How epistemic anxiety and curiosity link perceived value and intended efforts in the language classroom

Abstract

AbstractLanguage learner anxiety—and emotions in general—has constantly attracted academic attention in the second language acquisition (SLA) field for almost 40 years (Plonsky et al., 2022). However, within the context of the foreign language classroom, epistemic emotions remain understudied, despite their demonstrated effects on performance (D'Mello et al., 2014) and learners’ cognitive processes (Muis et al., 2018a). Epistemic emotions are academic emotions that “relate to knowledge-generating qualities of cognitive tasks and activities” (Pekrun et al., 2017, p. 1268). Their object focus lies in the generation of knowledge (Vogl et al., 2019a) and therefore are prominent during learning activities in academic settings. Recent research in SLA shows that epistemic emotions play a considerable role in instructed language learning (Fraschini, 2023; Nakamura et al., 2022). This current study analyses how two common epistemic emotions—epistemic anxiety and curiosity—mediate the link between a learner's perceived value and intended effort. Empirical data was collected using a tailor-designed survey administered to learners of Korean as a foreign language enrolled in a hybrid university course. Results show that epistemic anxiety and curiosity are independent of each other and coexist during language learning tasks. Furthermore, both epistemic emotions significantly correlate to a learner's perceived value of language learning, with opposite effects. While learners with a higher perceived value tend to be more curious, they also appear less anxious. These results are further discussed considering teachers’ and learners’ characteristics and in relation to theoretical and pedagogical implications for the language classroom.