EdUHK EdTech innovations win 26 iCAN Awards

The Education University of Hong Kong received 26 awards at the 7th International Invention Innovation Competition in Canada (iCAN) in 2022, including seven gold medals, three silver, five grand awards and 11 special prizes. It marked a new record high since the University’s first participation in 2018.

Two of the University’s inventions received the Best Invention Awards, including ‘A New Generation of Dissolved Oxygen Sensor Using Replaceable Photo-sensing Film’, which was granted the Top 10 Best Invention Award. The invention was developed by Professor Rudolf Wu Shiu-sun, Advisor (Environmental Science) at the Department of Science and Environmental Studies (SES), and his team. It is a novel device which detects and sends out a permanent record of dissolved oxygen levels using replaceable photo-sensing film. It overcomes the prolonged difficulties of monitoring the marine pollution over large areas of water bodies.

An EdTech invention ‘e-Orch’ developed by Dr Leung Chi-hin, Assistant Professor at the Department of Cultural and Creative Arts (CCA), was awarded the Top 20 Best Invention Award. It is a system consisting of an app and cloud-based software specifically designed for music performance and composition. Integrated with the patented Grid Notation, virtual instruments and AI music generator, the invention makes music education accessible and inclusive.

Congratulating the winners, Professor Chetwyn Chan Che-hin, Vice President (Research and Development), said, “The award-winning innovations cover educational technology, marine conservation, art tech and green construction material, etc. It reflects the broadening scope of our research and knowledge transfer. It is encouraging to see that some of our inventions have been successfully licensed or patented, and are creating a positive impact on society. EdUHK will continue to forge knowledge transfer collaboration with different sectors.”

iCAN is an international competition launched in 2016. This year, the competition received 650 applications from 81 countries and regions. EdUHK’s awarding-winning projects are as follows:

Project: A New Generation of Dissolved Oxygen Sensor Using Replaceable Photo-sensing Film

Principal Investigator: Professor Rudolf Wu Shiu-sun at SES

Award(s): Gold Medal, Top 10 Best Invention Award, Special Award

Project: Reimagining Music Learning with e-Orch

Principal Investigator: Dr Leung Chi-hin at CCA

Award(s): Gold Medal, Top 20 Best Invention Award, Special Award

Project: Upcycling Waste Residuals into Value-added Eco-coasters: From Environmental Facilities to Tables

Principal Investigator: Dr Tsang Yiu-fai at SES

Award(s): Gold Medal, Organizer’s Choice Award, Special Award

Project: Facilitating Emotion Classification Based on Non-Intrusive Learner Data via Deep Neural Networks

Principal Investigator: Dr Zou Di at the Department of English Language Education (ELE)

Award(s): Gold Medal, Jury’s Choice Award, Special Award

Project: Advanced Tai Chi Experience: An Integration of Novel Typefaces and AR Technology

Principal Investigator: Dr Hung Keung at CCA

Award(s): Gold Medal, Two Special Awards

Project: UNISON: Unpaired Cross-lingual Image Captioning

Principal Investigator: Professor Philip Yu Leung-ho at the Department of Mathematics and Information Technology

Award(s): Gold Medal, Special Award

Project: Personalised vocabulary learning system based on artificial intelligence techniques

Principal Investigator: Dr Zou Di at ELE

Award(s): Gold Medal, Special Award

Project: iMaze: A Fun Working Memory Training for Pre-school Children from Low-income Families

Principal Investigator: Dr Kean Poon Kei-yan at the Department of Special Education and Counselling

Award(s): Silver Medal, Best Woman Inventor Award, Special Award

Project: CKC Strokes – An Online Practice Tool for Chinese Strokes Writing

Principal Investigator: Dr Tse Ka-ho at the Department of Chinese Language Studies

Award(s): Silver Medal, Special Award

Project: Smart hands: Are you sure?

Principal Investigator: Dr Peggy Or Pui-lai at the Department of Health and Physical Education

Award(s): Silver Medal, Special Award

EdUHK study examines importance of gender-affirming school culture

Gender nonconforming youth are often subject to bullying and harassment, but the negative effects of this experience are not well understood. Previous studies have found that gender-nonconforming youth are at heightened risk of depression, social withdrawal and avoidance behaviour compared to gender-conforming youth. The association between gender nonconformity and psychological distress has been found to be more common among adolescent boys than girls. Both heterosexual and sexual-minority individuals can be subject to victimisation based on their gender expression, regardless of their actual sexual orientation.

