Exploring the dynamic relations between second language students’ classroom engagement and task value belief: A longitudinal study

Student engagement and subjective task value belief are critical psychological constructs driving the second language (L2) learning process. L2 research has established the positive effect of subjective task value belief on student engagement in the L2 classroom, while the reverse effect has received some theoretical and empirical support in the broader field of educational psychology. However, theoretically grounded empirical work on testing the reciprocal relationship between these two constructs remains absent in L2 research. This study sought to examine the longitudinal reciprocal relationship between L2 students’ classroom engagement and their subjective task value belief – the relationship that is neither sufficiently theorized nor empirically tested in the L2 learning context. Data were collected across three time points over an academic semester from 920 undergraduate students learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam. Random intercept cross lagged panel modelling was conducted to examine the carry-over (or autoregressive) effects of L2 students' subjective task value belief (or their classroom engagement) at one time on itself at a subsequent time, as well as the concurrent effects and spill-over (or cross-lagged) effects of L2 students’ subjective task value belief on their classroom engagement and vice versa. L2 students’ classroom engagement and their subjective task value belief not only co-varied within individuals concurrently, but variation in one construct led to subsequent variation in another over the semester. Findings confirm the dynamic, situation- and time-specific patterns of relationship between the two constructs in line with the expectancy value theory (Eccles & Wigfield, 2020a) and the development-in-sociocultural context model of student engagement (Wang, Henry, & Degol, 2020). •One of the few L2 studies using random intercept cross lagged panel modelling.•Mutual influence between subjective task value belief and L2 engagement over time.•Co-variance between the two constructs within individuals at the same time point.•Prior subjective task value belief predicted subsequent L2 engagement and vice versa.•Proposal for simultaneous growth in L2 engagement and subjective task value belief.