Unravelling students’ perceived EFL teacher support

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System 115 (2023) 103048
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0346-251X/© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Unravelling students’ perceived EFL teacher support
Honggang Liu
a
,
*
, Xiaoxue Li
b
a
School of Foreign Languages, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215006, China
b
School of Foreign Languages, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, 130024, China
ARTICLE INFO
Keywords:
EFL teacher Support
Academic support
Instrumental support
Emotional support
Differences of EFL teacher Support
ABSTRACT
Although studies on teacher support have come of age, research on English as a foreign language
(EFL) teacher support remains in its infancy. The lack of in-depth exploration of the inner
structure of EFL teacher support limits our understanding of this important aspect of language
teaching. Moreover, there are inconsistent ndings about whether students of different genders
and ages differ in their perceived teacher support. To ll these gaps, this study investigated 1,401
Chinese high school EFL students using the Students’ Perceived EFL Teacher Support Scale
(SPEFLTSS). Exploratory and conrmatory factor analyses indicated that EFL teacher support is a
tri-factorial structure involving academic, instrumental, and emotional support. An examination
of differences in EFL teacher support in terms of gender and age showed that male students
perceived signicantly higher emotional support than female students did, and senior high school
students reported signicantly higher general and instrumental support than their junior coun-
terparts. We offer some implications for sustaining and promoting EFL teacher support and
propose future directions for EFL teacher support research.
1. Introduction
Teachers are an essential factor in learning situations, exerting a substantial impact on students that includes, but is not limited to, their
academic performance (e.g., Brandisauskiene et al., 2021) and academic emotions (e.g., Jiang & Dewaele, 2019). Foreign language
teachers specically play a pivotal role in building a motivating, supportive, secure, and friendly environment to enhance students’ foreign
language achievement (Sadoughi & Hejazi, 2022b). Teacher support, or the care and assistance teachers provide to students (Trickett &
Moos, 1973), has been receiving increasing attention in recent years (Alfaro et al., 2006; Brewster & Bowen, 2004; De Ruiter et al., 2019;
Guo et al., 2020; Othman & Kiliç, 2018). Within the school environment, where students spend most of their time, teachers offer different
types of support, such as informational, instrumental, appraisal, and emotional support (Malecki & Demaray, 2003). Furthermore, re-
searchers have stressed that the nature and inner structure of teacher support may be affected by disciplinary differences, and the exact
support needed by students learning different disciplines may also be distinct (Chai & Gong, 2013). In addition, English is widely taught as
a second or foreign language across the globe. Teacher support becomes an important scaffolding in students’ English learning. Therefore,
English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher support is worthy of exploration.
Within the eld of foreign language education, there is a growing body of research on EFL teacher support (e.g., Liu & Guo, 2021;
Piechurska-Kuciel, 2013; Sadoughi & Hejazi, 2021; Sun & Shi, 2022). To date, relevant empirical research has mainly focused on the
impact of EFL teacher support on students’ English learning engagement and on the relationship between EFL teacher support and stu-
dents’ psychological or emotional factors (Liu & Guo, 2021; Sadoughi & Hejazi, 2021, 2022b). However, such studies did not delve into the
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: liuhonggang@suda.edu.cn (H. Liu), lixx880@nenu.edu.cn (X. Li).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
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journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/system
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2023.103048
Received 16 December 2022; Received in revised form 16 April 2023; Accepted 16 April 2023

System 115 (2023) 103048
2
inner structure of EFL teacher support, and the scales used in these studies were often borrowed from teacher support research in either
general education or other disciplines with some items rephrased for the English learning context, or they were constructed by the re-
searchers without solid statistical support. In addition, almost no existing scale for measuring EFL teacher support is theoretically driven,
which impedes in-depth research on EFL teacher support. Therefore, it is important to develop an instrument for measuring EFL teacher
support. To ll these gaps, this study took 1,401 Chinese high school students as the research participants and aimed to explore and verify
the internal structure of EFL teacher support in the Chinese context to produce a reliable and valid scale for measuring EFL teacher support.
2. Literature review
2.1. Social support model and teacher support
Researchers have gradually come to realize the signicance of contextual factors on students’ language learning from sociocultural
perspectives (Gao & Hu, 2021; Zheng et al., 2019). Studies have also conrmed the active role of social support in maintaining in-
dividuals’ functioning and buffering adverse effects (Kelly & Malecki, 2022; Rueger et al., 2014, 2016). Among these studies, Tardy
(1985) proposed the hierarchical social support model and inspired further research (Malecki & Demaray, 2003; Requena et al., 2007).
Tardy’s (1985) social support model comprises ve layers: direction, disposition, description/evaluation, content, and network. Di-
rection describes whether the individual is a giver or receiver. Disposition addresses whether social support is available or has been
enacted. Description/evaluation refers to whether an individual evaluates or describes social support. The content of support concerns
the type of social support. The network indicates the source of social support. The content layer draws inspiration from House’s (1981)
four-dimensional categorization of emotional, appraisal, informational, and instrumental support. Tardy’s (1985) social support
model provides a compelling conceptual framework for a comprehensive and systematic analysis of social support, which has been
adopted by researchers from diverse elds, including but not limited to medicine (e.g., Requena et al., 2007) and educational psy-
chology (e.g., Malecki & Demaray, 2003). For instance, Malecki and Demaray (2003) developed the Child and Adolescent Social
Support Scale
1
(CASSS), following the content layer of Tardy’s (1985) model, and included teacher support as a dimension. The
teacher support subscale of CASSS has been used widely either separately to examine students’ perceived teacher support (e.g.,
Tennant et al., 2015) or in conjunction with other support subscales, for example, to study teacher support and students’ academic
achievement (Sivandani et al., 2013) and teacher support and students’ academic emotions (Rueger et al., 2014).
