From Gesture to Engagement: Understanding the Mediating Role of Teacher–Student Relationship in Hebei’s College Classrooms

The present study examines the shared and unique contributions of college teachers’ nonverbal behaviors to students’ classroom engagement, and specifically explores the mediating role of teacher–student relationship. Informed by symbolic interaction theory and emotional response theory, the study investigates the influence of two key nonverbal behavior dimensions (i.e., gesture and body distance) on student engagement in higher education in the context of Hebei Province, China. The sample consisted of 400 university students drawn through multi-stage random sampling from three campuses. SmartPLS 4.0 was used to perform structural equation model in order to test the direct as well as the indirect effects between the items. The results indicate that the non-verbal behaviors of teachers have a significant positive impact on students’ classroom engagement as well as on the quality of the teacher–student relationship. Furthermore, the student–teacher relationship per se significantly predicts self-report levels of classroom engagement and can partially mediate the effect of teachers’ nonverbal behaviors on students’ classroom engagement. These findings underscore the importance of relation based and communicative cues in predicting student engagement in Chinese classes at college level.