Tracing The Construction Of Chinese College Students’ Psychological Capital In English-as-a-Foreign-Language Learning

Under the rubric of positive psychology,Luthans redefines psychology capital(hereafter,Psy Cap)as a kind of developable positive qualities which could strengthen individual competitive advantage.Currently,most relative studies concentrate on management,exploring the status quo of employees’ Psy Cap,the relationship between Psy Cap and work performance and the like.With an increasing advancement of Psy Cap,more and more research has turned to the educational field,taking a synchronic perspective to explore the relationship between teachers’ Psy Cap and professional wellbeing,students’ Psy Cap and academic achievement,as well as other learning-related factors.However,there is no research about English-as-a-foreign-language learning(hereafter,EFL)Psy Cap,nor studies focusing on the trait-like nature of Psy Cap from the diachronic perspective.Based on Psy Cap and dynamic systems theory,the study traces Chinese college students’ EFL learning Psy Cap from diachronic and synchronic perspectives.Via mixed research method of quantitative and qualitative combination(i.e.,questionnaire survey,semi-structure interview,retrospective qualitative interview),the data is analyzed throughout SPSS and content analysis.There are three major findings from the data analysis.First,Chinese EFL learners’ Psy Cap is a multi-dimensional construct composed of self-efficacy,hope,optimism and resilience.Second,Chinese EFL learners’ Psy Cap develops with ebbs and flows,with variations between English and non-English majors.Third,the dimensions of Chinese EFL learners’ Psy Cap interact.This study is the first attempt to make a definition—Chinese EFL learning Psy Cap,and take a panoramic view to trace its development,which not only fills theoretical gap in the context of Chinese EFL learning Psy Cap but also broadens the empirical field of psychological capital.What’s more,this study introduces a novice perspective on second language acquisition(hereafter,SLA),offering a theoretical foundation for more intervention studies on Chinese EFL learning Psy Cap.Finally,there are three meaningful pedagogical and research implications.First,teachers are encouraged to pay attention to students’ learning process,making suitable adjustments to cultivate students’ positive qualities.Second,learners are supposed to develop their psychological capital for language learning.Finally,future teaching technique research could explore the effect of positive intervention on learners’ EFL learning Psy Cap.