Survey study reveals complex links between teaching practices, motivation, and reading engagement in EFL undergraduates, highlighting the unintended consequences of evaluative feedback.
Despite extensive research on second language (L2) reading pedagogy, the relationships among instructional practices, reading motivation, and engagement remain underexplored in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context. This study investigated these linkages through a survey of 470 Chinese EFL undergraduates. Findings revealed predominantly positive associations between instructional practices and reading motivation, except for the negative relationship between strategy-based instruction and intrinsic motivation. While all motivation factors (self-efficacy, intrinsic/extrinsic motivation) were positively associated with reading dedication, only extrinsic motivation demonstrated a negative relationship with reading avoidance. Strategy-based teaching enhanced dedication, whereas evaluative feedback unexpectedly increased avoidance. Implications for enhancing EFL learners’ reading motivation and engagement in Chinese higher education are discussed.
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An et al. (2026) studied this question.
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