One size does not fit all: Distinct patterns of growth mindset and motivation underlying feedback-seeking behaviors of adolescent L2 writers

Feedback-seeking behaviors (FSB), namely, attending to written comments (feedback monitoring) and requesting clarification or additional feedback (feedback inquiry), are central to writer agency and writing outcomes. Existing studies have yet to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the motivational underpinnings of FSB, particularly for adolescents. Prior FSB research also treated second language (L2) writers as a homogeneous group, overlooking variations in motivational configuration across different stages of writing development. Addressing these gaps, this study draws on situated expectancy-value theory (SEVT) to examine how motivation mediates a writing growth mindset’s influence on FSB and whether the associations vary across writing proficiency levels in a Chinese secondary-school context. Participants were 303 adolescent L2 writers. Structural equation modeling indicated that the associations between a growth mindset and feedback monitoring and inquiry were fully mediated rather than direct, operating through self-efficacy, utility, and interest. Notably, writing proficiency moderated these associations: utility was the only mediator for high-proficiency writers, self-efficacy was the primary mediator for middle-proficiency writers, and interest linked a growth mindset to feedback inquiry for low and middle-proficiency writers. These findings extend SEVT by illustrating how proficiency stages contextualize the mindset-motivation-behavior link, uncovering nuanced motivational drivers of FSB. Pedagogically, they point to proficiency-differentiated interventions targeting mindset-motivation linkages to enhance L2 writer agency in the exam-oriented secondary contexts.