The aim of this study was to examine the effect of dynamic assessment (DA) on Iraqi EFL learners’ reading self-efficacy (RSE) and engagement, and their perceptions of DA impact on these constructs. The study adopted a quasi-experimental mixed-methods design, based on Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and Bandura’s self-efficacy theory, with 80 intermediate-level Iraqi EFL learners. Quantitative data were collected applying the Reading Self-Efficacy Scale (RSES) and the Reading Engagement Survey (RES), whereas qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The results showed that DA had a positive significant impact on RSE, with a large effect size. Also, a significant change in reading engagement over time was found, with a medium effect size. Analysis of interview data further showed that learners perceived DA as supporting RSE through reduced anxiety, greater perceived competence, and increased autonomy. It was also found to promote cognitive, behavioral, and affective dimensions of engagement. The mediation in the Zone of Proximal Development emerged as a recurring feature of these experiences. These results contribute to the existing literature of DA in EFL and suggest that incorporating mediation in EFL instruction may help reduce learners’ anxiety and enhance their flow and engagement in reading tasks and activities.
Although corrective feedback has been widely studied in EFL contexts, limited research has examined how specific types of classroom feedback relate to non-English major students’ growth-oriented learning behavior (GOLB), particularly in higher education. Previous research has tended to emphasize linguistic accuracy, with less attention to the affective, motivational, and behavioral processes through which learners receive and use feedback. To address this gap, this quantitatively driven convergent mixed-methods study investigated non-English major EFL students’ perceptions of different types of feedback and their perceived contributions to GOLB. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 598 non-English major university students in Thailand. The quantitative phase examined 10 feedback types across four dimensions of GOLB: motivation to improve, learning from mistakes, willingness to apply feedback, and persistence and effort. The qualitative phase analyzed responses to open-ended questionnaire items to contextualize the statistical results. Based entirely on participants’ self-reported perceptions, the findings revealed a clear preference for positive reinforcement, delayed feedback, and explicit correction. Participants rated these three types as receiving higher mean ratings for their motivation, confidence, and intended engagement with feedback than repetition, metalinguistic feedback, and self-correction. Positive reinforcement emerged as the most consistently valued feedback type across all four dimensions. Qualitative findings further showed that students preferred feedback that was encouraging, clear, actionable, and accessible, with many favoring feedback delivered in both Thai and English. The findings suggest that effective feedback is not only corrective but also affectively supportive, cognitively accessible, and linguistically responsive to learners’ needs. The study concludes by proposing the 3C2A Feedback Guideline as a provisional, data-informed framework for learner-responsive feedback in non-English major EFL classrooms.
Given the growing importance of teacher work engagement for instructional quality and student learning, the availability of valid and context-sensitive measurement instruments has become increasingly important. Although several instruments have been developed to assess work engagement, they were primarily designed for general occupational or educational settings and do not adequately capture the distinctive pedagogical, technological, and interactional demands of online English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instruction. To address this gap, this study developed and validated the Teacher Work Engagement Questionnaire (TWEQ), specifically designed to assess EFL teachers’ work engagement in online instructional settings. The study employed Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to examine the factor structure, reliability, and construct validity of the TWEQ, which was administered to a sample of 225 EFL teachers. The results supported a four-factor structure comprising emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and social engagement. The instrument also demonstrated strong internal consistency and satisfactory convergent and discriminant validity, providing robust evidence of its psychometric quality. These results indicate that the TWEQ is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing teacher work engagement in online EFL contexts. By offering a context-specific measure of teacher work engagement, the TWEQ extends the existing literature and provides a valuable diagnostic and research tool for investigating teacher engagement in online EFL education. It may also assist teacher educators, administrators, and policymakers in identifying engagement-related strengths and areas requiring targeted professional support.
Abstract In listening assessment, a domain definition inference of temporal fluency features remains under-researched, posing a challenge for test developers in creating authentic listening texts. To address this issue, this paper reports two studies. Study I examined interrelations of temporal fluency features (e.g., articulation rate) in lecture settings. Lecture passages in TOEFL iBT and IELTS were compared to real-world data (Fluency Corpus of Academic English Lectures [FCAEL]). Results showed both similarities (e.g., positive association between articulation rate and end-clause silent pause frequency), and dissimilarities (e.g., correlations between articulation rate and mid-clause filled pause frequency and between repetition frequency and mid-clause filled pause frequency) among the three. Since correlations do not necessarily indicate that disfluencies co-occur, Study II investigated co-occurrences of two disfluency features that indicated high correlations in Study I (i.e., repetitions and filled pauses) in FCAEL and TOEFL. IELTS was excluded because of zero observations of repetitions. Results from generalized-linear mixed-effects models showed proportional similarities between the two, while paired-sample t-tests found significantly lower frequency of both co-occurrences and non-co-occurrences in TOEFL compared to FCAEL. The study proposes thresholds of co-occurrences of repetitions and filled-pauses in academic English lecture texts. The study also argues that variability should be considered construct-relevant, instead of noise.
Abstract This study investigates Korean EFL learners’ performance on TOEIC-style word-form items from the perspective of morphological competence. Although morphological awareness has been widely discussed in relation to second language reading and vocabulary development, less attention has been paid to how learners handle different morphological item types in standardized grammar and vocabulary tasks. To address this gap, 277 Korean university students completed a 30-item TOEIC-style word-form test covering five item types: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and participial/comparative forms. The study also examined the association between test performance and learners’ global perceived reading confidence. A repeated-measures analysis showed that accuracy varied across morphological item types. Noun and verb items showed relatively higher accuracy, whereas participial/comparative items showed comparatively lower accuracy than the other categories. In addition, perceived reading confidence was modestly but positively associated with overall test performance. These findings suggest that TOEIC-style word-form items require learners to integrate morphological, syntactic, and semantic cues under time constraints. The study contributes to L2 morphological assessment research by showing that performance in standardized test contexts is not evenly distributed across morphological categories and that morpho-syntactically complex forms may require more targeted instructional attention. Pedagogically, the findings point to the need for explicit instruction on word-form selection, participial modification, comparative structures, and form-function relationships in TOEIC preparation and broader EFL reading instruction.
