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Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science

ISSN Online: 2576-0548 ISSN Print: 2576-0556 CODEN: JHASAY
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ArticleOpen Access http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2025.09.010

Relationships Among Critical Thinking, Foreign Language Enjoyment, and EFL Writing Performance

Siyu Jiang1, Ping Li2,*

1Foreign Language College, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, Shandong, China.

2International College, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, Fujian, China.

*Corresponding author: Ping Li

Published: October 15, 2025

Abstract

Amidst the unprecedented global transformations of the 21st century, cultivating China’s international communication capacity has become paramount, with English as a foreign language (EFL) writing proficiency assuming a pivotal role. Grounded in the rational-emotional theory, this study examined the mediating role of foreign language (FL) enjoyment in the relationship between critical thinking ability and EFL writing performance among 155 college EFL learners, employing path analysis. The findings revealed that: (1) both critical thinking ability and FL enjoyment served as significant positive predictors of EFL writing performance; (2) critical thinking ability significantly and positively predicted EFL enjoyment; and (3) a significant indirect effect emerged, whereby critical thinking ability positively influenced EFL writing performance through the mediating pathway of FL enjoyment. This indicates that FL enjoyment partially mediated the positive relationship between critical thinking ability and EFL writing performance. These results contribute valuable theoretical insights into the interplay of emotional and cognitive factors in EFL learning, while simultaneously offering practical pedagogical avenues for enhancing students’ EFL writing performance.

Keyword

Critical thinking; Foreign language enjoyment; EFL writing performance

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This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license, which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not modified or adapted.
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How to cite this paper

Relationships Among Critical Thinking, Foreign Language Enjoyment, and EFL Writing Performance

How to cite this paper: Siyu Jiang, Ping Li. (2025) Relationships Among Critical Thinking, Foreign Language Enjoyment, and EFL Writing Performance. Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science9(9), 1748-1757.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2025.09.010