Enhancing Student Engagement through Teachers' Emotional Support in Middle School: The Mediating Role of Academic Emotions

• In Event: Supporting Academic and Social-Emotional Wellbeing of Students and Teachers: Cases from China

Proposal

Abstract
Introduction
In the realm of Chinese basic education, there has been an enduring imbalance between "emotion" and "cognition." This discrepancy primarily arises from the heavy workload borne by teachers, where knowledge dissemination takes precedence in teaching practices, often neglecting emotional aspects of education. Consequently, the cultivation of emotions within the classroom is compromised, leading to negative emotional experiences for students. Student engagement, a vital indicator reflecting the quality of school education, is influenced by the external school environment. Previous research has shown that positive emotions promote greater student involvement in academic activities, while negative emotions hinder participation in school-related tasks. Hence, understanding the mechanisms through which teacher emotional support and student academic emotions influence student engagement holds significant importance.

Despite the critical role of emotions in the educational context and the urgent call for an "emotional turn" in educational reforms, comprehensive theoretical frameworks that integrate the "antecedents" and "consequences" of emotions or student engagement are lacking, apart from research on test anxiety and attribution theory. To address this gap, this study draws from the control-value theory to explore the direct impact of teachers' emotional support on student engagement. Additionally, we aim to examine the mediating role of academic emotions among Chinese middle school students.

More specifically, this study was based on the following hypotheses:
H1: Teachers’ emotional support has a positive effect on student engagement.
H2: Academic emotions have a mediating role in the relationship between teachers’ emotional support and student engagement.

Methodologies
Sample Selection
The research sample consisted of 697 middle school students from the western region of China, representing the current reality of relatively limited educational resources and awareness of emotional education in the western area. The study utilized the Adolescent Academic Emotion Questionnaire, Student Engagement Scale, and Teacher Emotional Support Scale. With the assistance of teachers and researchers, students completed these questionnaires and assessments using pen and paper. The data collection process, including background information and survey completion, took approximately 30 minutes, facilitated by teachers and research personnel.

Measurement Tools
Following the procedure of translation and back-translation (Brislin, 1986), we translated the following questionnaires into Chinese and adapted the wording of the questionnaire to fit the specific situation of middle school students. Then, we revised the questionnaire items to form all the questionnaire items. Finally, we validated the questionnaire through factor analysis and model fit assessment.

The teacher emotional support questionnaire was adapted from the Teacher Emotional Support Scale which was compiled by Schenke. This questionnaire based on the Classroom Assessment Scoring System-Secondary Edition (CLASS-S), to assess the level of emotional support perceived by students from their teachers. It consisted of 15 items, categorized into three dimensions: Positive Climate (5 items), Teacher Sensitivity (6 items), and Regard for adolescent's perspective (4 items). Participants rated each item on a five-point scale, ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 5 (completely agree).

The student engagement questionnaire was utilized a scale developed by Lam, which adopted the widely recognized three-dimensional structure of emotional, behavioral, and cognitive engagement. The Behavioral Engagement dimension comprised 12 items, the Emotional Engagement dimension contained 9 items, and the Cognitive Engagement dimension consisted of 12 items.

For measuring middle school students' academic emotions, the Dong and Yu's Adolescent Academic Emotion Questionnaire was employed, based on the emotion circumplex structure theory and their classification of emotions. The questionnaire included four subscales with a total of 72 items: High-arousal negative academic emotions (17 items), High-arousal positive academic emotions (16 items), low-arousal negative academic emotions (25 items), and low-arousal positive academic emotions (14 items).

Analysis Methods
The study calculated the means, standard deviations, and correlations among all variables with SPSS 22.0 and adopted Mplus 7.4 to perform the structural equation modeling. Structural equation modeling was performed to examine the relationship between variables in a model at the same time, and provide information about the fit of the entire model. Additionally, we also used bias-corrected bootstrapping with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to test whether these indirect mediating effects were significant (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). Partial missing data were handled by the method of full information maximum likelihood (FIML) estimation (Schlomer et al., 2010). Given that academic mood was categorised into four types ((i.e., High-arousal negative academic emotions, High-arousal positive academic emotions, low-arousal negative academic emotions, and low-arousal positive academic emotions) based on pleasantness*arousal, separate mediational analyses will be conducted for each type in this section.

Conclusion
The results are as follows: (1) Secondary school students generally perceived teachers' emotional support levels as high, but more attention to students' perspectives needed to be improved. Students reported high levels of student engagement, but emotional engagement was low. Positive academic emotions were more prevalent, with anxiety being the most common negative emotion. (2) Teachers' emotional support differed significantly based on students' gender, only-child status, whether they serve as class leaders, and fathers' educational level. Significant differences in student engagement were found based on students' gender, grade, whether they serve as class leaders, and parents' educational level. All positive academic emotions significantly predicted student engagement, while low-arousal positive academic emotions significantly and negatively predicted student engagement, and high-arousal negative emotions did not significantly predict student engagement. (3) Teachers' emotional support was a significant positive predictor of student engagement and a significant negative predictor of negative academic emotions, while being a significant positive predictor of positive academic emotions. All positive academic emotions significantly predicted student engagement, while low-arousal positive academic emotions significantly and negatively predicted student engagement, and high-arousal negative emotions was not significantly predicted student engagement. (4) the four types of academic emotions significantly mediated the relationship between teacher s' emotional support and student engagement of secondary school students.

Author

• JIA LI, East China Normal University