A Study On Relationship Between Students’ Perceptions Of Teacher Interpersonal Behavior And Student Motivation In High School English Classroom

In the domain of learning environments research, increasing number of studies have associated teacher interpersonal behavior with students’motivation towards specific subjects. Although many studies on this topic have been conducted in different countries across the world, few are able to be found in China.This study aims to investigate relationships between teacher-student interpersonal behavior and high school students’ motivation toward English in China. Quantitative data have been gathered with 104 EFL students, from 2 intact classes in a provincial key senior high school in Wuhan, Hubei province. Teacher interpersonal behavior was measured with the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI). Specifically, this study conceptualized the motivational constructs based on theories of achievement goal orientations, efficacy, and expectancy-value. The specific items were adapted from the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Scales (PALS). The quantitative data were analyzed both in terms of eight scales of the QTI including Leadership, Helpful/friendly, Understanding, Student freedom/responsibility, Uncertain, Dissatisfied, Admonishing, Strict and the two dimensions, Influence (the degree of teacher control in communication with students) and Proximity (the degree of cooperativeness between teacher and students).Descriptive results indicated that students rated high on Leadership, Helpful/Friendly, Understanding, Student freedom and Strict scales but low on Uncertain, Dissatisfied, and Admonishing scales. It implies generally students perceived more cooperativeness than dominance in their English teacher. From an international perspective, this research identified Chinese teachers as moderate cooperative and high dominant. Female students’ perceptions were slightly more positive than male students. Simple correlation analyses demonstrated that all the motivational constructs have proved to be significantly related with teacher interpersonal behavior except for the scale:Performance-avoid orientation. Mastery orientation and Efficacy are found positively related with Leadership, Helpful/friendly, Understanding, Student freedom/responsibility, and strict behaviors. Positive associations were identified between performance-approach and Leadership and Strict behaviors. Task value is revealed positively related with Leadership, Helpful/friendly, and Strict behaviors, while negatively related with Uncertain behavior. With respect to the two dimensions, students’Mastery orientation, Performance-approach orientation, Efficacy, and Task value had positive relations with Influence. Proximity was only significantly positive related with Mastery orientation and Task value. Regression analyses revealed that both Influence and Proximity dimensions can predict students’ efficacy. In addition, Proximity is able to predict students’Mastery orientation; Influence can predict students’ Task value. Similar to the results of correlation analyses, neither Influence nor Proximity is predictive of students’ performance-avoid orientation. In terms of the effect size, generally Influence has shown stronger effect on students’ motivation than Proximity, which is quite different from earlier research.In order to better understand the effect of students’ perceptions of interpersonal behavior, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected in this study. A total of 16 students have taken participate in the qualitative interview. On the whole, the interview results supported and supplemented findings revealed in quantitative phase through in-depth investigating students’ perceptions. Implications for the use of QTI and practical teaching, limitations of the study, and suggestions for future research are also discussed.