Dr Randolph Chan Chun-ho, Associate Head and Associate Professor at the Department of Special Education and Counselling, The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK), conducted a study to determine whether gender nonconformity contributes to peer victimisation in school settings and to identify ways to modify the school environment to protect gender nonconforming youth from victimisation. The study involved 3,020 students in 10 secondary schools in different provinces in the mainland, 51.5% of whom assigned male at birth and 48.5% assigned female at birth. The mean age of the participants was 15.71.

One fifth of the participants (19.6%) said they frequently experienced peer victimisation. The prevalence of peer victimisation was even higher among gender-nonconforming youth (38.5%). The three most common forms were being reminded to watch the way in which they speak or dress, being verbally assaulted or threatened, and being socially excluded or isolated. Gender nonconformity was found to be a risk factor for peer victimisation among youth in the mainland and was associated with heightened levels of school avoidance and symptoms of depression.

Youth assigned male at birth who violated masculine gender roles were found to be more frequently subject to victimisation than youth assigned female at birth who did not adhere to feminine gender roles. In schools with a highly structured and supportive campus climate, gender-nonconforming youth were less likely to experience peer victimisation and internalising problems.

Fostering a respectful, peer-supported, engaging school climate can alleviate the psychosocial difficulties arising from gender nonconformity among students of all genders, the study concluded. Given the prevalence of symptoms of depression in gender-nonconforming youth, mental health care is urgently needed to provide gender-affirming psychological support for this vulnerable population in Chinese education settings.

For details of the research, please visit here.

EdUHK research on resistance as form of resilience in sexual, gender minorities

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals across the globe experience prejudice, discrimination, hate crimes, and many other forms of victimisation. As a fundamental means for transforming and advancing the conditions of LGBT individuals, collective action has gained increasing attention in research, policy and practice over the past decade. It has been used to advocate for LGBT rights, such as anti-discrimination laws, marriage equality, adoption and parenting, and legal recognition of gender. While collective action is influential in driving public awareness and policy changes, little is known about the psychological effects on individuals undertaking collective action.

The study by Dr Randolph Chan Chun-ho, Associate Professor at the Department of Special Education and Counselling, The Education University of Hong Kong, examined how different types of collective action moderate the negative relationship between perceived discrimination and mental health. The aims of the study were (1) to adopt an inductive approach to developing a scale for measuring collective action for LGBT rights in less democratic societies, (2) to examine the underlying dimensions of collective action for LGBT rights, (3) to investigate the moderating role of collective action on the relationship between perceived discrimination and mental health among LGBT individuals, and (4) to examine gender differences in the moderating effect of collective action.

The researchers developed a scale to measure collective action for LGBT rights and examined the underlying dimensions of collective action in a sample of 1,050 LGBT individuals in Hong Kong. The research also examined the moderating role of collective action on the relationship between perceived discrimination and depressive symptoms.

The LGBT Collective Action Scale measured two dimensions of collective action: private and public. The moderating effects of private and public collective action were significant, such that the positive association between perceived discrimination and depressive symptoms was weaker among LGBT individuals with higher levels of collective action. Subgroup analyses showed that private collective action moderated the association between perceived discrimination and depressive symptoms among sexual minority men and women, but the moderating effect of public collective action was found only in sexual minority women. Perceived discrimination was positively correlated with private and public collective action, but it exhibited a significantly stronger association with public collective action than with private collective action.

The study provided empirical support for the resilience effect of collective action in sexual and gender minorities. Collective action enables LGBT individuals to counteract heterosexism in various forms: either privately, by confronting the biased language and attitudes of others, or publicly, by taking part in protests for LGBT rights. Participating in private and public collective action can buffer the negative effect of discrimination on mental health in LGBT individuals.

The study was conducted together with Professor Winnie Mak Wing-sze at the Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

To learn more about the research, please click here.

EdUHK research on role of feedback orientation in converting external feedback to learning opportunities

Dr Yang Lan, Assistant Professor at the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, The Education University of Hong Kong, has written a book chapter entitled ‘The Role of Feedback Orientation in Converting External Feedback to Learning Opportunities for Implementing Assessment-as-Learning in the Context of Feedback’.

