Modeling Chinese high school EFL writers’ language mindsets, goal orientations, and feedback-seeking behavior: the interaction effect between language mindsets and writing competence

The feedback-seeking behavior (FSB) framework offers a novel perspective for analyzing second language (L2) learners’ proactive agency in processing teacher feedback. While research has identified associations among language mindsets, goal orientations, and FSB in L2 speaking classes, this line of inquiry should be extended to L2 writing education where students’ responses to teacher feedback have received increasing attention. Particularly, the role of writing competence in this process needs to be examined. This study was conducted at a prestigious public high school in southwest mainland China, with a sample of 462 12th grade students. Our path model provided the following three major findings. First, growth mindset students may pursue learning or performance-approach goals. Regardless of writing competence, they would both inquire and monitor teacher feedback. Second, learning oriented growth mindset students preferred feedback monitoring, whereas performance-approach oriented growth mindset students preferred feedback inquiry. Third, only highly proficient fixed mindset students pursued performance-approach goals, which could lead to both feedback monitoring and inquiry, with a slight inclination toward the latter; meanwhile, less proficient fixed mindset students were unlikely to do so. Finally, we make pedagogical suggestions based on these findings.