Teacher-focused approach to foster student engagement - a hierarchical linear model based on Chinese college students' psychological capital.

BACKGROUND: While student-centered pedagogies are globally advocated as a best practice for enhancing student engagement, their application in diverse cultural contexts yields inconsistent outcomes. This study challenges conventional wisdom by investigating the interplay between students' psychological capital (PsyCap) and teachers' pedagogical approaches in the unique setting of Chinese higher education. METHOD: This study employed a hierarchical linear model (HLM) to analyze data from 67 teachers and 3,388 undergraduates across various Chinese universities. We examine four dimensions of students' PsyCap-self-efficacy (SEF), resilience (RS), optimism (OP), and responsibility (RB), together with two teaching approaches-conceptual change/student-focused approach (CCSF) and information transfer/teacher-focused approach (ITTF). RESULTS: As hypothesized, students' PsyCap was a robust predictor of their engagement. Counterintuitively, at the teacher level, the ITTF approach positively predicted student engagement, whereas the CCSF approach exhibited a negative association. Notably, we found a significant cross-level interaction: teaching approaches moderated the relationship between student responsibility and engagement. The CCSF approach positively moderated such link, amplifying the effect of responsibility, whereas the ITTF approach showed a negative one. We also identify a gender interaction with female students displaying higher engagement under CCSF instruction than their male counterparts. CONCLUSIONS: Pedagogical effectiveness is context-dependent in Chinese universities: engagement rises when structured, teacher-led instruction is paired with targeted opportunities-especially for responsible students-to exercise autonomy. The study suggests that instead of wholesale adoption of Western models, enhancing engagement in China requires a nuanced approach that leverages the strengths of structured, teacher-led instruction while strategically creating opportunities-particularly for responsible students-to thrive in more autonomous learning environments.