A Latent Profile Analysis of Academic Emotions: Associations With Perceived Classroom Affordance and Engagement Among Chinese Ethnic Minority EFL Students

ABSTRACT Within the framework of control‐value theory (CVT), this study employed latent profile analysis to identify distinct academic emotion profiles (encompassing enjoyment, anxiety, boredom and foreign language peace of mind) among 1088 secondary school ethnic minority English‐as‐a‐foreign‐language (EFL) learners in China. Four emotion groups were identified: negative emotions, moderate‐level mixed emotions, high‐level mixed emotions and positive emotions. Wald chi‐square tests revealed significant differences in engagement across the four groups in behavioural and cognitive engagement, with the positive emotion group scoring the highest, followed sequentially by the high‐level mixed emotion, moderate‐level mixed emotion and negative emotion groups. In emotional engagement, the positive emotion group still ranked highest and the negative emotion group lowest, while no significant difference was observed between the two mixed emotion groups. Multinomial logistic regression analysis indicated that perceived classroom affordance significantly predicted emotion group memberships. Higher affordance perception increased the likelihood of belonging to the positive emotion group while reducing the probability of classification into the high‐level mixed, moderate‐level mixed and negative emotion groups in sequence. These findings extend the CVT by illuminating the complex emotional experiences of underrepresented ethnic minority EFL learners in China and their correlates with environmental and behavioural factors.