Chinese EFL learners’ basic psychological needs satisfaction and foreign language emotions: a person-centered approach

Abstract The importance of emotion in language learning is well recognized, but the significant contribution of basic psychological needs (BPNs) to emotion has been neglected. Moreover, prior studies have mainly used variable-centered approaches to investigate associations between emotions and their antecedents, which has uncovered only part of their relationships. Therefore, this study first set out to reveal the general levels, and gender differences of BPNs satisfaction (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) and foreign language emotions (enjoyment, anxiety, and boredom), and the bivariate correlations between them among 948 Chinese university English foreign language learners. Using a person-centered approach (i.e., latent profile analysis), the present study further investigated the latent profiles of BPNs satisfaction and examined how emotions differ across these profiles. Results revealed middle to high levels of BPNs satisfaction, enjoyment, and anxiety, but a low level of boredom. Males reported higher levels of BPNs satisfaction, enjoyment, and lower anxiety than females. Four profiles of BPNs satisfaction were identified, namely average-satisfaction, below-average satisfaction, low-satisfaction, and high-satisfaction. The majority of students fell into the average-satisfaction profile. Students in the high-satisfaction had the most positive emotional outcomes, while those in the low-satisfaction reported the opposite pattern. Theoretical and pedagogical implications were then provided.