Teacher support, as a vitally important source of support in the complex social support construct, is worth investigating in its own
right as previous studies have conrmed teachers’ direct impact on students’ academic performance (Brandisauskiene et al., 2021) and
psychological state (Alfaro et al., 2006). Such support is believed to give teenagers a sense of safety to explore their surroundings and
protect them from danger by teaching them how to interact with peers, regulate their emotions, and employ coping mechanisms
(Marcus & Sanders-Reio, 2001).
2.2. Studies on teacher support
Research on teacher support has attracted considerable attention in the eld of general education (e.g., Johnson & Johnson, 1983;
Malecki & Demaray, 2003; Metheny et al., 2008; Patrick et al., 2007; Wong et al., 2018), which offers valuable insights for studies on
students’ perceived EFL teacher support. Teacher support has been regarded as a single-dimensional construct, for example, as an
emotional construct (Brewster & Bowen, 2004; Fraser & Fisher, 1982) describing how a teacher “helps, befriends, trusts, and is
interested in students” (Fraser & Fisher, 1982, p. 503) or as “the degree to which teachers listen to, encourage, and respect students”
(Brewster & Bowen, 2004, p. 51). However, as the research on teacher support has been extended, researchers have gradually accepted
that a single-dimensional denition of teacher support (e.g., emotional support) is not sufcient to cover its many implications.
Teacher support can manifest in many ways, from helping with tasks to expressing care and concern for the welfare and well-being of
students (Mitchell & DellaMattera, 2010). From the perspective of the social support model, Malecki and Demaray (2003) regarded
teacher support as the emotional, appraisal, informational, and instrumental support provided to students.
There has also been growing research interest in gender and age differences in teacher support, but no consensus has been achieved.
Regarding gender differences, in some studies, female students reported a signicantly higher level of teacher support than male
students did (e.g., Bokhorst et al., 2010; Rueger et al., 2010), while others showed no gender difference in students’ perceived teacher
support (e.g., Brandisauskiene et al., 2021; Malecki & Demaray, 2003; Rueger et al., 2008). Concerning age differences, some studies
revealed that older students perceived signicantly lower levels of teacher support than younger students did (Bokhorst et al., 2010). In
contrast, some found no age difference in perceived teacher support (e.g., Brandisauskiene et al., 2021; Schweder & Raufelder, 2019).
These inconsistent ndings motivated us to further explore the age and gender differences in students’ perceived teacher support.
2.3. Studies on students’ perceived EFL teacher support
Previous studies have suggested that EFL teacher support plays a clear role in students’ learning behaviour (e.g., Schweder &
1
Drawing from Tardy’s social support model, Malecki and Demaray (2003) developed the Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale (CASSS), a
60-item rating scale measuring students’ (Grades 3 to 12) perceived social support (i.e., emotional, informational, appraisal, and instrumental
support) from ve different sources (i.e., parents, teachers, classmates, close friends, and school).
H. Liu and X. Li

System 115 (2023) 103048
3
Raufelder, 2019) and psychological state (e.g., Shen & Guo, 2022). Following the trend in general education, researchers have
investigated students’ perceived EFL teacher support to better understand its inner structure (e.g., Liu & Guo, 2021; Sadoughi & Hejazi,
2022b) and its relationship with students’ psychological factors, such as second language (L2) grit (Hejazi & Sadoughi, 2022; Shen &
Guo, 2022), L2 enjoyment, and foreign language classroom anxiety (De Ruiter et al., 2019; Fang & Tang, 2021; Liu & Guo, 2021).
In proposing denitions of EFL teacher support, recent studies have tended to treat it as a multidimensional construct (Hejazi &
Sadoughi, 2022; Sadoughi & Hejazi, 2021, 2022b; Shen & Guo, 2022; Sun & Shi, 2022) including aspects such as emotional care (Hoi &
Mu, 2021; Shen & Guo, 2022; Sun & Shi, 2022), academic instruction (Liu & Guo, 2021; Schweder & Raufelder, 2019; Sun & Shi, 2022),
constructive feedback (Hejazi & Sadoughi, 2022; Sadoughi & Hejazi, 2021), and out-of-class assistance (Liu & Guo, 2021; Sadoughi &
Hejazi, 2021). Language learning is a socializing process that involves dynamic interactions with different types of social resources or
support, which become explicit or implicit scaffolding for learners to address their academic and psychological challenges. In line with
the multidimensional view of teacher support and its social nature, we dene EFL teacher support as teachers’ assistance with students’
language learning, which includes academic instruction (Shen & Guo, 2022; Sun & Shi, 2022), emotional care (Hoi & Mu, 2021; Shen &
Guo, 2022), the provision of appraisal feedback (Hejazi & Sadoughi, 2022), and out-of-class assistance (Liu & Guo, 2021).
