The Relationship between Perceived Teacher Emotional Support, Online Academic Burnout, Academic Self-Efficacy, and Online English Academic Engagement of Chinese EFL Learners

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript explores the relationships between teacher emotional support, student academic engagement, online academic burnout, and academic self-efficacy among Chinese students. While the study addresses relevant aspects of online education, some critical issues need to be resolved to enhance its originality and the contribution to the field.

 

The authors should clearly state what the scientific contribution of this work is. It is unclear what this manuscript offers that is not already known in the field, with the exception of measures of teacher emotional support, student academic engagement, online academic burnout, and academic self-efficacy. The relationships between these variables are already known, as shown in the theoretical background, and the research instruments were taken from the existing literature. So what makes this paper and this research stand out? If the authors justify the originality of the work, it could be considered for further consideration.

If this condition is met, the following corrections should also be made. In the theoretical section, the author(s) should draw on the Community of Inquiry framework when analysing the importance of teachers' social and emotional support for students in online learning environments, especially teaching and social presence. A theoretical and empirical link to this should be established.

While the author(s) have mentioned that the questionnaires were taken from other studies, and that some have been modified, they should clearly distinguish between the reliability and validity of the original questionnaires and the versions used in this study. They should specify whether the results of the reliability and validity metrics refer to the original instrument or to the adapted version that author(s) used in this study.

Moreover, discussion needs to be expanded and deepened. As the research was conducted among Chinese students, the author(s) should contextualize the results within the framework of the Chinese educational system, considering its organizational, cultural, and psychological dimensions. This research paper would be considerably improved if the discussion were to examine how this sample influence the students' perceptions of teacher emotional support, academic self-efficacy, and engagement. It would also be advisable that authors compare this with similar research within less centralized and more student-centered educational systems.

Furthermore, the authors should address how the predominantly technical orientation of the sample may have influenced the results. Technical students may have different experiences regarding online learning environments and different levels of academic burnout and self-efficacy compared to their peers in non-technical disciplines. This should have been included in the discussion and limitations of the research.

Finally, some sections in the text could benefit from improved clarity and more precise formulations. Elimination of grammatical errors and improvement of the writing style will enhance readability. Ensure that the names of the statistical tests such as “Cronbach's alpha coefficient” and “Kolmogorov-Smirnov test” are correctly spelled throughout the paper.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Some sections in the text could benefit from improved clarity and more precise formulations. Elimination of grammatical errors and improvement of the writing style will enhance readability. Ensure that the names of the statistical tests such as “Cronbach's alpha coefficient” and “Kolmogorov-Smirnov test” are correctly spelled throughout the paper.

Author Response

Dear Editor,

First,  we are very grateful for your constructive and inspiring suggestions for revision. Our revisions have been enhanced in the following ways:
First, the theoretical framework of community of inquiry that you mentioned in the theoretical structure of the article has been carefully studied and added to the section on teachers' perceived emotional support in online learning. We are very grateful to you for providing such an insightful and appropriate theoretical framework. Given that our own research has focused more on teachers' emotional perception, experience, and feedback aspects. We have placed this in the section with Teachers' Emotional Presence in the introduction section of the article, the part of 2.3 is drawn in yellow, and the research question is highlighted in yellow. We were very inspired by the doubts you mentioned about the innovation and contribution of the article and the role of teachers' emotional presence in online foreign language teaching, which fits in with the community of inquiry theory of negotiation and dialog.
The second point is that thanks to your careful attention, we have already corrected the grammar and spelling errors you mentioned and highlighted them in yellow. We will check more often for spelling and correct expressions.
The third point: We have corrected the question about the reliability and validity of the questionnaire you mentioned. The reliability of the current questionnaire is a re-test of the questionnaire after the change, which belongs to the reliability of the adapted version.
 The fourth point: We have added and improved the corresponding literature on cognitive load theory in part 2.1 and highlighted it in yellow.
 The fifth point: Thank you very much for your side's suggestion about the differences in our research sample; this is also a direction we can work on and improve, but given that we did not categorize the technical situation of different majors or students in our sample research, we could not make effective comparisons at a later stage, and this we put forward our understanding of the problem in the limitations of the study and marked it in yellow in the 7 limitations of the study section.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

Congratulations on your work! My main comment would be that you do not make any reference to sustainability or sustainable education in the article. Could you perhaps make a direct connection between the concepts you test and the results you discuss and sustainable education? 

Author Response

Dear Editor.

     Thank you for your constructive comments on our article. To be more in line with the theme of sustainability in your journal, we have focused on the aspects of teachers' emotional presence， teachers' emotional perception, and teacher-student negotiation and dialog to express our understanding of sustainability after incorporating the theory of community of inquiry given by the reviewer. The paragraphs highlighted in blue in the Introduction and Conclusion section reflect our understanding of this theme. Negotiation and dialog in a community of inquiry is an expression of sustainability. In the core concepts of the article, we have also placed teacher affective perception under the concept of community of inquiry, which is also our understanding of sustainability. We have also labeled the article author contributions, funds, and others at the end of the article, which we hope will make the article more standardized.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The Abstract is well structured and presented; some further information on the research design could enhance its content. The last paragraph of the Introduction section, could include a short description of the paper, introducing its sections and research questions. In some sections of the paper literature used could be more extended ( ie Cognitive Load section). In the Research method authors could justify the use of quantitative research, the use of the questionnaire, so as to comment on the added value of the conducted research scheme. In the Discussion section, it is important authors to compare their data and findings with current literature.In section 5.2 authors refer only to 2 students- it is important to include data from all participant students.  Authors do not refer to data analysis of interviews- the inclusion of this data also, is important so as to support the questionnaire’s findings. Qualitative data analysis requires specific protocols for analysis. The Conclusion section is too long- my suggestion is authors to revise it and condense it. A good idea would also be authors to revise the whole paper, so as to avoid repetition of similar content and provide a more amiable to the reader version of the paper. Overall this is a well structured and presented paper, which could be further revised so as to enhance its quality in content.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Academic genre is well presented- no language issues detected.

Author Response

Dear Editor.

      Thank you very much for your enlightening and constructive comments on the revision. After careful reading and discussion, our team has made changes in the following four areas.

1. We have added some of the literature on cognitive load theory that you mentioned and highlighted them in blue in the section on cognitive load theory for the later revision of the article.
2. You mentioned that the interviewers and other issues in our study are indeed areas that we need to improve. We have described the interviewers and the situation in detail in the introduction of the research sample in the article and listed the interview issues in the research steps, which are highlighted in blue.
3. We have also reorganized the discussion section of the study you mentioned. Since another reviewer proposed to add a study on community theory, we have added a corresponding research statement about this section in the discussion section. We have also added a statement about the emotional experience of teachers in the study of teachers' emotions, taking into account the differences in Chinese culture and geography that you mentioned, and have highlighted it in blue. The yellow part of this section is also an addition to these.

         4 Finally, we have highlighted the references in yellow for the additional              literature, and the article's conclusions have been redrawn to list the                    study's  limitations to make the study's conclusions and implications clearer.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Considering the corrected manuscript, I found that the new version was significantly improved. The author(s) in the introductory part, and in the discussion, managed to better indicate the importance of this particular research topic, and indicate the importance of teachers' emotional support in learning a foreign language through an online learning environment. The author(s) conducted most of the corrections I advised. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I am not competent to assess the quality of translation and proofreading professionally, but I noticed that there were errors in the added parts of the text.