The influence of Self System Model of Motivational Development on college students’ learning engagement: a hybrid three stage Fuzzy Delphi and structural equation modeling approach

Students' Emotional Intelligence and academic motivation are theorized to shape student learning engagement activities. Nevertheless, there is limited knowledge regarding the mediating mechanisms that explain this relationship. Based on Self System Model of Motivational Development, this study examined whether teachers' support mediated the relationship between Emotional Intelligence and learning engagement, as well as the connection between academic motivation and learning engagement among college students. Totally, 336 students (female: 63.4%, male: 36.6%, mean: 1.63, Std.:0.482) were recruited from two public vocational education institutes in China. The expert questionnaire was sent via email to 10 experts in order to collect their thoughts on the aspects that influenced learning engagement. The factors that influenced students' learning engagement were identified based on the Fuzzy Delphi method. Hence, the quantitative (questionnaire survey) design was used to gather students' data on demographic variables, emotional intelligence, academic motivation, teachers' support and learning engagement. The structural equation model (PLS-SEM) was used to analyse the data. The findings of this study reveal the positive impact of students' Emotional Intelligence and academic motivation on learning engagement in the educational field by adopting teachers' support as a mediating variable. The results highlighted vital internal and external factors in the process of creating an academic environment that motivated students to learn. This will improve the performance of the teaching faculty and lead to the student's academic success. This research proposed a new instrument to assess the students' engagement, which contributed to carrying out new research in the university educational context from a new research perspective.