Previous research on students’ perceived EFL teacher support was highly dependent on questionnaires/scales, most of which were
borrowed from the eld of education (e.g., Ghaith et al., 2007; Shen & Guo, 2022; Sun & Shi, 2022). Some research utilized the
composite questionnaire/scale without explaining the interrelationships between those subscales. For instance, Sadoughi and Hejazi’s
(2021) study on EFL teacher support examined three types of students’ perceived teacher support: instrumental, appraisal, and
emotional support. However, they did not provide the reasons why they chose these three dimensions or fully explain the correlations
between them. Most questionnaire-based studies on EFL teacher support have been built upon questionnaires probing teacher support
in general education. Employing this kind of questionnaire and slightly rephrasing the items to make them t the English learning
context enabled researchers to achieve their aims. For example, Sun and Shi (2022) reworded items to make them t their required
context (e.g., replacing “My teacher” with “My English teacher”). This strategy of rephrasing items related to support from teachers in
different disciplines to t the language teaching context has been common, and indeed, it has moved the eld forward. However, we
may question whether the support given by teachers of different subjects varies in both content and structure (Chai & Gong, 2013).
As a socializing process, language learning is highly demanding, and learners may encounter unpredictable challenges. Social
support appears to be a natural way to help individuals tackle academic or psychological challenges (Malecki & Elliott, 1999). In this
sense, social agents (the learners) mobilize multiple resources through various types of social support (Malecki & Demaray, 2003) in
language learning. Therefore, following Tardy’s (1985) social support model, and inspired by other studies that have used it (e.g.,
Malecki & Demaray, 2003), we dene students’ perceived EFL teacher support as a four-dimensional construct comprising emotional,
appraisal, informational, and instrumental support. Specically, emotional support entails teachers’ trust, empathy, love, and care for
their students; appraisal support consists of constructive feedback given to students; informational support means that teachers impart
knowledge to students and provide instruction concerning their learning methods or strategies; and instrumental support refers to
learning materials (e.g., textbooks and online learning resources) offered to, and extracurricular time spent on, students. Therefore, the
study addressed the following research questions (RQs).
RQ1: What are the validity and reliability of the four-dimensional scale of students’ perceived EFL teacher support?
RQ2: What are the global and dimensional levels of students’ perceived EFL teacher support?
RQ3: Are there any differences in students’ perceived EFL teacher support in terms of gender and age?
3. Methods
3.1. Research participants
The convenience sampling method was adopted in this study to survey Chinese high school EFL learners due to the convenience of
access (Rose et al., 2019). The participants were 1,401 high school students from ve provinces in China. After screening for invalid re-
sponses, we obtained a valid sample of 1,319 students. In this sample, 710 participants (53.8%) were female and 609 (46.2%) were male;
747 (56.6%) were junior high school students (M
age
=13.95 years) and 572 (43.4%) were senior high school students (M
age
=16.94 years).
3.2. Research instrument
The Students’ Perceived EFL Teacher Support Scale (SPEFLTSS; see Appendix A) was utilized as the instrument in this study. It was
developed by adopting seven items from the teacher support sub-dimension of the CASSS by Malecki and Demaray (2003) and ten
items from an open questionnaire about students’ perceptions of English teacher support since using learner insights as the basis for
item development can increase the quality and appropriateness of research instruments (D¨
ornyei & Dewaele, 2023). Students’ re-
sponses to the question “What kind of support did you get from your English teachers?” were collected and utilized to generate ten
items in the nal SPEFLTSS. We polished the wordings of the seventeen items according to feedback from high school English teachers,
professors in applied linguistics, and high school students on the items’ wordings, logic, and clarity. The nal version of the scale
included four dimensions, namely, emotional, appraisal, informational, and instrumental support. Emotional support comprised four
items (e.g., Q06: The English teacher is very patient and will not give up on my study even if my foundation is poor); appraisal support
contained four items (e.g., Q02: The English teacher carries out special teaching for our weak points, such as attributive clauses, etc.);
informational support involved ve items (e.g., Q10: The English teacher expands our extracurricular cultural knowledge related to the
H. Liu and X. Li

System 115 (2023) 103048
4
textbook content); and instrumental support was covered by four items (e.g., Q14: The English teacher helps me choose suitable learning
materials). The SPEFLTSS employed a six-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 6 (completely agree).
3.3. Data collection
In May 2022, with the help of the online questionnaire system Wenjuanxing (https://www.wjx.cn/), the SPEFLTSS was distributed and
the data were gathered. Some EFL teachers were invited to forward this questionnaire to their students via social apps, such as WeChat, QQ
and email. The participants were informed of the research purposes in advance, and anonymity and condentiality were maintained
throughout the research. They were encouraged to ll in the questionnaire according to their real learning experience and feelings.
3.4. Data analysis
The timing results of Wenjuanxing’s system showed an average time of 5 seconds to respond to each question as the baseline, and
therefore responses which were completed faster than this were removed. We also calculated the Mahalanobis distance in screening
out the outliers. Finally, we deleted 82 outliers and submitted a total of 1,319 valid responses to the data analysis. All quantitative data
were recorded and analysed in IBM SPSS Statistics 26.0 and IBM Amos 24.0.
