The development of English learning motivation and learners' identities: A structural equation modeling analysis of longitudinal data from Chinese universities

This paper reports a structural equation modeling analysis of the relationship between English learning motivation types and learners' identity changes. The data were collected through a questionnaire in a longitudinal study, implemented five times in four years, on over 1300 students from five Chinese universities. According to SEM results of the five tests, two-directional relations were found between the latent variables of motivation and identity change, yet the influence of the former on the later was stronger at the beginning, while the reverse was the case towards graduation. Positive correlations were constantly found between individual development motivation and positive self-confidence identity change, between going-abroad motivation and subtractive identity change, and between immediate achievement motivation and learning situation motivation. The results indicated relevance of L2 identity changes in English as a Foreign Language environments, the ranked weight of motivation categories in terms of influence, and the emergent nature of L2 identity as well as its impact on motivation.