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. However, it is not clear whether the RMS scales are able to provide the reliability and validity of the two constructs applying to samples from a different culture (e.g., China) and respond to the questionnaire in a different language (i.e., Chinese). To bridge the gap, this study investigated a sample of Chinese undergraduate students who responded to a Chinese version of RMS. Results showed that a Chinese version of the English questionnaire was appropriate for ensuring the validity and reliability of the measure when administering this questionnaire to this population.