For RQ1, the inner structure of students’ perceived EFL teacher support in the Chinese context was addressed by conducting
exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and conrmatory factor analysis (CFA). The SPSS software was utilized to randomly divide the sample
into halves, with Dataset 1 being used for the EFA (N =659) and Dataset 2 for the CFA (N =660). First, we tested the univariate normality
of the sample and measured the discrimination of each item. Next, principal axis factoring was applied to probe the inner structure of
teacher support, with conrmation results received from IBM Amos 24.0. In addition, multiple-group analysis was conducted to check
whether the constructs held the same meaning irrespective of gender in IBM Amos 24.0. For RQ2, descriptive analysis was performed to
investigate the levels of students’ perceived EFL teacher support. For RQ3, an independent samples t-test was conducted to see if there
were any signicant gender or age-related differences in students’ perceptions of language teacher support. In addition to the p-value,
the effect size was reported to estimate the degree of signicance to answer the call for fuller use of it (Wei et al., 2019).
4. Results
4.1. The structure of students’ perceived EFL teacher support
4.1.1. Normality and item analysis results
A series of tests were rst conducted to conrm the utility of the SPEFLTSS with a sample of Chinese EFL learners. In detail, we used
the total sample (N =1,319) to conduct a univariate normality test and found that the skewness and kurtosis indices were below the
cut-off values of |3.0| and |10.0|, respectively, indicating a normal distribution of the collected data (Kline, 2016). Item analysis was
then used to identify the discriminant validity of each item (Field, 2013). The 27% highest scoring and 27% lowest scoring EFL learners
who lled in the adapted 17-item SPEFLTSS were selected and compared using an independent samples t-test. The results displayed a
signicant difference between the two groups on each item (p <0.01), indicating that all items in the scale were appropriate for further
analysis. Then item-total correlation analysis was conducted to examine the correlation between each item and the global scale, with
zero deletion according to the benchmark of their correlation coefcient (r >0.30, p <0.01; Field, 2013).
4.1.2. Results of exploratory factor analysis
In the EFA (N =659), the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was 0.910, and Bartlett’s test of sphericity yielded
χ
2
=
5113.008, df =66, p =0.000, indicating that the data were well suited for factor analysis. Next, the 17 items were analysed using
principal axis factoring. The threshold for factor loading was set at |0.4| (Hair et al., 2019). According to this benchmark, items were
discarded if their factor loadings were less than |0.4|, cross-loadings were more than |0.4|, the difference of cross-loadings was less than |
0.2|, or the value of commonality was less than 0.4. Ultimately, three factors were extracted and the items of the original SPEFLTSS were
reduced from 17 to 12 in accordance with Hair et al.’s (2019) recommendations, removing Q1, Q4, Q12, Q13, and Q17, which were
differentiated from the rest of the items in terms of their low commonalities, factor loadings, and corrected item-total correlations.
Table 1 shows that the cumulative percentage of total variance explained was 66.801% (above 55%, the referential line for EFA; cf.
Plonsky & Gonulal, 2015), conrming that the tri-factorial structure of students’ perceived EFL teacher support was acceptable.
The three factors were named academic support, instrumental support, and emotional support. Factor 1, Academic Support, covers
English teachers’ support in their students’ academic studies. Academic support involves not only the subject-specic knowledge (Q9,
Q10, Q11) formally imparted by EFL teachers in class but also the feedback they offer according to student performance (Q2, Q3).
Factor 2, Instrumental Support, describes teachers’ provision of various auxiliary learning materials to students, namely, textbooks
(Q14), extracurricular reading materials (Q15), and online learning resources (Q16). Factor 3, Emotional Support, refers to teachers’
trust, empathy, love, and care for students. Four items concerning emotional support were extracted, namely, caring about students’
learning (Q5), being patient with students (Q6), having high expectations of students (Q7), and understanding students (Q8), all of
which reect EFL teachers’ care for their students’ emotional and psychological states.
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System 115 (2023) 103048
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4.1.3. Results of conrmatory factor analysis
We ran a CFA (N =660) to examine whether the tri-factorial structure of students’ perceived EFL teacher support t the data in the
current sample. According to the benchmarks proposed by Kline (2016) for the indices assessing model t (
χ
2
/df ≤8; GFI ≥0.90; AGFI
≥0.90; CFI ≥0.90; RMSEA ≤0.08; RMR ≤0.10), the CFA results conrmed that the tri-factorial model with 12 items showed a good
t (see Fig. 1 and Table 2). Specically, the
χ
2
/df, RMSEA, and RMR were 4.260, 0.070, and 0.036, respectively, and the GFI, AGFI, and
CFI were all greater than 0.90. The values reached the cut-off scores mentioned above.
We also calculated the convergent and discriminant validity to conrm the validity of the SPEFLTSS. The results of these calcu-
lations can be found in Table 2. Regarding convergent validity, the average variance extracted (AVE) values were higher than 0.5 and
the composite reliability (CR) values were higher than 0.7, demonstrating good convergent validity of the model (Hair et al., 2019).
When assessing discriminant validity, one consideration is the comparison of AVE values and the correlation coefcients of each
subscale (Hair et al., 2019). As shown in Table 2, the square root value of the AVE of subscales was higher than their corresponding
correlation coefcients (r), suggesting good discriminant validity of each subscale.
