Justice and L2 motivational network: An EBICglasso based analysis of English language learners' motivation, goal orientation, mindset, and justice in the classroom

Abstract

This study models second language (L2) motivational factors and classroom justice in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners via a network psychometric method. The study formulates a network of motivational aspects including expectancy beliefs, goal orientations, ideal and ought-to L2 selves, learning experiences, intended effort, mindsets, and anxiety and distributive, procedural, and interactional justice dimensions as an interconnected system based on the expectancy-value-cost theory, achievement goal theory, the L2 Motivational Self System, implicit theories of ability, and organizational justice frameworks. The analysis of the data on 434 Turkish undergraduate EFL students using network analysis demonstrates that the study has a moderately dense network with two major communities: cohesive justice community that offers social-relational scaffolding and motivational-affective community that focuses on English learning experience, ideal L2 self, and intended effort. The most central node, which has a significant impact, is intended effort, and the facets of justice, especially interactional and procedural justice, serve as bridges between social perceptions and cognitive-affective engagement. Perceived costs and fixed mindsets are maladaptive factors with inhibitory functions and relative isolation. The results build on the dynamic systems models of L2 acquisition by integrating the perceptions of justice into the motivational ecologies of the learners and emphasizing their control role in promoting persistence and reducing avoidance. The network approach, methodologically, provides a replicable framework of future research, and implications of the study in practice with regard to pedagogical intervention to promote justice to improve motivational outcomes.