Teaching presence promotes learner affective engagement: The roles of cognitive load and need for cognition

The association between teaching presence and learners' affective engagement was examined, along with the mediating effect of cognitive load and the moderating effects of need for cognition. A self-report survey of 883 university students was carried out. Results showed that teaching presence enhanced affective engagement, in part through cognitive load, and that need for cognition amplified teaching presence's beneficial effect while attenuating cognitive load's detrimental one on affective engagement. The results may help us better understand how instructional elements affect learners' affective-motivational outcomes by supporting the integrated expectancy-value-cost theory and cognitive load theory perspective. Practical implications were discussed.