Not All Avoidance Help Seekers Are Created Equal: Individual Differences in Adaptive and Executive Help Seeking

Abstract

This study examined 86 teacher candidates’ use of help seeking strategies and beliefs for preparing to pass a state certification examination. Using cluster analysis, we identified three different kinds of help seekers among the participants. One of the clusters represented teacher candidates for whom help seeking was an important and adaptive self-regulatory strategy and essential to their successful academic performance. The other two clusters represented the group of teacher candidates who had help-avoidance tendencies, but they were different in that for one group, seeking help implied inadequate use and maladaptive self-regulatory strategies while for the other, coping and adaptive self-regulatory strategies were utilized to ask for help when needed. The results revealed that students’ tendencies for help seeking vary according to their teacher’s self-efficacy beliefs, and use of self-regulatory strategies, such as delay of gratification. These findings suggested that help seeking is indeed a self-regulatory learning strategy used by learners to pursue valuable academic goals, and that differences do exist in approaches to help avoidance.