The Influence Of Students' Perception Of Business English Teachers' PCK On Academic Self-Efficacy

Since the early 1990 s, there has been a growing body of researches on business English teachers' professional development. However, based on literature review and investigation on 94 BE teachers participating in the 11 th term of National International Business English seminar, it can be found that existing researches and even BE teachers' subjective cognition of professional development only focus on subject matter knowledge(SMK), whilst largely ignoring BE teachers' pedagogical content knowledge(PCK), let alone exploring how it is perceived by BE students and how it exerts influence on students' academic self-efficacy. To a great extent, relevant researches would provide a new perspective for improving teachers' professional development and enhancing students' academic self-efficacy. Given deep deficiencies in empirical researches on BE teachers' PCK and great theoretical and practical value relevant studies may bring about, this study conducts empirical researches on assessing the relationship among students' perception of BE teachers' level of PCK, cooperation between teachers and students and students' academic self-efficacy with samples of undergraduates from SEIB of GDUFS.In reference to literature review and previous interviews, this study establishes its analytical framework of the influence of students' perception of BE teachers' level of PCK, cooperation between teachers and students on students' academic self-efficacy, on the basis of which it designs and modifies two scales named Scale of Business English Students' Perceptions of Their Teachers' PCK and College Students' Academic Self-Efficacy Scale(CASES) respectively. After pilot-tested among undergraduates in SEIB, item analysis, construct validity analysis and reliability analysis are conducted. And final version of two scales are formed and implemented in later investigation. Supplemented with semi-structured interviews, this study conducts data analysis including descriptive analysis, independent sample t test, one-way AVONA, post hoc multiple comparisons, factorial analysis, product-moment correlation analysis and path analysis. According to quantitative(statistical output of two scales) and qualitative(semi-structured interviews) results, some major findings are summed up as below: 1) Compared with students' perception of BE teachers' PCK level, students' academic self-efficacy and cooperation level between business English teachers and students are more urgently needed to be improved;2)Concerning the four dimensions of students' perception of BE teachers' PCK, students are most satisfied with business English teachers' knowledge of instructional objectives and strategies but most dissatisfied with their knowledge of student understanding;3) There is significant difference in students' perception of BE teachers' PCK level in terms of different courses categories, grades and speciality directions while there is significant difference in cooperation level between teachers and students in light of different genders and course categories but no significant difference can be found in students' academic self-efficacy in terms of the four demographic factors;4) Both students' perception of BE teachers' PCK level and cooperation level between teachers and students positively correlate with students' academic self-efficacy at an average degree. Besides, there is significant interaction effect of the two former variables on students' academic self-efficacy. High students' perception of BE teachers' PCK with high cooperation level predicts high students' academic self-efficacy; 5) The four dimensions of students' perception of BE teachers' PCK are significantly and positively related to cooperation level between teachers and students while their relationship to academic self-efficacy is mediated by cooperation level between teachers and students. Meanwhile, students' perception of BE teachers' knowledge of instructional objectives and context has the strongest positive relationship with students' academic self-efficacy.In reference to the findings, suggestions for improvement of BE teachers' professional development and BE teaching effectiveness are proposed as follows: 1) BE teachers should play an active role in pursuing professional development by enhancing awareness of self-development; 2) BE teachers can adopt affection immersion teaching mode to strengthen frequency and effectiveness of their interaction with students so as to essentially improve their knowledge of students' difficulties and needs; 3) BE teachers should have a clear knowledge of instructional objectives and context and become adept at adapting it to different course categories and speciality directions; 4) BE teachers should periodically cooperate and communicate with students in class and after class in order to obtain teaching feedback and improve students' perception of their PCK, which contributes to take full advantage of interaction effect of students' perception of BE teachers' PCK level and cooperation level between teachers and students on students' academic self-efficacy; 5) BE teachers should make efforts to learn how to transform subject matter knowledge into forms that are more accessible to students by reflection-in-action and continuing education so as to enhance students' academic self-efficacy.This study aims at filling a gap in existing literature of empirical investigation on BE teachers' PCK. It would make contribution to provide quantitative guidance for future studies in this area or similar areas and accelerate the improvement of BE teachers' professionalism and students' academic self-efficacy.