Striving for personal growth matters: The relationship between personal growth initiative, teacher engagement and instructional quality

BACKGROUND

Teachers' instructional quality is critical to student learning and development. However, the affordance of different aspects of instructional quality remains underexplored.

AIMS

This study explores the relationship between teachers' personal growth initiative (PGI) and teacher engagement and instructional quality.

SAMPLE

The data were collected from 998 teachers (82.9% female, average years of teaching experience = 15.25, SD = 10.29) from China.

METHODS

The participants completed an anonymous online survey questionnaire that examined their PGI, work engagement and self-reported instructional quality. Structural equation modelling and bootstrapping were performed to determine the differentiated associations between PGI and each aspect of the teachers' self-reported instructional quality.

RESULTS

The results confirmed the critical role of PGI in teacher engagement and self-reported instructional quality. To varying degrees, the dimensions of teacher engagement, except for cognitive engagement, mediated the association between PGI and self-reported instructional quality.

CONCLUSIONS

The teachers' self-reported data showed that their motivation for personal growth played an important role in improving their instructional quality. The teachers' emotional engagement and social engagement with colleagues were positively related to classroom management, and their social engagement with students was associated with a supportive climate.

Effects of Teacher Engagement on Students' Achievement in an Online English as a Foreign Language Classroom: The Mediating Role of Autonomous Motivation and Positive Emotions

As an important factor promoting students' learning behavior and achievement, teacher engagement has been largely neglected in the research literature on English as a foreign language (EFL) and applied linguistics. Moreover, the few studies have focused more on conventional classrooms rather than online learning contexts and failed to reveal how teacher engagement in the online foreign language classroom affected students' achievement. The present study assessed 546 university students in China using self-report questionnaires to examine the relationship between teacher engagement and students' achievement in an online EFL course over an 18-week semester, taking into account the possible mediating effects of autonomous motivation and positive academic emotions. The results showed that teacher engagement exerted a direct and positive impact on students' English achievement. Students' autonomous motivation and enjoyment mediated the association between teacher engagement and English achievement, but the mediating effects of relief were not significant. Additionally, teacher engagement affected students' English achievement through the chain mediation of autonomous motivation and positive academic emotions (enjoyment and relief). Relief displayed a smaller effect on students' English achievement than enjoyment did. These findings elucidate the impact of teacher engagement on students' English achievement in the online environment and support the utility of self-determination theory and control-value theory in explaining foreign language learning. Directions for future research and implications for education are also presented.

Understanding EFL Teacher Engagement in TDTs' Collaborative Curriculum Design: A Chinese Case Study From the Activity Theory Perspective

While collaborative curriculum design (CCD) has gained increasing attention in the field of education, there is scant research as to how EFL teachers implement it in authentic design contexts. The present case study places particular emphasis on teacher activities during collaborative EFL curriculum development in China. The researchers adopt Activity Theory as an analytical tool to understand the relationships between EFL teachers, reform goals, and various aspects of the sociocultural context in which CCD is advocated, highlighting the pivotal role that mediation of knowledge/experience plays in the teacher learning community. Research findings indicate that the TDTs’ collaborative process is a socially constructed and culturally mediated activity that promotes EFL teacher development. Moreover, in-service teachers are prone to take challenges through educational reforms out of teacher motives and external stimuli. Limitations of the CCD model are also discussed to shed light on future research.

Teacher Engagement in Language Teaching: Investigating Self-Efficacy for Teaching Based on the Project "Sino-Greece Online Chinese Language Classrooms"