We used IBM Amos 24.0 to determine the measurement invariance of the tri-factorial EFL teacher support structure across genders.
To this end, we rst established two baseline models to identify if the tri-factorial teacher support structure ts the data well for both
the male and female groups by running individual CFAs, which is a prerequisite of multi-group analysis. Second, the models were
tested against the less-constrained models with the following indices: congural invariance (M1), measurement weights invariance
(M2), and structural covariance invariance (M3). The
χ
2
difference between M2 and M1, and M3 and M2 was not signicant (p ≥0.05),
suggesting that the factor loadings and structural covariances of both gender groups were invariant. The results are shown in Table 3.
From Table 3, we can see that the two baseline models for each gender were the same, although the model t indices for the female
group were better than those for the male group, indicating the feasibility of further multi-group analyses. The results of the multi-group
CFA showed that the
χ
2
difference test between M2 and M1 was signicant (p <0.05), suggesting that the factor loadings of both gender
groups were not invariant. Thus, we identied the non-invariant items. Consequently, we found that the differences between a1_1 and
a1_2, a2_1 and a2_2, and a4_1 and a4_2 were signicant (p <0.05). Other factor loadings and structural covariance were not signicant (p
≥0.05), demonstrating that the tri-factorial EFL teacher support structure was almost invariant across genders (Blunch, 2013).
We also estimated the reliability of the SPEFLTSS by calculating Cronbach’s alpha coefcient (ɑ) and considering the composite
reliability (CR). The alphas for the general SPEFLTSS and its three dimensions were 0.903, 0.897, 0.878, and 0.889, respectively. The
alphas and values of CR were higher than 0.70 (see Table 4), suggesting excellent reliability (Hair et al., 2019).
Table 1
Results of EFA of students’ perceived EFL teacher support (Pattern matrix).
Items Factor
Factor 1
Academic
Support
Factor 2
Instrumental
Support
Factor 3
Emotional
Support
Comm
onalities
Q11 The English teacher imparts practical knowledge to us (such as sentence
patterns, etc.).
0.848 0.061 0.170 0.623
Q02 The English teacher carries out special teaching for our weak points (such as
attributive clauses, etc.).
0.768 0.051 −0.014 0.647
Q09 The English teacher imparts language knowledge to us (such as the
pronunciation of words, xed usage, etc.).
0.720 −0.102 −0.137 0.577
Q03 The English teacher shows us how to compensate for limited knowledge (such as
guessing meanings from the context, etc.).
0.640 0.065 −0.171 0.627
Q10 The English teacher expands our extracurricular cultural knowledge related to
the textbook content.
0.594 0.049 −0.134 0.505
Q14 The English teacher helps me choose suitable learning materials. −0.052 0.875 −0.051 0.761
Q15 The English teacher helps me choose suitable extra-curricular reading materials. 0.007 0.860 −0.049 0.787
Q16 The English teacher shares online learning resources with me (such as word
memorization software, etc.).
0.054 0.811 0.060 0.661
Q07 The English teacher has high expectations of me. −0.094 0.047 ¡0.889 0.734
Q05 The English teacher pays careful attention to my studies. 0.088 0.003 ¡0.806 0.746
Q06 The English teacher is very patient and will not give up on my study even if my
foundation is poor.
0.320 0.018 ¡0.592 0.695
Q08 The English teacher understands the difculty of my English learning. 0.205 0.219 ¡0.530 0.654
Variance Explained Cumulative % 50.191 60.136 66.801 ——
Cronbach ɑ 0.897 0.889 0.878 0.903
Note. Extraction method: Principal axis factoring.
Rotation Method: Oblimin with Kaiser normalization.
a
.
a
Rotation converged in seven iterations.
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Table 2
Convergent and discriminant validity of each dimension.
Factor Item Convergent Validity Discriminant Validity (r)
p CR AVE Academic Support Instrumental Support Emotional Support
Academic Support 09 0.000 0.899 0.640 0.800
10 0.000
11 0.000
02 0.000
03 0.000
Instrumental Support 14 0.000 0.891 0.732 0.564 0.856
15 0.000
16 0.000
Emotional Support 08 0.000 0.887 0.661 0.740 0.569 0.813
05 0.000
07 0.000
06 0.000
Note. The bold number in discriminant validity represents the square root value of AVE.
Table 3
Results of multi-group analysis of students’ perceived EFL teacher support structure.
Model
χ
2
df
χ
2
/df GFI AGFI CFI RMR RMSEA Δ
χ
2
(Δdf)
Male 180.772 51 3.545 0.916 0.872 0.948 0.050 0.091 ——
Female 165.102 51 3.237 0.927 0.888 0.961 0.042 0.080 ——
M1 345.881 102 3.391 0.922 0.880 0.955 0.046 0.060 ——
M2 383.081 111 3.451 0.913 0.877 0.949 0.060 0.061 37.201(9)***
M3 390.882 117 3.341 0.910 0.880 0.949 0.073 0.060 7.801(6)
Note. ***p <0.001.
Fig. 1. Graphical representation of the three-factor model and factor loadings
Note. AcademicS =academic support; InstrumentalS =instrumental support; EmotionalS =emotional support.