The chapter, which features in the book Assessment as Learning: Maximising Opportunities for Student Learning and Achievement (Z. Yan & L. Yang [Eds], Routledge, 2021), looks at students’ feedback perceptions conceptualised in a construct called feedback orientation and the links with learning opportunities. The key argument is that not all feedback can be effective.

Students have their individual differences, leading their perceptions and interpretations of feedback differently. Dr Yang’s chapter reports key findings from a systematic review to understand students’ feedback perceptions and the links with learning opportunities. It does this through the lens of Feedback Orientation, which is a construct consisting of multi-dimensions of student feedback perceptions: perceived usefulness of feedback (feedback utility), perceived capability to use feedback (feedback self-efficacy), perceived social value to use feedback to maintain and enhance student-teacher relationship (feedback social awareness), and perceived responsibility for using feedback to improve academic performance/achievement (feedback accountability). These dimensions of feedback orientation collectively determine an individual’s overall receptivity to feedback.

This systematic review expands the current scope of understanding and harnessing the power of feedback from the perspective of students. Despite the powerful influence of feedback on learning, we know little about the complexity of the feedback process in authentic learning and teaching situations from a student’s perspective to make it work more effectively in the classroom. The relationship between external feedback and students’ learning opportunities might not be linear. Evidence through meta-analytical studies indicates that students may not take on the feedback because of their perceptions towards it. If students are not internalising feedback to help them engage in learning, achieve, and create new learning opportunities, Assessment as Learning in the context of feedback does not happen. Students’ feedback orientation, therefore, plays an essential role in converting external feedback to learning opportunities to process feedback mindfully. Only when students use teacher feedback to adjust their learning strategies, learning goals and actively monitor their learning progress and achievement can they authentically practice Assessment as Learning in the context of feedback.

In summary, Dr Yang reviews and provides an evidence-based feedback ecological model showing how students can convert external feedback into learning opportunities, including productive feedback processing and learning engagement.

How Chinese–English bilingual fourth graders draw on syntactic awareness in reading comprehension

Improved reading comprehension is the ultimate goal of all models of reading development and programmes of reading instruction. Syntax, or sentence structure, plays a key role in reading comprehension. Syntactic complexity has been consistently identified as the most important determinant of text readability.

But how students draw on their awareness of syntax in their reading remains unclear; the mechanism is even more ambiguous in bilingual students. The research by Dr Tong Xiuhong, Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology (PS), The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK), explored learners’ understanding and awareness of sentence structure – whether and how syntactic awareness supports reading comprehension both within and across first-language (L1) Chinese and second- language (L2) English for Hong Kong bilingual readers.

The study evaluated the direct and indirect contribution of syntactic awareness on L1 and L2 reading comprehension among 227 Hong Kong Chinese–English bilingual fourth graders. The researchers designed language-shared and language-unique tasks of syntactic awareness, assessed reading comprehension in both Chinese and English, and took other reading-related cognitive and metalinguistic measures. The broad goal of the study was to determine how syntactic awareness supports reading comprehension. It addressed this goal with two research questions: (1) whether syntactic awareness is directly and/or indirectly related to reading comprehension in both languages of bilingual students: L1 Chinese and L2 English; and (2) whether and how syntactic awareness contributes to reading comprehension across languages in these bilingual students.

The study measured nonverbal intelligence, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, syntactic awareness, word reading and reading comprehension in both Chinese and English.

The researchers found a statistically significant direct effect of syntactic awareness on reading comprehension in both L1 Chinese and L2 English, along with indirect effects via word reading. Moreover, in both their English and Chinese reading comprehension, students drew on awareness of syntactic features that are shared between English and Chinese more than those unique to either language. The students were also generally more accurate with language-shared than language-unique items, further pointing to the possibility of transfer.

The authors concluded that together these findings from analyses of variance and modeling of within- and cross-language effects takes us a few steps closer to identifying a mechanism that might drive the transfer of syntactic awareness, as the experience of bilingualism appears to build up knowledge of language-shared sentence structures.

Turning to theories of reading comprehension, the findings encourage the inclusion of syntactic awareness as a direct supporter of reading comprehension, and an indirect one via word reading. There are also educational implications of the findings. Since learning to read in L2 can be challenging, the findings suggest that instruction helping bilingual students become more aware of sentence structures that occur in both languages could scaffold learning of L2 syntax via L1 syntax. This teaching might benefit reading comprehension in both L1 and L2.

