Research On Learning Engagement And Teacher-student Relations ——Moderating Effects Of Academic Emotions Among English Majors

Learning engagement is an important factor affecting students’ academic performance.Low learning engagement may cause various learning problems.There are many factors affecting learning engagement,including teacher-student relations and academic emotions.Good teacher-student relations exert a positive and continuous influence on students’ learning engagement,and play an important role in guiding students’ learning and life in the long-run.For college students,only when they actively take part in learning activities and increase their engagement in learning can the quality of talent cultivation be improved.In the process of learning,students’ academic emotions will also affect learning engagement.Therefore,understanding how these factors affect students’ learning engagement is of great significance for improving students’ learning engagement and teachers’ teaching methods.Three questionnaires were used in this study,including the Scale of Teacher-student Relations,the Learning Engagement Scale and the Academic Emotions Scale,which showed good reliability.The quantitative research method was employed to analyze and discuss college students’ learning engagement,teacher-student relations and academic emotions.This study was intended to answer the three questions as follows: first,what are the current situations of English majors’ learning engagement,teacher-student relations and academic emotions? How are they different between two tertiary levels: four-year undergraduates and three-year vocational college learners?Second,what is the relationship between English learning engagement,teacher-student relations and academic emotions of English majors? Third,do English learners’ academic emotions substantially moderate the relationship between learning engagement and teacher-student relations?The participants of this study were first-year and second-year students majoring in English from Shanxi Technology and Business College,Shanxi Vocational University of Engineering Science and Technology,Shanxi University of Finance and Economics and Shanxi Polytechnic College.There were 287 participants in the main survey study,however,a total of 204 valid questionnaires were collected,including 104 four-year undergraduates and 100 three-year vocational college learners.Then SPSS16.0 was used for statistical analysis of all scales,and the results were as follows: First,English majors’ learning engagement was at a quite satisfactory level;compared with four-year undergraduates,three-year vocational college learners had more cognitive engagement and emotional engagement.English majors’ teacher-student relations were at a quite high level,and their positive academic emotions were higher than negative academic emotions.Second,English majors’ teacher-student relations were positively correlated with three dimensions of learning engagement and positive academic emotions,which indicating that the more positive satisfactory degree students demonstrated to relations between them and teachers,the higher their learning engagement and positive academic emotions were.Positive academic emotions were positively correlated with three dimensions of learning engagement respectively;negative academic emotions were negatively correlated with any kind of engagement;That is to say,the more positive academic emotions were,the higher learning engagement was;the more negative academic emotions were,the lower learning engagement was.Third,the regression analysis,respectively with positive academic emotions and negative academic emotions as the moderating variables,found that negative academic emotions played a significant role in moderating the relationship between cognitive engagement and teacher-student relations.In other words,the more negative academic emotions students demonstrated,the greater impact teacher-student relations may have on students’ cognitive engagement.