Delving into the role of teacher respect and support in predicting Chinese EFL learners’ willingness to attend classes: a sequential mixed-methods study

Abstract While teachers’ interpersonal behaviors play a seminal role in successful L2 education, they have not received adequate research attention. By adopting rhetorical/relation goal theory, this mixed-methods study examined the role of two instances of instructor interpersonal behaviors: teacher respect and support, in low-proficiency Chinese EFL learners’ willingness to attend classes (WTAC). For the quantitative phase, three close-ended scales were administrated to 387 Chinese university students majoring in arts and physical education. For the qualitative phase, semi-structured interviews were conducted on 17 of the participants. Results of the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) approved the factor structure and validity of the three scales. Results of the multiple regression and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analyses revealed that both teacher respect and teacher support were strong positive predictors of low-proficiency EFL learners’ WTAC, with teacher support showing a stronger predictive force. Further thematic analysis of qualitative data utilizing NVivo 20 identified four categories of teacher-, student-, context-, and task-related factors influencing students’ class presence tendency. Among them, teacher-related factors and its sub-category, teacher interpersonal factors, were identified as core determinants of WTAC. The study concludes by discussing its theoretical and pedagogical implications and offering suggestions for future research.