The study was conducted together with Dr Joyce Kwan Lok-yin, Assistant Professor at PS of EdUHK; Dr Shelly Tong xiuli, Associate Professor in the Department of Human Communication, Development, and Information Sciences at The University of Hong Kong; Professor Hélène Deacon in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the Dalhousie University.

Studying intergenerational support between mothers, adult children during COVID-19

Intergenerational support between aging parents and adult children is important for the well-being of both groups, especially during public health emergencies. However, few previous studies have examined the effects of daily support between parents and children on their well-being during public health emergencies. To bridge this gap, a study by Dr Jiang Da, Assistant Professor at the Department of Special Education and Counselling, The Education University of Hong Kong, examined the association between daily support and well-being in mothers and their adult children during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.

Seventy-seven pairs of mothers, aged 44 to 80 and adult children aged 18 to 44 in mainland China participated in a 14-day daily diary study during a stay-at-home period during the COVID-19 outbreak. For 14 consecutive days, participants reported the daily support they had given and received from their mother or child, the intensity of their daily positive and negative affect, and the number of hours of interaction with the other individual, and rated their daily subjective health.

The analysis was carried out in three parts to determine: (1) whether intergenerational support was reciprocal on a daily basis by examining the association between daily received and provided support; (2) whether the level of being under-benefitted on a day was associated with daily positive and negative affect; and (3) whether receiving and offering support were associated with daily positive and negative affect.

Support received from the partner was associated with support offered to the partner on the same day. This effect was significant for both the mothers and children. A greater level of being under-benefitted was associated with a lower level of positive affect in the children, but not the mothers. These findings suggested that children, but not mothers, felt less positive affect when they provided more support than they received. For mothers, offering more support to children but not receiving support from children was positively associated with positive affect. Mothers reported more positive affect on the days they provided more support to children. For children, receiving more support from mothers but not offering support to mothers was positively associated with positive affect. Children reported more positive affect on the days they received more support from their mothers.

The findings have significantly advanced the literature of intergenerational relationships in adulthood by highlighting the role of daily reciprocity and its implications on daily well-being of aging parents and adult children during a public health crisis. In addition, the findings also have some practical implications. Older adults are generally considered more vulnerable during public health events. During the pandemic, researchers and practitioners recommended that older adults should be given more support. However, the findings from the study suggest that to promote better mental health during a crisis, older adults may be given some opportunities to support their family members, especially co-residing children. Policymakers and practitioners might consider older adults themselves a valuable resource in the work of promoting the health and well-being of older adults and of those they support.

The study was conducted together with Professor Helene Fung Hoi-lam at the Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Role of integrative psycho-biophysiological markers in predicting psychological resilience

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) and parasympathetic nervous systems have been reported to play important roles in regulating emotion and coping with stress. But their direct relationship with psychological resilience remains unclear. These biophysiological features should be considered together with traditional psychometric properties to study resilience more comprehensively.

A Study of Dr Way Lau Kwok-wai, Assistant Professor at the Department of Special Education and Counselling, The Education University of Hong Kong, examined the role of biophysiological features such as vagal tone and HPA reactivity in resilience and determine the predictive power of resilience with the combination of psychological and biophysiological measures.

The study involved 55 male and 52 female university students with no psychiatric disorders. To examine the physiological changes in response to stress, the participants undertook a 15-minute Trier Social Stress Task (TSST), consisting of five minutes’ preparation, and delivering a five-minute speech in their second language and performing mental arithmetic in front of a review panel.

Psychometric properties of resilience were measured at rest; and vagal heart rate variability (HRV), salivary cortisol, and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) levels were captured at baseline during and after the TSST. Multivariate linear regression and support vector regression machine-learning analyses were performed to investigate significant predictors and the predictive power of resilience.

The results showed that positive and negative affects, HRV during the anticipatory phase of stress, and the ratio of cortisol/ DHEA at the first recovery time point were significant predictors of resilience. The addition of biophysiological features increased the predictive power of resilience by 1.2 times compared to psychological features alone. The results from machine-learning analysis further demonstrated that the increased predictive power of resilience by adding the ratio of cortisol/ DHEA was significant in ‘cortisol responders’ (those who demonstrated an increase in cortisol during the stress phrase); whereas a trend level was observed in ‘cortisol non-responders’.

