Investigating the Associations between Students’ Perceived Teacher Support and Buoyancy in English Learning
Keywords:
Perceived teacher support; Academic buoyancy; English learning; Mixed-method research; Senior high school students.Abstract
Background: Academic buoyancy is an important capacity that helps students cope with routine setbacks encountered during the learning process. However, previous studies have not fully explained how domain-specific teacher support facilitates academic buoyancy in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning.
Aims: This study aims to investigate the relationship between English teacher support and English learning buoyancy among Chinese secondary school students.
Methods: This study employed a mixed-methods design involving 401 students aged 15–18 years. The three-dimensional framework proposed by Liu and Li was adopted to operationalize teacher support into three aspects: academic instruction, emotional care, and out-of-class assistance.
Results: The quantitative results indicated that students perceived high levels of teacher support across all three dimensions, which were moderately and positively correlated with their English learning buoyancy. Qualitative findings further revealed that specific teacher interventions, such as strategy-oriented feedback and emotional encouragement, helped students bounce back from linguistic difficulties.
Conclusion: These findings highlight the importance of teacher support as a critical external resource for enhancing students’ learning resilience. Practically, EFL teachers are encouraged to implement a more holistic support system to foster students’ English learning buoyancy and psychological well-being.
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