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System 115 (2023) 103048
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4.2. Levels of students’ perceived EFL teacher support
Furthermore, we assessed the levels of students’ perceived EFL teacher support in the Chinese context at both the general and
dimensional levels (see Table 5). The results indicated a high level of teacher support for Chinese high school EFL students. Specif-
ically, the students experienced higher levels of academic and emotional support and a moderate level of instrumental support.
4.3. Differences in students’ perceived EFL teacher support in terms of gender and age
We conducted independent samples t-tests using IBM SPSS Statistics 26.0 and calculated the effect size to examine whether there
were any signicant differences in students’ perceptions of EFL teacher support in terms of the students’ gender (see Table 6) and age
(see Table 7). Two effect size indices were used, namely, Hedges’ g from the d-family and R
2
from the r-family.
2
According to Cohen
(1988), a Hedges’ g value equal to or lower than 0.20 indicates a weak effect size, a Hedges’ g value higher than 0.20 and equal to or
lower than 0.50 indicates a moderate effect size, and a Hedges’ g value higher than 0.50 indicates a high effect size. Within the eld of
applied linguistics, two effect size benchmark systems have been put forward for “more nuanced guidance” (Wei et al., 2019, p. 3) on
effect size interpretation. We followed Wei and Hu’s (2019) effect size benchmark system since it is particularly applicable to
survey-based research (Wei et al., 2020). According to Wei and Hu (2019), 0.5%, 1%, 2%, and 9% should be used, respectively, as the
small, typical (medium), large, and very large benchmarks for effect size R
2
when assessing the impact of sociobiographical factors on
students’ perceived EFL teacher support. The results indicated that male students reported signicantly higher emotional support than
female students with a small/weak effect size (t (658) =2.377, p <0.05, Hedges’ g =0.19, R
2
=0.9%). No signicant difference was
found between male and female students in terms of academic support, instrumental support, and general support.
To mitigate the effects of the age imbalance in the sample (junior high school students =405, senior high school students =255),
we randomly selected about 50% of the junior high school students using SPSS software and constructed a new sample (junior high
school students =213, senior high school students =255). The nal results indicated that senior high school students reported higher
general support than junior high school students with a small/weak effect size (t (466) = − 1.973, p <0.05, Hedges’ g = − 0.20, R
2
=
0.8%), and they also perceived stronger instrumental support with a typical/moderate effect size (t (466) = − 2.964, p <0.05, Hedges’
Table 4
Reliability of the 12-item SPEFLTSS.
Factor Items ɑ CR
Academic Support 02, 03, 09, 10, 11 0.897 0.899
Emotional Support 05, 06, 07, 08 0.878 0.887
Instrumental Support 14, 15, 16 0.889 0.891
Table 5
Levels of students’ perceived EFL teacher support.
Dimension Min Max M SD
Academic Support 1.00 6.00 5.66 0.62
Emotional Support 1.00 6.00 5.40 0.86
Instrumental Support 1.00 6.00 4.74 1.40
Global SPEFLTS 1.00 6.00 5.35 0.75
Note. N =660; SPEFLTS =students’ perceived EFL teacher support.
Table 6
Differences in students’ perceived EFL teacher support in terms of students’ gender.
Male (n =310) Female (n =350) MD t (658) Hedges’ g R
2
M SD M SD
Academic Support 5.65 .66 5.67 .58 −.022 −.461 −0.03 0.0%
Instrumental Support 4.81 1.43 4.71 1.36 .100 .916 0.07 0.1%
Emotional Support 5.48 .85 5.32 .86 .159 2.377* 0.19 0.9%
Global SPEFLTS 5.38 .77 5.31 .73 .069 1.175 0.09 0.2%
Note. *p <0.05; SPEFLTS =students’ perceived EFL teacher support.
2
Larson-Hall (2010) mentioned that either r or d “may be employed” (p. 116). In addition, Wei and Hu (2019) pointed out that one of the main
advantages of using the r-family indexes is that they may be simpler to grasp since their absolute values range between 0 and 1, as opposed to the
d-family indexes (which may go above 1). Therefore, we report effect size indices from both the d- and r-families.
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System 115 (2023) 103048
8
g = − 0.29, R
2
=1.9%). There was no signicant difference in terms of academic support and emotional support.
5. Discussion
5.1. Structure of students’ perceived EFL teacher support
Our study has identied and validated the tri-factorial structure of students’ perceived EFL teacher support (i.e., academic,
instrumental, and emotional support) on the basis of the social support model and situated itself in the EFL learning context in China.
Despite the distinctiveness of this tri-factorial structure, the study demonstrates the multidimensional nature of teacher support in EFL
learning (House, 1981; Malecki & Demaray, 2003; Tardy, 1985).