In the investigation of the HPA axis, the researchers did not observe any notable changes in cortisol or DHEA, but there was a marginally significant increase in the ratio of cortisol/ DHEA during and after the TSST in the complete samples, suggesting that the ratio of cortisol/ DHEA could plausibly be a more sensitive marker for acute stress.

The findings extend knowledge from the literature that high vagal activity during the anticipating phase of stress and the ability to restore the balance between cortisol and DHEA after a stress event can be an important feature in predicting resilience. The findings enhance our understanding of the role of vagal tone and HPA functioning in resilience, and further support the notion of combining psychological and biophysiological data in measuring and predicting resilience.

EdUHK carries out research on assessment-as-learning in China

Dr Lao Hongling, Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Department of Curriculum and Instruction (C&I), The Education University of Hong Kong, has co-authored a book chapter entitled ‘Dancing with Chains: How Does Assessment-as-learning Fit in China?’

Assessment-as-learning aims to provide learning opportunities to students via assessment activities, advocating the development of their long-term learning capacity, such as self-regulation and metacognition. Although students are central to the practice, teachers still play a key role, especially in younger age-groups. Teachers are expected to design, teach, monitor, provide feedback, and modify these assessment activities, so that students can maximise their learning during assessment. This casts a heavy burden of expectation on teachers. However, they may not be ready to implement the new procedures, especially in a deep-rooted examination-oriented culture such as that of mainland China. Working from teachers’ perspectives, the chapter explores whether assessment-as-learning can be accommodated by such a culture.

At first glance, the disjuncture between assessment-as-learning and an examination-oriented assessment culture seems obvious. Firstly, assessment-as-learning aims to develop students’ long-term learning capacity, whereas examination-oriented culture prioritises students’ short-term test performance. Furthermore, driven by these different purposes, the assessment tasks themselves have different goals and formats. However, if assessment-as-learning is treated primarily as a learning strategy, rather than an assessment device, the question arises whether it would be a better fit in an examination-oriented culture. The long-term learning capacities developed via assessment-as-learning could be used to enhance short-term test performance. To maximise students’ learning opportunities, the chapter looks at whether it would be possible to integrate assessment-as-learning into all assessment designs, including both formative and summative scenarios.

To answer these questions, the nature of assessment-as-learning is discussed, highlighting its position as a learning strategy instead of a competing assessment procedure. Then it briefly reviews the assessment culture in China and examines the perceived conflicts between assessment-as-learning and the examination-oriented culture, and attempts to seek alternative perspectives that might potentially alleviate such tension.

Finally, a case study provides a snapshot of the current status of assessment-as-learning in China from the teacher’s perspective. It shows how the examination-oriented culture still casts a long shadow over the conceptions and practices of assessment, by limiting their scope and format. It also studies how recent reforms provide new opportunities for the development and implementation of assessment-as-learning as universal learning strategy, integrated into all classroom assessments, as well as being used to improve short-term academic performance.

Co-authored with Dr Yan Zi, Associate Professor at C&I, the chapter features in the book Assessment as Learning: Maximising Opportunities for Student Learning and Achievement (Z. Yan & L. Yang [Eds], Routledge 2021).

To learn more about the publication, please click here.

EdUHK research on how habitus influences migration trajectories of African students in China

Global flows of international students have diversified in recent years. As a result, the common association of this form of mobility with affluent members of the global middle class increasingly does not hold. About six per cent of African tertiary students undertake higher education outside their home country, a higher proportion than in any other region. About half study in Africa; China is the second-largest single host country after France, having hosted 81,562 African students in 2018.

A study by Dr Benjamin Joseph Mulvey, Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Department of International Education (IE), The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK), focused on the migration patterns of African international students in China. The main aim was to establish how international student migration is experienced differentially by students positioned in their home societies in unequal ways. It provided a detailed account of the pre-mobility social backgrounds, overseas experience, and post-study plans of 40 students from 14 African countries, based on data from semi-structured interviews. This enabled a focus on socially-classed differences in pre-mobility habitus, and the mutability of habitus as a consequence of an overseas sojourn. The study revealed that differences in social background in some cases led to distinct trajectories during the sojourn and in terms of post-study plans.

