A latent profile analysis of Chinese EFL learners’ enjoyment and anxiety in reading and writing: associations with imaginative capacity and story continuation writing performance

Abstract Research on second language (L2) enjoyment and anxiety has mainly focused on independent reading and writing tasks. An integrated reading-writing task involves students in both reading and writing processes, raising the possibility of different combinations of, and unique interaction between, enjoyment and anxiety across reading and writing in such a task. This study aimed to identify integrated reading-writing task based enjoyment and anxiety profiles using a person-centered latent profile analysis (LPA) and to explore their relationships with imagination and performance. Six hundred and seventy-nine 12th-grade Chinese students completed an integrated reading-writing task, namely a story continuation writing task (SCWT), and a questionnaire measuring their L2 reading enjoyment and anxiety, writing enjoyment and anxiety, and imaginative capacity. The LPA identified four different profiles: (1) the moderate-enjoyment/moderate-anxiety group, (2) the moderate-enjoyment/low-anxiety group, (3) the high-enjoyment/moderate-anxiety group, and (4) the low-enjoyment/high-anxiety group. Further, a student’s profile membership was strongly predicted by imaginative capacity. Those in the moderate-enjoyment/low-anxiety group scored highest in story continuation writing performance. Pedagogical implications tailored to integrated reading-writing task instruction are discussed.