On the Role of Teacher–Student Rapport and Teacher Support as Predictors of Chinese EFL Students’ Affective Learning

Yuchao Sun,Wenshu Shi

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.856430

Abstract

Students’ affective learning is critical for their academic success; therefore, considerable attention has been devoted to the role of various student-related and teacher-related factors as predictors of student affective learning. Notwithstanding, the impact of two important teacher-related factors, namely teacher–student rapport and teacher support, has not been adequately researched. To address this gap, the present study sought to explore the role of teacher support and teacher–student rapport in Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ affective learning. To do so, three valid inventories of the variables were administered to 497 Chinese EFL students. Performing correlational analyses, favorable associations were found between teacher–student rapport, teacher support, and student affective learning. The predictive power of teacher support and teacher–student rapport was assessed using structural equation modeling (SEM). Chinese EFL students’ affective learning was shown to be largely influenced by teacher–student rapport and teacher support. The pedagogical implications and future directions are also discussed.

Highlights

Students’ academic success is the principal concern of instructors in any educational setting, including English language classes (Karatas et al, 2015)
The results revealed that the composite reliability and Cronbach α for all three constructs were greater than 0.7, indicating a high level of reliability
The results demonstrated that the square root of average variance extracted (AVE) was higher than the inter-correlations of the sub-constructs (Table 4)

Summary

Introduction

Students’ academic success is the principal concern of instructors in any educational setting, including English language classes (Karatas et al, 2015). To lead students toward success, instructors should not merely focus on the behavioral and cognitive domains of students’ learning. It means that the affective domain of students’ learning which is of prime importance for their academic success (Bolkan, 2015) needs to be considered by instructors (Bolkan and Goodboy, 2015). As Pogue and AhYun (2006) noted, students’ affective learning deals with the likelihood of their participation in the course activities and the probability of enrolling in another course with their current instructor. Wang (2021, p. 2) postulated that student affective learning pertains to the “outlook and emotional state of students toward the course and the course instructor.” According to Goodboy and Myers (2008), students’

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion