**4.4 Data collection procedure and analysis**

The data were collected at two time points of the 16 week semester: The first in week 2 and the second in week 14. At both time points, students answered the survey and a consent form in about 10 minutes in class. Additionally, the informants were required to self-rate their anxiety and motivation levels in weeks 3, 6, 9 and 12, respectively in phase 2. Immediately after the students answered the survey, 6 of them were randomly invited to be informally interviewed during class break, before or after the class. Each interview was conducted in Chinese with a mixture of English and lasted around eight minutes. The collected survey data were analyzed via SPSS 20. Paired samples t-tests were run to examine changes in anxiety levels and value beliefs. Correlation analyses were run to answer research question 2 about the relationship between anxiety and value beliefs. Multiple (stepwise) regression analyses were conducted to explore the effects of value beliefs on students' academic oral communication anxiety.

All the interviews were first transcribed, double-checked and then subjected to thematic content analyses [63]. Based on the questions, the interviewees' responses were analyzed according to ideas, which were repeatedly grouped into larger categories. The final themes adopted in the present study included reasons for taking the course and gains from the course, feelings of high/low/no anxiety when communicating in English about academic studies, and causes for AOC anxiety, and so on. To protect privacy, pseudonyms were used for interviewees when their remarks were cited in the paper.
