How L2 selves shape attitudes toward AI-assisted language learning: the mediating roles of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in cross-cultural Asian contexts

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between the L2 motivational self-system and attitudes toward AI-enhanced second language (L2) learning, and tests whether intrinsic and extrinsic motivation mediate these relationships among students learning Chinese or English as a foreign language in Thailand, Macau, and Mainland China. Questionnaire data were collected from 361 participants. Correlational analysis, hierarchical regression, and a bootstrapping approach were used to test mediational relations. Both the ought-to L2 self and the ideal L2 self were significantly associated with attitudes toward AI-enhanced L2 learning, with the ideal L2 self showing the stronger association. In the overall sample, and in the Thai and Mainland Chinese samples analyzed separately, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation statistically fully mediated the association between the ought-to L2 self and attitudes toward AI-enhanced L2 learning. In the Macau sample, extrinsic motivation was more involved than intrinsic motivation in transmitting this effect. For the ideal L2 self, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation only partially mediated the relationship with attitudes toward AI-enhanced L2 learning. Positive attitudes toward AI-enhanced L2 learning are not formed merely through future self-representations; they are also linked to learners’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. By examining the interaction between the L2 motivational self-system and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation across different regions, this study extends L2 motivation research to the area of AI-enhanced language learning.