To understand the relationship between study abroad and habitus adjustment, the researchers examined the pre-mobility habitus of students. Students from less advantaged backgrounds tended to reflect on having faced disadvantages and succeeding. There was relatively little evidence of long-term planning for migration, because study abroad was not previously seen as a possibility. In the group of middle-class students, in contrast, studying abroad was always perceived as possible. Many had kinship networks and established study-abroad patterns among their peers.

The study found that pre-mobility habitus was an important factor shaping the trajectories of students’ overseas sojourns. International students from disadvantaged backgrounds tended to be successful academically during their time abroad, as they were able to draw on internal resources developed as a response to a lack of cultural and social capital during childhood and adolescence. These students displayed a strong sense of connection to their home communities, while shunning African students from more privileged backgrounds.

Most students, regardless of their original social background, did not perceive integration in China as possible mainly because of the large cultural gap and racialisation. A profound sense of alienation when initially navigating new social fields in China appeared in most cases to lead to withdrawal from the host society, rather than to attempts to adapt.

In terms of post-graduation plans, a consistent theme among students from disadvantaged backgrounds was giving back to their home communities. The vast majority of middle-class students and graduates, in contrast, planned to move away, some preferring to return home, and some seeking to migrate to third countries for work or further study. A common thread was anxiety around maintaining their middle-class status.

The study was conducted together with Profess Mark Mason at IE of EdUHK. It makes a theoretical contribution to international student migration literature, arguing that the nature of transformation that takes place among student migrants as a result of studying in China is shaped by the nature of mobility, both spatial and social.

To learn more about the study, please click here.

EdUHK research on informal digital learning of English and L2 willingness to communicate

A study by The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) suggests that learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) are more likely to initiate communicating, if they are frequently engaged in Informal Digital Learning of English (IDLE).

In Applied Linguistics and Foreign Language Education, willingness to communicate in a second language (L2 WTC) is widely defined as ‘a readiness to enter into discourse at a particular time with a specific person or persons, using L2’; L2 WTC is considered the last psychological step before actual L2 speaking. With greater L2 learning opportunities in out-of-school digital contexts, young EFL learners are increasingly engaged in IDLE, or independent English activities in informal digital settings without teacher involvement or assessment. Several recent studies investigated the extent to which IDLE can play a role in EFL learners’ L2 WTC. Concurrently, the so-called ‘emotional turn’ or ‘affective turn’ has facilitated research examining the role of emotions in L2 WTC in exam-oriented Asian countries, where English learners tend to experience positive and negative emotions simultaneously throughout and beyond their K–12 formal English learning.

The study by Dr Lee Ju Seong at the Department of English Language Education, used the Korean educational system to examine the relationships between IDLE, positive and negative emotions, and L2 WTC. It specifically explores how enjoyment and anxiety influence the relationship between IDLE and L2 WTC in the exam-oriented EFL context, as well as whether gender and educational stage play any role in these relationships.

The participants included 1,265 Korean EFL learners (764 secondary and 501 tertiary students, and 400 males and 865 females) from 10 secondary schools and one university in two major Korean cities, who completed an online survey.

Using moderated mediation structural equation modelling, the findings revealed that enjoyment and anxiety in learning and speaking English partially mediated the relationship between IDLE and L2 WTC, with enjoyment being a stronger mediator than anxiety. That means practising IDLE predicted a higher level of enjoyment and a lower level of anxiety, which influenced students’ willingness to communicate in English positively.

Furthermore, the relationship between IDLE and second-language anxiety was stronger in females than in males, suggesting that IDLE may be more beneficial to women in terms of reducing English-speaking anxiety. Gender, on the other hand, did not moderate any of the paths between the two emotion factors and L2 WTC. This suggests that men and women’s emotional states influenced their L2 WTC in similar ways.

In light of the findings, the authors recommended that EFL teachers pay more attention to emotions and their impact on students’ L2 WTC by fostering a positive classroom environment to reduce anxiety, and that teachers assist individual students in designing and participating in their own IDLE activities.

The study was conducted together with Dr Xie Qin, Assistant Professor at the Department of Linguistics and Modern Language Studies, EdUHK, and Dr Lee Kilryoung at the Department of English Education, The Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, South Korea.

To learn more about the research, please click here.