The moderating effect of multilingualism on the relationship between EFL learners’ grit, enjoyment, and literacy achievement

Abstract

Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions: The study investigated the relationship between the L2 grit, domain-general grit, foreign language enjoyment (FLE), multilingualism, and self-reported literacy achievement of students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) in public upper-secondary schools in Norway. Specifically, the study sought to identify predictors of students’ EFL reading and writing achievement and examine the moderating effect of multilingualism on the relationship between L2 grit, FLE, and such achievement. Design/Methodology/Approach: A quantitative research design was employed, and data were collected through an online questionnaire. Convenience sampling was used to recruit 181 upper-secondary school students learning EFL in southeastern Norway (one participant’s responses were discarded because they were incomplete). Data and Analysis: Paired and independent sample t-tests and moderated multiple regression were used to analyse the collected data. Findings/Conclusions: The study found that the perseverance component of L2 grit and daily language use (one of two aspects of multilingualism used in the study) positively predicted both reading and writing achievement (the consistency of interest component of L2 grit only positively predicted writing achievement). In addition, daily language use was found to negatively moderate the relationship between the perseverance component of L2 grit and reading and writing achievement, with the moderating effect dissipating as additional languages were used daily. Originality: The study is among the first to explore the interplay between grit and multilingualism in the Nordic region and examine the relationship between multilingualism, grit, FLE, and achievement globally. Significance/Implications: The study’s findings underscore the need for researchers to develop and use more comprehensive multidimensional measures of multilingualism when investigating its effects on language learning in formal contexts, design scales for grit that target specific language skills, and broaden grit-related research to cover the learning of multiple language and non-language subjects concurrently.