Curriculum ideological and political education (CIP) is a major reform in Chinese higher education that seeks to embed civic, moral, and ideological aims into disciplinary courses. While existing CIP research has largely focused on conceptual clarification and curriculum design, relatively little is known about how students experience CIP in everyday interactions with teachers and how these experiences relate to perceived teaching effectiveness. Drawing on international literature on teacher–student interaction, student engagement, and value-oriented education, this study examines the relationships among embedded teacher–student interaction, students’ interaction experiences, and perceived teaching effectiveness in CIP-related courses. Survey data were collected from 451 undergraduate students in three 4-year universities in Hefei, Anhui Province, China. Embedded interaction was operationalised across four learning spaces (classroom teaching, tutoring and questioning, communication and discussion, and practical guidance), interaction experience was captured through perceived accessibility, friendliness, timeliness, and helpfulness, and teaching effectiveness was measured by perceived knowledge gains, value-related concept enhancement, professional identity, and overall satisfaction. Structural equation modelling was used to test a mediational model. The results indicate that embedded teacher–student interaction is positively associated with perceived teaching effectiveness and that students’ interaction experiences are strongly and positively related to teaching effectiveness. Moreover, interaction experience partially mediates the relationship between embedded interaction and teaching effectiveness. These findings suggest that the success of value-oriented curricula such as CIP depends not only on whether value-related content is embedded in disciplinary courses, but also on whether teachers interact with students in ways that are experienced as accessible, respectful, timely, and helpful.
Yang et al. (Thu,) studied this question.