How does systematically framed instruction affect undergraduate students’ goal conflict, learning engagement, and academic persistence in China? A comparative qualitative content analysis study

Instructional organization is acknowledged as a central part of undergraduate EFL learning because students need to coordinate language-development goals, assessment demands, classroom participation, and sustained academic effort within the same course. Unlike sizable published research on goal conflict, learning engagement, feedback, and academic persistence in higher education, little has been written on how a deliberately framed instructional sequence helps Chinese undergraduates interpret and manage these experiences compared with traditional instruction. This study aimed to examine how systematically framed instruction (SFI) shaped undergraduate students’ goal conflict, learning engagement, and academic persistence in China. A comparative qualitative content analysis design was adopted. Through convenience sampling, 96 Chinese undergraduate students aged 19–25 years from intact EFL classes at a public university were selected and assigned to two instructional conditions: a systematically framed instructional condition and a traditional instructional condition. Weekly electronic reflective journals were collected during the intervention and analyzed through open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. Based on the students’ reflections, SFI made competing academic goals more visible, prioritized, and manageable. It also supported learning engagement through active participation, deeper thinking, emotional confidence, peer-supported interaction, and learner agency. Furthermore, feedback-supported revision and reflective self-regulation helped students sustain effort when tasks became difficult or emotionally demanding. In light of these findings, Chinese undergraduate EFL courses may benefit from embedding goal clarification, scaffolded participation, feedback for revision, and reflective journaling into regular instruction to support students’ motivational regulation, engagement, and persistence.