“…However, learners' self‐belief and perceptions of SDL do not necessarily mean that they will develop SDL behaviours in the learning process (Yang, 2016). Moreover, few studies have focused on diagnosing SDL ability based on learners' external SDL behaviours occurring during the learning process (eg, Li, Majumdar, Chen, Ogata, 2021; Li, Majumdar, Chen, Yang, et al., 2021). Therefore, there is an urgent need to focus on learners' external SDL behaviours in the learning process (Zhu et al., 2020) and to explore the relationship between internal SDL ability and external SDL behaviours to diagnose learners' SDL ability more objectively by using SDL behaviours.…”