The support of sustainable learning of foreign languages requires teacher engagement and a high level of self-efficacy, both of which are cornerstones for the persistence of teachers in carrying out teaching activities to help learning. The need for such attributes is even more crucial when online learning platforms as a mode of delivery are becoming increasingly popular. We would argue that keeping students engaged and motivated to attain their academic success online calls for the increased levels of resilience and efforts of teachers. Although self-efficacy of teachers has been widely considered crucial in the professional practices of teachers, there is a paucity of research studies on the self-efficacy of teachers who teach Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) using online platforms. Such a gap becomes prominent after the sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in places where there are now numerous calls for online CFL classes. In order to fill in this gap, this study was conducted with a frontline CFL teacher as the participant and aimed to detect thoroughly the trajectories of self-efficacy of a CFL teacher in a completely new teaching context. Embedded in the Project of Sino-Greece Online Chinese Language Classrooms, this study employed narrative inquiry and case study as methodological approaches. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data that consisted of written narratives (the teacher's teaching journals and reflections, field notes of teaching assistant, and emails of students) and spoken narratives. Three research questions guided this study: What are the teacher's beliefs about (1) the opportunity of teaching CFL online? (2) the management of this online project? (3) her personal capability to foster students' engagement in this project? These three questions focused, respectively, on the three components of the self-efficacy system of a teacher (personal efficacy, efficacy within the organization, and professional efficacy). Findings illustrated that the efficacy beliefs of the teacher in these three aspects were at different levels, which resulted from the interplay of external and internal factors; when external factors appeared to be negative, internal factors seemed to play an essential role.

A multidimensional, person-centred perspective on teacher engagement: Evidence from Canadian and Australian teachers

BACKGROUND

Hitherto, little work has examined the proposition that teachers may simultaneously invest varying degrees of their energetic resources in the teaching and learning environment.

AIMS

Drawing on a multidimensional, person-centred perspective, the study aimed to identify profiles of teacher engagement, reflecting distinct configurations of teachers' energetic investments, and their generalizability across Canadian and Australian teachers. Additionally, we examined teachers' self-efficacy beliefs as predictors of engagement profile membership and the cross-country generalizability of these relations. We also examined emotional exhaustion (EE) and job satisfaction (JS) as outcomes of profile membership in Canadian and Australian teachers, respectively.

SAMPLES

The samples comprised 586 Canadian and 595 Australian teachers.

METHODS

Data on teachers' multidimensional engagement and teacher self-efficacy were collected in both the Canadian and Australian samples. Additionally, data on Canadian teachers' burnout and Australian teachers' job satisfaction were collected.

RESULTS

Latent profile analyses revealed three engagement profiles, representing distinct configurations of teachers' multidimensional energetic investments, which were found to mostly generalize. Additionally, self-efficacy beliefs were found to predict the likelihood of engagement profile membership equally in Canadian and Australian teachers, and EE in Canadian teachers and JS in Australian teachers were found to differ significantly across the profiles.

CONCLUSIONS

The results of the study constitute among the first evidence that teachers may be differentially engaged in the teaching environment with respect to their distinct energetic investments, and such differential profiles of engagement have differential implications for well-being-related outcomes and can be predicted by their teaching capability beliefs.

Teacher Engagement with Online Formative Assessment in EFL Writing During COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case of China

Although previous studies have examined the impact of online formative assessment on second language learners’ writing development, scant attention has been paid to how writing teachers engage with online formative assessment and the influencing factors. By exploring three English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) writing teachers’ engagement with online formative assessment during COVID-19 in three universities in China, the qualitative case study identified three types of teacher engagement: disturbing, auxiliary, and integral, embodied by their varied emotional, physical-cognitive, and social investment in the formative use of information communication and technology in writing assessment. These individualized engagements were primarily influenced by teachers’ beliefs, digital literacies, and learning/teaching experiences, and mediated by relevant contextual and technological factors. Implications are provided for supporting EFL writing teachers’ engagement with online formative assessment.

Combinations of Personal Responsibility: Differences on Pre-service and Practicing Teachers' Efficacy, Engagement, Classroom Goal Structures and Wellbeing

Pre-service and practicing teachers feel responsible for a range of educational activities. Four domains of personal responsibility emerging in the literature are: student achievement, student motivation, relationships with students, and responsibility for ones own teaching. To date, most research has used variable-centered approaches to examining responsibilities even though the domains appear related. In two separate samples we used cluster analysis to explore how pre-service (n = 130) and practicing (n = 105) teachers combined personal responsibilities and their impact on three professional cognitions and their wellbeing. Both groups had low and high responsibility clusters but the third cluster differed: Pre-service teachers combined responsibilities for relationships and their own teaching in a cluster we refer to as teacher-based responsibility; whereas, practicing teachers combined achievement and motivation in a cluster we refer to as student-outcome focused responsibility. These combinations affected outcomes for pre-service but not practicing teachers. Pre-service teachers in the low responsibility cluster reported less engagement, less mastery approaches to instruction, and more performance goal structures than the other two clusters.