How social-emotional competence shapes classroom participation? A configurational analysis of teacher education students using fsQCA

Introduction: University students' classroom participation is a research focus of great concern to educational scholars and university educators. Existing studies have indicated the potential impact of social-emotional competence on students' in-class engagement, but the complex combinatorial effects of its components remain under-explored. This study aims to decompose the influence mechanism of university students' social-emotional competence on classroom participation, specifically exploring how different combinations of social-emotional competence components jointly affect their classroom participation. Methods: A questionnaire survey was conducted among 172 teacher education students to collect data on their social-emotional competence and classroom participation. Fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was adopted as the core research method to systematically explore the complex causal configurations between social-emotional competence components and high classroom participation.​. Results: The analysis identified three distinct configurations of social-emotional competence that can effectively lead to high classroom participation among university students. Notably, self-awareness, relationship skills, and self-management emerged as the core conditional factors across all three configurations, playing irreplaceable roles in promoting classroom participation. Discussion: This study reveals the asymmetric and configurational nature of the relationship between social-emotional competence and classroom participation, enriching the theoretical understanding of non-linear influence mechanisms in educational psychology. The identification of core conditional factors provides practical implications for universities and educators to design targeted intervention strategies-such as strengthening self-awareness training and interpersonal skill development-to enhance students' classroom participation. Future research could expand the sample scope across different disciplines and explore the moderating effects of teaching contexts on these configurations.