Beyond borders and screens in China: L2 motivation, digital literacy, and virtual intercultural experience in GenAI-mediated informal digital learning of English

Against the backdrop of the rapid integration of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) into informal digital learning settings, this study investigates how Chinese university English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students’ L2 motivation interacts with their digital literacy and virtual intercultural experience (VIE) to shape their participation in GenAI-mediated informal digital learning of English (GenAI-IDLE). This study surveyed 568 Chinese undergraduate EFL students and employed a structural equation modeling approach to analyze the data. The findings reveal that students’ ideal L2 selves and ought-to L2 selves positively and significantly predict their digital literacy and GenAI-IDLE, respectively. While their ideal L2 selves make a positive and direct impact on their GenAI-IDLE, their ought-to L2 selves do not predict their VIE. The results also demonstrate that students’ digital literacy mediates the relationship between L2 motivation and GenAI-IDLE. Their digital literacy and VIE jointly play a chain mediating role in the association between L2 motivation and GenAI-IDLE. However, their VIE fails to mediate the link between the ought-to L2 self and GenAI-IDLE. By elucidating the motivational, digital, and behavioral mechanisms in GenAI-mediated informal learning environments, this study extends the application of Self-Determination Theory within in GenAI-powered educational psychology and provides pedagogical implications.