Research On Teacher Factors Influencing Student Engagement In Project-based Courses For English Majors

In recent years,student engagement has become a key indicator of the success for university project-based courses.Understanding the influencing factors of student engagement has received considerable attention in curriculum research.Learners’ motivation,interests,strategies,etc.directly influence student engagement;however,few studies focus on the influence of teachers in project-based courses.The purpose of this study is to classify the teacher factors that influence student engagement in the context of British Studies,and to explore the influence of teacher factors on student engagement from three levels: behavior,emotion and cognition.Fifty-four third-year English majors and five teachers in a university in Northeast China were selected as the participants.A combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods was used to collect data through instruments such as questionnaires,semi-structured interviews,and students’ research logs.Results of questionnaires revealed that there were twenty-two teacher factors influencing student engagement in project-based courses.These teacher factors belonged to six categories: teacher expertise,teacher characteristic,information support,emotional support,teacher belief and classroom activity organization.Teacher expertise included research background,professional knowledge and teaching experience;teacher characteristic covered personality traits such as intimacy,responsibility and patience;emotional support included encouragement,appreciation and listening;information support included recommending learning methods and tools and giving feedback to students’ performance,etc.;teacher belief was reflected in building a learning community and asking students’ learning needs,etc.;classroom activity organization included group report and group discussion.Data of interview and research logs showed that students’ participation,interaction,effort,academic challenge,and self-regulatory behaviors were closely related to teacher factors in project-based courses;students’ interest,confidence,sense of belonging,sense of value,and teacher-student connection were influenced by teacher factors;and teacher factors contributed to students’ surface cognitive processing in coping with tasks,understanding new content,repetitive reading and retelling information,and deep cognitive processing in self-reflection,identification of information,linking old and new information,and planning.This study enriches the existing research on teacher factors of student engagement.It provides a theoretical framework for understanding the teachers’ role in project-based courses.Meanwhile,the data for this study are derived from the teacher factors perceived by the students in project-based learning,providing beneficial enlightenment for teachers to construct efficient teaching support in project-based courses.