Control-value appraisals, achievement emotions and English performance in Chinese middle school students

Guided by the control-value theory of achievement emotions, this study examined the relations between control-value appraisals, achievement emotions and English performance in Chinese middle school students, with a focus on the predictive effects of control-value appraisals and achievement emotions and the mediating effects of achievement emotions. The participants were 347 8th graders from a middle school in north China, who took an English test and answered a battery of questionnaires on control and value appraisals, achievement emotions and background information. The major findings were: 1) perceived control significantly predicted positive emotions and negatively predicted negative emotions; perceived value significantly positively predicted positive emotions, anxiety and shame, yet inversely predicted anger and boredom; 2) neither perceived control nor value significantly predicted English performance; 3) hope and anger significantly positively while anxiety and hopelessness negatively predicted English performance; and 4) mediational modelling revealed no significant mediating effects of the achievement emotions on the relationships between perceived control and value and English performance. These findings highlight the importance of control, value and emotions in second/foreign learning as well as the complexity of the relationships between the variables. Based on these findings, suggestions for second/foreign learning and future research are discussed.