A systematic review links different kinds of teacher help to five motivational pathways behind student engagement in second-language classes.
Teacher support is often treated as a key factor in how engaged students become in second-language (L2) education, but past studies have differed in what they mean by teacher support and how they explain why it works. To address this, the authors reviewed 27 peer-reviewed empirical studies published from January 2015 to March 2026.
Across the studies, teacher support was measured in several different ways, including approaches aligned with self-determination theory—such as supporting autonomy, structure or competence, and involvement or relatedness. The review identifies five broad motivational mechanisms that connect teacher support to student engagement and proposes an integrated framework to organize these mechanisms across behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and agentic forms of engagement.
Teacher support mapped to motivation
The review synthesized 27 empirical studies identified using PRISMA-guided searches in Web of Science, Scopus, and EBSCOhost. It found that “teacher support” was operationalized in substantially different ways, ranging from self-determination theory–aligned dimensions (autonomy support, structure/competence support, and involvement/relatedness support) to constructs drawn from classroom climate and social support traditions.
The authors also identified five motivational explanation categories linking teacher support to engagement: need-based mechanisms, cognitive-motivational mechanisms, affective mechanisms, regulatory mechanisms, and cross-category pathways that co-occur. Cognitive-motivational mechanisms were the most frequently studied, while affective and regulatory mechanisms were comparatively less explored. The authors further report that the literature relied mainly on quantitative, cross-sectional, questionnaire-based studies, concentrated in Asian EFL contexts—especially China. The review’s proposed framework organizes motivational mechanisms as distinct but interrelated pathways through which teacher support may shape multidimensional engagement.
Review evidence and research gaps
This is a systematic review of 27 peer-reviewed empirical studies. The main limitation is that the underlying evidence in the reviewed literature is dominated by cross-sectional, questionnaire-based studies and is concentrated in Asian EFL settings, especially China. The review also notes that teacher support and motivational mechanisms have been measured and conceptualized in varied ways, which the authors address by using an SDT-based lens—but this variation may still limit how directly findings translate across contexts. The abstract does not provide effect sizes, causal tests, or details about individual study quality beyond the search and synthesis approach.
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Humanities and Social Sciences Communications · 2026 · DOI: 10.1057/s41599-026-08594-x
Authors: Lingling Gan, Jia Wei Lim
Institutions: University of Malaya, Guangxi Normal University
