Original Research
Validating Students' Planned Engagement in Learning Arabic through Six Psychological Constructs
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Engagement measures in language education often mix what learners do with what they say they are prepared to do, and the two are not the same thing. This study treats readiness as a construct in its own right. Planned engagement was defined as the psychological preparation that precedes visible participation. This study examines that earlier stage through the concept of planned engagement among 213 learners of L2 Arabic at Indian universities. Drawing on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), the model combines intention, attitude toward behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control with enjoyment and anxiety. These six Lower-Order Constructs (LOCs) were examined as indicators of a reflective-reflective Higher-Order Construct (HOC). Data came from a 26-item bilingual Arabic-English questionnaire and were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Intention, attitude toward behavior, and perceived behavioral control were most closely related to the HOC, followed by subjective norms and enjoyment, whereas anxiety showed an inverse relationship. The pattern suggests that planned engagement can represent a shared state of readiness before learners participate. Rather than treating readiness as engagement itself, the measure keeps the two apart. It may therefore help researchers and instructors examine how prepared learners feel to take part before their classroom behavior is observed.
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Keywords
Planned Engagement; L2 Arabic; Student Engagement; Theory of Planned Behavior; Language Learning
Author(s) Information
Publisher’s Note
The claims, arguments, and counter-arguments made in this article are exclusively those of the contributing authors. Hence, they do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the authors’ affiliated institutions, or EUROKD as the publisher, the editors and the reviewers of the article.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the participating students, instructors, and universities that supported data collection in India. The first author also expresses his gratitude to the King Khalid University Council for providing travel funding for his research visit to India.
Funding
This work was supported by the Deanship of Research and Graduate Studies at King Khalid University through the General Research Project, grant GRP/35/45.
CRediT Authorship Contribution Statement
Munassir Alhamami: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Writing – Original Draft, Project Administration, Funding Acquisition, Writing – Review & Editing
Graham Crookes: Writing – Review & Editing
Generative AI Use Disclosure Statement
During preparation and revision, the authors used ChatGPT (OpenAI) for language editing, sentence-level rewriting, and readability. All AI-assisted revisions were checked against the questionnaire, data files, statistical output, and cited sources. The authors made all substantive and interpretive decisions and take full responsibility for the final manuscript.
Ethics Declarations
World Medical Association (WMA) Declaration of Helsinki–Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Participants
The Research Ethics Committee at King Khalid University approved the study (ECM#2024-2106; committee registration HAPO-06-B-001). Participation was voluntary, informed consent was obtained, and the study followed the Declaration of Helsinki.
Competing Interests
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Data Availability
The dataset is not publicly available because of participant privacy and institutional data-management conditions. Requests for de-identified data may be considered by the corresponding author subject to those conditions.