Factor 1 is Academic Support, a new dimension revealing the features of English teacher support compared with other ndings in
general education (e.g., Malecki & Demaray, 2003). In prior studies, teachers disseminating information to students in their subject
learning and evaluating student performance were researched as teachers’ informational and appraisal support, two separate di-
mensions on the teacher support scale (Sadoughi & Hejazi, 2022a; Zhao & Yang, 2022). In this study, three items of Factor 1 were
concerned with imparting language knowledge (Q09, Q10, Q11) and two were related to the feedback offered in the process of
language teaching (Q02, Q03), both of which provide effective academic scaffolding for English learners (Kayi-Aydar, 2013), thus
meriting the name “academic support”. This nding shows that students attached importance to the teachers’ imparted knowledge and
their feedback. In addition to knowledge dissemination, corrective feedback is of great signicance, and researchers have identied its
essential role in language learning (Ellis et al., 2008; Zhao & Ellis, 2020). Our nding further implies that spreading informative
knowledge and offering effective feedback go hand in hand in language teaching and both are indispensable aspects of teacher aca-
demic support (Li & Guo, 2022).
Factor 2 is Instrumental Support, entailing the tangible resources provided to students in their learning, such as time, skills, services,
or even money (Suldo et al., 2009). The notion of instrumental support is inspired by Tennant et al. (2015, p.496), who regarded
instrumental support as “the provision of material support or time”. The signicance of instrumental support, as an independent
dimension of teacher support, has been highlighted in EFL teaching for exerting a strong inuence on students’ academic engagement
and positive emotions (Sadoughi & Hejazi, 2021).
Factor 3 is Emotional Support, a construct including the teachers’ attention, patience, expectations, and understanding, mirroring
the care, trust, encouragement, and empathy offered by EFL teachers (Peng, 2012; Piechurska-Kuciel, 2013). Our nding echoes the
wave of increasing attention to teacher emotional support (Jin & Dewaele, 2018; Qi et al., 2020; Yang et al., 2022). It further highlights
the students’ need for safe and non-threatening, emotionally supportive interpersonal interactions with their teachers (Wentzel et al.,
2017). In these “trusting and caring relationships” (Roeser et al., 2000, p. 459), students’ academic emotions are likely to be shaped so
as to facilitate their English learning and achievement of academic success (De Ruiter et al., 2019; Shen & Guo, 2022).
5.2. Levels of students’ perceived EFL teacher support
The results concerning the levels of students’ perceived EFL teacher support differ slightly from those of some prior studies (e.g., Jin
& Dewaele, 2018; Piechurska-Kuciel, 2013) but coincide with others (e.g., Hejazi & Sadoughi, 2022; Othman & Kiliç, 2018). Different
factors may have contributed to differences between the results of this and other studies. First, the psychological state and age of
participants may have affected their perceptions of teacher support. Perceived teacher support was signicantly correlated with
psychological factors, such as stress, anxiety, well-being, and academic self-concept (Jin & Dewaele, 2018; Wang et al., 2021). The age
of participants may have also affected the extent of their psychological dependence on EFL teachers (Jin & Dewaele, 2018). In addition
to learner-related factors, external factors can play a part; students’ perceptions of and need for teacher support may relate to unfair
treatment or bullying in school (Guo et al., 2020) and are affected by EFL teachers’ professional qualities, such as stipulation of the
goals and requirements (Liu & Song, 2021). Qualied teachers tend to be capable of dealing with and recovering from adversity and
thriving in their daily professional lives (Liu & Chu, 2022). EFL teachers’ qualities contribute to their professional development with
subsequent favourable effects on students.
5.3. Differences in students’ perceived EFL teacher support in terms of gender and age
Our data analysis revealed signicant gender differences in students’ perception of EFL teacher support, with males perceiving
Table 7
Differences in students’ perceived EFL teacher support in terms of students’ age.
Junior High School Students (n =213) Senior High School Students (n =255) MD t (466) Hedges’ g R
2
M SD M SD
Academic Support 5.64 .60 5.69 .64 −.051 −.875 −0.08 0.2%
Instrumental Support 4.60 1.44 4.99 1.29 −.381 −2.964* −0.29 1.9%
Emotional Support 5.36 .89 5.45 .81 −.055 −.739 −0.11 0.1%
Global SPEFLTS 5.29 .75 5.44 .74 −.135 −1.973* −0.20 0.8%
Note. *p <0.05; SPEFLTS =students’ perceived EFL teacher support.
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System 115 (2023) 103048
9
higher levels of emotional support. This may be attributed to the fact that girls rate teachers’ emotional support as being more
important than boys (Malecki & Demaray, 2003), and girls may have more expectations to get teachers’ emotional support than boys.
Boys may be more likely to satisfy the emotional support from their EFL teachers and give higher scores when evaluating teachers’
emotional support. This is in stark contrast to some existing studies on gender differences in emotional support which have found that
the average emotional support perceived by females is higher than that perceived by males (Bokhorst et al., 2010; Tennant et al.,
2015). A divergence from the current study is that some others have found no signicant gender differences regarding emotional
support (Mai et al., 2021; Malecki & Demaray, 2003; Othman & Kiliç, 2018). Researchers have highlighted that gender is generally not
an important factor as it only plays a role in “extremely negative situations”, such as low perceived social support (Mai et al., 2021, p.
7). Moreover, research results will also be affected by factors such as the cultural environment in which the research subjects live.
