The influence of teachers' independent support on college students' learning engagement：Mediator and regulatory effects

Objective: To deeply analyze how the independent support of higher vocational teachers affects college students' learning engagement and explore its internal operating mechanism. At the same time, this study will also examine the mediating effect of academic self-efficacy and the regulating effect of basic psychological needs. Methods: A series of standardized scales, including teacher autonomy support scale, learning engagement scale, academic self-efficacy scale and basic psychological needs scale, were used to conduct a comprehensive questionnaire survey on 903 students from three different universities. SPSS27.0 statistical software was used to analyze the collected data in detail. In order to more deeply reveal the mediating effect of academic self-efficacy between teachers' independent support and learning involvement, a structural equation model was built with the help of AMOS28.0 software, and Bootstrap method was applied to test the mediating effect, so as to accurately describe the path relationship between variables. Results: It was found that there were significant correlations among teachers' independent support, learning engagement, academic self-efficacy and basic psychological needs. Direct effect analysis showed that teacher autonomy support had a significant direct effect on learning engagement (β = 0.610, P < 0.001). The mediation effect analysis further revealed that academic self-efficacy played a partially mediating role in the influence of teacher autonomy support on learning engagement, with an effect size of 0.312 and a 95% confidence interval of [0.238, 0.373]. At the same time, basic psychological needs also played an important moderating role in this process (β = 0.149, P < 0.001). Conclusion: The independent support of higher vocational teachers can not only directly promote college students' learning engagement, but also have an indirect positive impact on college students' learning engagement through the transfer effect of academic self-efficacy and the regulating effect of basic psychological needs.