“Does my teacher believe I can improve?”: The role of EFL learners’ meta-lay theories in their growth mindset and online self-regulation

While there is growing awareness that self-regulated learning (SRL) is an essential component of 21st-century skills, this topic is in its infancy within online second language (L2) education. Complicated by the impact of racing tech, online L2 education presents both opportunities and challenges, such that developing self-regulated language learners gains immediate urgency. Despite the large body of SRL literature on traditional classroom settings, very little is known about whether and how language learners at lower educational levels self-regulate their language learning in online classes and the degree to which their language teachers' beliefs shape their online SRL strategies. This study examined middle and senior high school EFL (English as a foreign language) learners' SRL strategy use in online language classes and its relations with learners' growth language mindset and meta-lay theories about their English teachers. Based on data collected from 524 students (M = 14.54 years) in northwestern China, the present study revealed a “meta-lay theory—mindset—SRL” model pertaining to students' perceptions about their English teachers' intellectual beliefs, which further predicted students' SRL strategies in online classes with the growth mindset as a mediator in between. Additionally, the study gauged the uniqueness of younger language learners’ language mindsets and meta-lay theories and the context-specificity of SRL strategies in online language classes. Pedagogical implications and suggestions for future research were also discussed.