The Mediating Role of Self-Regulation between Student Engagement and Motivation among Iranian EFL Learners: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Abstract

The relationship between student engagement and motivation has been shown to be significant. However, the nature of this association still needs to be further known. Self-regulation also has a close connection with both student engagement and motivation. The present study thus aimed at investigating this relationship by examining the mediating role of self-regulated language learning between the four dimensions of student engagement and language learning motivation among Iranian EFL learners. As an ancillary objective, the study tried to explore the relationships between dimensions of student engagement and self-regulated language learning. The participants, selected based on convenience sampling, comprised 146 young adult male language learners learning English at the Iran Language Institute (ILI), Gorgan, Iran. The participants were given three questionnaires. In order to analyze the data, structural equation modeling (SEM) was run by using the SmartPLS software, version 2. The results of path analysis indicated that self-regulated language learning failed to mediate between the four dimensions of student engagement and language learning motivation. The findings also showed that there were positive significant relationships between self-regulated language learning and three dimensions of student engagement, i.e., behavioral, cognitive, and agentic. However, the relationship between self-regulated language learning and emotional engagement was not statistically significant.