Concerns have recently been raised about the validity of scales used in the L2 motivational self system tradition, particularly in relation to sufficient discriminant validity among some of its scales. These concerns highlight the need to systematically examine the validity of scales used in this tradition. In this study, we therefore compiled a list of 18 scales in widespread use and administered them to Korean learners of English (N = 384). Testing the factorial structure of these scales using multiple exploratory and confirmatory factor-analytic criteria revealed severe discriminant validity issues. For example, the ideal L2 self was not discriminant from linguistic self-confidence, suggesting that participant responses to such ideal L2 self items is not driven by actual–ideal discrepancies as previously presumed but more likely by self-efficacy beliefs. We discuss these results in the context of the need to encourage systematic psychometric validation research in the language motivation field.

最近人们对 L2 动机自我系统传统中使用的量表的有效性提出了担忧，特别是在其一些量表之间是否具有足够的判别有效性方面。这些担忧强调需要系统地检查这一传统中使用的量表的有效性。因此，在本研究中，我们编制了一份广泛使用的 18 个量表清单，并将其提供给韩国英语学习者 ( N = 384)。使用多种探索性和验证性因子分析标准测试这些量表的因子结构揭示了严重的判别有效性问题。例如，理想的第二语言自我与语言自信并没有区别，这表明参与者对这种理想的第二语言自我项目的反应并不是像之前假设的那样由实际与理想的差异驱动，而更有可能是由自我效能信念驱动的。我们在需要鼓励语言动机领域的系统心理测量验证研究的背景下讨论这些结果。