Assessment of causal relationships between teaching skills and students’ academic progress with the mediating role of positive and negative emotions and perceived control using the Structural Equation Modeling approach

Abstract

The present study aimed to assess the causal relationships between teaching skills and students’ academic progress with the mediating role of positive and negative emotions and perceived control using the structural equation structural equation modeling approach. The research method was descriptive of correlational type and the analysis method was structural equation modeling. Research population comprised all students of Farhangian University of Yasuj, Iran, during The academic year 2016-2017 (n=1604). From among these, 359 were selected through stratified random sampling. Data were collected using a researcher-made teaching skills questionnaire (2016), researcher-made positive and negative feelings­ questionnaire (2016), and perceived control questionnaire (Tetrick and LaRocco, 1987). Data were analyzed in SPSS 24 and Amos 23. Results revealed that teaching skills are positively correlated with positive feelings, perceived control, and academic progress (sig= 0.0001), but negatively correlated with negative feelings (sig= 0.0001). Moreover, teaching skills, positive feelings, negative feelings, and perceived control affected academic progress with the path coefficients of 0.26, 0.232, -0.235, and 0.275, respectively, and directly explained 6.7, 5.3, 5.5, and 7.5% of students’ academic progress, respectively. It can be concluded that instructors can enhance students’ academic progress by having positive feelings and remarkable teaching skills and distancing themselves from negative feelings.