Unlocking potential: language mindsets, psychological well-being, and English achievement among Chinese higher vocational students.
- 1Department of Basic Education, Shanghai Zhongqiao Vocational and Technical University, Shanghai, China.
Abstract
This cross-sectional study examined how language mindset beliefs are associated with psychological well-being and English achievement among Chinese higher vocational students, an underrepresented population in educational psychology. A total of 1,030 students from a private vocational and technical university completed the PERMA-Profiler and Language Mindset Inventory and reported their latest College English Test Band 4 (CET-4) score. Spearman rank-order correlations, regression-based moderation analysis with heteroscedasticity-robust standard errors, Mann-Whitney U tests, and Kruskal-Wallis H tests were used. Growth language mindset (GLM) was strongly associated with overall psychological well-being (rs = 0.589), with its strongest observed PERMA subscale associations involving meaning (rs = 0.583), accomplishment (rs = 0.568), and engagement (rs = 0.542). Fixed language mindset (FLM) showed weaker associations with positive PERMA subscale scores and its strongest association was with negative emotion (rs = 0.408). CET-4 scores were only weakly associated with well-being (rs = 0.110), GLM (rs = 0.127), and FLM (rs = -0.080). Neither the well-being × GLM nor the well-being × FLM interaction was significant, indicating no evidence that either language mindset factor moderated the association between well-being and CET-4 achievement. Demographic differences in CET-4 achievement by gender, only-child status, and hometown locale were statistically significant but small; male students also reported slightly higher FLM scores than female students. These findings suggest that the two theory-grounded LMI composite scores are more closely related to learners' psychological functioning than to standardized English achievement, although their current-sample structural distinctiveness should be interpreted cautiously.
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BibTeX
@article{wei2026unlocking,
title = {{Unlocking potential: language mindsets, psychological well-being, and English achievement among Chinese higher vocational students.}},
author = {Qian Wei},
journal = {Frontiers in psychology},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1969912},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42898344},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Unlocking potential: language mindsets, psychological well-being, and English achievement among Chinese higher vocational students.
AU - Qian Wei
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/05
JO - Frontiers in psychology
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1969912
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42898344
AB - This cross-sectional study examined how language mindset beliefs are associated with psychological well-being and English achievement among Chinese higher vocational students, an underrepresented population in educational psychology. A total of 1,030 students from a private vocational and technical university completed the PERMA-Profiler and Language Mindset Inventory and reported their latest College English Test Band 4 (CET-4) score. Spearman rank-order correlations, regression-based moderation analysis with heteroscedasticity-robust standard errors, Mann-Whitney U tests, and Kruskal-Wallis H tests were used. Growth language mindset (GLM) was strongly associated with overall psychological well-being (rs = 0.589), with its strongest observed PERMA subscale associations involving meaning (rs = 0.583), accomplishment (rs = 0.568), and engagement (rs = 0.542). Fixed language mindset (FLM) showed weaker associations with positive PERMA subscale scores and its strongest association was with negative emotion (rs = 0.408). CET-4 scores were only weakly associated with well-being (rs = 0.110), GLM (rs = 0.127), and FLM (rs = -0.080). Neither the well-being × GLM nor the well-being × FLM interaction was significant, indicating no evidence that either language mindset factor moderated the association between well-being and CET-4 achievement. Demographic differences in CET-4 achievement by gender, only-child status, and hometown locale were statistically significant but small; male students also reported slightly higher FLM scores than female students. These findings suggest that the two theory-grounded LMI composite scores are more closely related to learners' psychological functioning than to standardized English achievement, although their current-sample structural distinctiveness should be interpreted cautiously.
SN - 1664-1078
ER -