To investigate the role of Chinese culture on students' motivation, self-efficacy, willingness, and frequency for completing a difficult public task (speaking English as a foreign language), we investigated the extent to which Chinese English-learning students' distal achievement motives of hope for success and fear of failure were related to their proximal achievement goals , and subsequently predicted their classroom speaking self-efficacy, willingness to communicate, and frequency for speaking English in class—a task that is both difficult and public. Our results confirmed that students' achievement motives were hierarchically related to their achievement goals, and their speaking self-efficacy and willingness to communicate directly related to their speaking-frequency. However, our data-driven model revealed that (1) hope for success had a negative relationship with performance avoidance goals, (2) hope for success had a direct, positive relationship with speaking self-efficacy, and (3) mastery approach goals directly related to willingness to communicate—but not to speaking self-efficacy. Our analysis showed that correlations, after correcting for measurement errors, were very high for hope for success and fear of failure, as well as among all achievement goals. We discuss trajectories and relationships of these powerful motives and goals for conducting a difficult task (e.g., publicly speaking a foreign language) within a highly competitive environment (Chinese educational system), and provide insights into the power of cognitive hope and fear of shame, particularly within a context that has strong press for competitive accomplishments. • The hierarchical model of achievement motives and achievement goals were supported among Chinese English-learning students with some unexpected findings. • Hope for success had a significant, negative relationship with performance avoidance goals, and a direct path to students' mastery approach goals. • Performance goals predicted Chinese students' speaking self-efficacy, while mastery goals did not. • Mastery approach goals predicted students' willingness to communicate directly. • Our results support the cognitive components of Hope Theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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