https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8458-4386
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Abstract
Reading ability has had a prominent role in English language education in Taiwan. The comprehension of materials and teacher instruction in English depends on students’ English proficiency, and their achievement emotions regarding competence-related activities may influence how they read and complete tasks in English. This study aims to investigate the mediating role of positive and negative achievement emotions in the relationship between instructional clarity, English proficiency, and reading strategies. A questionnaire survey was conducted with 640 university students in Taiwan. The findings corroborated control-value theory. The structural model revealed that the participants’ use of reading strategies was strongly influenced by teachers’ instructional clarity and students’ English reading proficiency. Only positive emotions mediated the relation between instructional clarity, English proficiency, and reading strategies. Negative emotions, though correlated with the two predictors and the reading strategies, did not mediate the relationship between them.
Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 Wolf et al. (Citation2013) suggested a range of sample size requirements from 30 to 460 cases for SEM models. In the present study, the 640 participants represented a sufficient and appropriate sample size for the SEM models.
2 These participants were selected based on two grounds: (1) EAP courses are compulsory for all university students in Taiwan regardless of academic majors, and (2) the three universities all adopted a standardised English test (i.e. CSEPT) that served as a fair and reliable measurement of the students’ English proficiency across different majors.