Student engagement has long been recognized as a vital predictor of academic success, but how it associates with control-value appraisals and academic emotions of Chinese undergraduates of English as a foreign language (EFL) is underexplored. This article hence invoked the control-value theory and investigated the general profile of Chinese undergraduates’ control-value appraisals, academic emotions and student engagement in English learning, and the interrelationships between the three constructs. Descriptive statistics of the questionnaire data revealed that the 323 undergraduate participants generally showed a moderate level of control-value appraisals and engagement in English learning; furthermore, they experienced a variety of academic emotions, with positive emotions as more frequently experienced than negative ones. Correlation and regression analyses uncovered the significant predictive effect of control-value appraisals on academic emotions, and their profound impact on student engagement. Additionally, the influence of English control-value appraisals on student engagement was found to be mediated by academic emotions, with positive ones positively mediating and negative ones negatively mediating between the two. This study fills the research gap on related topics, and provides relevant pedagogical implications for EFL teaching at the tertiary level.
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