Research into second language acquisition (SLA) has shown that individual difference (ID) variables can be strong predictors of language achievement (e.g., Dornyei, 2003; Skehan, 2003). Traditionally, this research conceptualized ID variables as static and monolithic variables (e.g., Dornyei, 2010). More recently scholars have questioned this…

Purpose: Personality traits are assumed to influence cognitive processes as well as academic motivation and learning approaches of the students. Based on these assumptions, the present study investigates the association of HEXACO personality traits with academic motivation as well as influence of those traits on students' learning approaches in…

The purpose of the present study is to determine the difference between preservice music teachers' levels of academic motivations and their genders, their high schools, lessons that they were failed, lessons that they were failed for the reason of absenteeism, and their career choice. Also, the relationship between the preservice music teachers'…

Gamification has been reported to increase learning motivation and produce positive learning behaviors or outcomes. As gamification research continues to mature, more studies are investigating factors that may contribute to the varying effectiveness of gamification, as well as factors that may moderate its effects. This study investigated whether…

Contract cheating -- students outsourcing assignments to ghost-writers and submitting it as their own -- is an issue facing tertiary education institutions globally. Approximately 3% to 11% of higher education students may engage on contract cheating. Understanding why nearly 90% of students do "not" engage in contract cheating is as…

Grit is among the individual difference (ID) variables that have recently come to the attention of researchers investigating second language acquisition. While some empirical evidence has been accumulated, it is clearly scant and limited, also because of the fact that many studies have looked into domain-general grit rather than this attribute as…

This longitudinal study tracked ten L1 English-speaking learners' acquisition of Spanish voiceless stops /ptk/ by measuring their voice onset time (VOT) over an academic year in two distinct contexts of learning. Living in a Spanish-speaking dorm, participants in the experimental group experienced a "domestic partial-immersion," in which…

Relatively few studies in the field of second language acquisition have undertaken to investigate the interrelationships of constellations of individual difference variables. This is certainly true of how complexes of ID factors impact motivation to learn an additional language. In order to address this gap, the paper reports a study that examined…

In recent years sleep rhythm or chronotype have become one of the most studied subjects especially in psychology and educational environments. Chronotype is an important variable in interpersonal differences and it is related to psychological and physiological differences among people. There are three main chronotypes or eveningness, morningness…

This study examines the predictive effects of motivational beliefs and self-efficacy on multiple dimensions of self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies in English as a foreign language (EFL) writing. Undergraduate students (n = 389) were recruited voluntarily from four universities in mainland China. They were invited to complete a set of…

Motivational regulation strategies have been used as active forms of promoting motivation in online and classroom learning. Based on the motivational regulation model combining both contextual and individual factors, this study examined how students' academic levels (undergraduate vs. graduate) and the type of course delivery mode (online vs.…

Although boredom can be regarded as a ubiquitous emotion in most educational settings, including foreign and second language classrooms, and this condition can have a detrimental effect on the process of learning, it has to a large extent escaped the attention of second language acquisition researchers dealing with individual learner differences.…

In this paper, the differences in academic motivation between university students of traditional (in-classroom) and online (distance) education were investigated. It has been hypothesized that online (distance) students possess stronger intrinsic motivation than traditional (in-classroom) students. The random sample consisted of 386 students.…

Flow, a subjective state of optimal engagement and immersion, is characterized by a balance of perceived challenges and skills, interest, attention, and a sense of control (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Investigating flow in language learning can provide valuable insights into effective learning processes and contexts (Egbert, 2003). Self-regulated…

Despite the growing body of studies on collocation learning in SLA research, there are hardly any studies taking the perspective of the individual learner or studies that have examined the effect of individual differences. This study--a qualitative component of a mixed-methods longitudinal project--presents an in-depth exploration of the intro-…