In addition, the emotional support provided by EFL teachers showed signicant differences regarding age, with junior high school
students perceiving signicantly lower levels of general support than senior high students. Similar ndings were reported in previous
studies (Bokhorst et al., 2010; Jin & Dewaele, 2018), perhaps relating to students’ cognitive capability and psychological maturity,
with senior students having a more developed neurological basis than junior students (Archer et al., 2019; Cao et al., 2022). Students
generally tend to become more independent both psychologically and behaviourally as they get older, and their need for teacher
support consequently gradually decreases with age (Jin & Dewaele, 2018). Compared with junior high students, senior high school
students are more mature and less solely dependent on teacher support, although they perceive stronger teacher support to some
extent.
6. Conclusion and implications
Our study based on the social support model has explored the inner structure of students’ perceived EFL teacher support. We have
conrmed that teacher support is a multi-dimensional construct. Furthermore, we have reconceptualized students’ perceived EFL
teacher support as a tri-factorial structure entailing academic, instrumental, and emotional support. Two of the initially hypothesized
dimensions, instrumental and emotional support, were retained according to our EFA and CFA. However, the other two assumed
dimensions, informational and appraisal support, were merged into a single dimension and named academic support, indicating the
distinctiveness of EFL teacher support. Learners interpret the constructive feedback EFL teachers give them as a kind of information or
knowledge, which is inseparable from the similarity of the essence of these two dimensions. The identication of our tri-factorial
structure of students’ perceived EFL teacher support also echoes the social support model, with teacher support being an essential
source in the social network. Furthermore, the newly developed SPEFLTSS has desirable psychometric properties (i.e., high reliability
and validity), and therefore may be readily used as a valid and reliable tool for measuring students’ perceived EFL teacher support.
The results of this study have several implications for future examinations of students’ perceived EFL teacher support. To start with,
the four original hypothesized dimensions were changed to three dimensions after conducting rigorous EFA and CFA. More research is
needed here employing qualitative methods to conduct more in-depth explorations into the nature or inner structure of students’
perceived EFL teacher support or using quantitative methods to validate or extend the ndings of the present research using large-scale
data. We also suggest adopting the SPEFLTSS in more diversied educational contexts to investigate the uniqueness of support pro-
vided by teachers of different subjects. Further work in this eld would be of great help in developing much wider theoretical per-
spectives to enrich the research on teacher support. Furthermore, future studies may delve into the association between students’
perceived EFL teacher support and their academic learning (e.g., academic performance and academic emotions). More attention
should also be placed on how teacher supports develop students’ self-regulation in language instructions (Teng & Zhang, 2022).
Finally, teachers and students may employ different cognitive schemata to frame teacher behaviours (Babad, 1990), and problems may
arise when students interpret teacher support differently from the way it is intended by the teachers. A natural progression of this work
would be to examine the difference between teachers’ self-reported and students’ perceived EFL teacher support.
The current study was subject to the limitation of sampling. The participants were mainly from ve regions of China; therefore, the
sample must be expanded and diversied in later studies. The internal structure of EFL teacher support found in the current study is
welcome to be validated in different groups of EFL learners across the globe.
CRediT authorship statements
Honggang Liu: Conceptualization, Methodology, In-depth data analysis, Supervision, Original draft preparation, Revising and
Editing; Xiaoxue Li: Data collection, Primary data analysis, Original draft preparation, Revising and Editing.
Funding
This research was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (Grant number 21BYY120) entitled Research on the
Foreign Language Teacher Resilience: The Ecology of Human Development Perspective.
Data availability statement
The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author due to privacy restrictions.
Appendix. Students’ Perceived EFL Teacher Support Scale
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System 115 (2023) 103048
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Number Items (Chinese) Items (English)
Q02 英语老师针对我们的薄弱点进行专项教学（如定语从句
等）。
The English teacher carries out special teaching for our weak points (such as
attributive clauses, etc.).
Q03 英语老师教我们如何在现有知识不足的情况下解决问题（如
通过上下文推测生词词意等）。
The English teacher shows us how to compensate for limited knowledge (such as
guessing meanings from the context, etc.).
Q09 英语老师教我们单词的发音、固定用法等语言知识。 The English teacher imparts language knowledge to us (such as the pronunciation of
words, xed usage, etc.).
Q10 英语老师给我们拓展与课本内容相关的课外文化知识。 The English teacher expands our extracurricular cultural knowledge related to the
textbook content.
Q11 英语老师教我们 “干货” 知识（如写作句型等）。 The English teacher imparts practical knowledge to us (such as sentence patterns,
etc.).
Q05 英语老师很关心我的学习情况。 The English teacher pays careful attention to my studies.
Q06 英语老师对我很有耐心，即便我的基础再差也不放弃我。 The English teacher is very patient and will not give up on my study even if my
foundation is poor.
Q07 英语老师对我有很高的期望。 The English teacher has high expectations of me.
Q08 英语老师理解我学英语的难处。 The English teacher understands the difculty of my English learning.
Q14 英语老师帮我选择合适的教辅资料。 The English teacher helps me choose suitable learning materials.
Q15 英语老师帮我选择合适的课外读物。 The English teacher helps me choose suitable extra-curricular reading materials.
Q16 英语老师给我分享在线学习资源（如背单词软件等）。 The English teacher shares online learning resources with me (such as word
memorization software, etc.).
Note. Academic support (Q02, Q03, Q09, Q10, Q11); Instrumental support (Q14, Q15, Q16); Emotional support (Q05, Q06, Q07 Q08).
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