The Impact Of Faculty-Student Relationship On Undergraduate Students Course Engagement

With the development of popularization of higher education in China,higher education quality gradually replaces quantity and becomes the focus.Classroom teaching quality is in the core.Student course engagement is an important predictor of teaching quality,and faculty-student relationship is one of the most important relationships in classroom.It is of great significance to analyze the current situation of faculty-student relationship and student course engagement and explore its impact mechanism.In this study,I-E-O model of Astin is taken as the theoretical framework,and the undergraduates in S university are taken as the research participants.Using the mixed research method,collecting the data of student course engagement,faculty-student relationship and demographic information through questionnaire,and then supplemented by qualitative interview data,the present situation of undergraduate student course engagement and faculty-student relationship and the impact of faculty-student relationship on student course engagement are explored.The main findings are as follows:First of all,the current situation of student course engagement:Undergraduates almost attend classes on time,with few absenteeism and tardiness,but there are also few interactive behaviors in the classroom;Attitude Engagement is related to course type,and Participation/Interaction Engagement is related to discipline and class size.Besides,the current situation of faculty-student relationship: Undergraduate students are generally satisfied with their instructors,with few contradictions and conflicts,but at the same time,the score of Closeness is low either,that is,"satisfaction with distance";Finally,the impact of faculty-student relationship on student course engagement: On the whole,the higher the Closeness,Support and Satisfaction of faculty-student relationship,the higher the level of student course engagement,and the Conflict only has a negative impact on Attitude Engagement.Similar results have been obtained in liberal arts courses;For the public politics courses,the Closeness and Support have a positive impact on the course engagement while the Conflict has a negative impact;For professional courses,Closeness and Support are the positive predictors of course engagement,while Conflict only has a negative impact on Attitude Engagement,and Satisfaction only has a positive impact on Performance Engagement;The results of SEM are almost same with those of regression analysis,which shows the positive influence of faculty-student relationship on Skill Engagement,Participation/Interaction Engagement and Performance Engagement,the positive influence of Support on Skill Engagement and the negative influence of Conflict on Attitude Engagement.Qualitative interview proves the positive influence of positive faculty-student relationship on students’ course engagement,and helps us to deeply understand the reason,which is very similar to the "Pygmalion Effect" in psychology.