Perceived Social Resources Affect Help-Seeking and Academic Outcomes in the Initial Phase of Undergraduate Studies

First-year students are challenged cognitively and socially by the need to integrate into a new environment. This article investigates the role of peer students as a social resource for academic help-seeking to overcome knowledge-related difficulties. Receiving useful help may require close and regular contacts (social embeddedness) as well as awareness about peer’s knowledge (group awareness). Hence, effects of social embeddedness and group awareness on academic success (i.e., achievement, satisfaction, and dropout intention) are expected to be mediated by academic help-seeking. First-semester students in science (n = 49) and engineering (n = 80) have been surveyed. Both study programs differ in occasions to form small groups, which may influence student’s aggregation of social resources. Both social embeddedness (engineering only) and group awareness (both groups) predict successful academic help-seeking. Moreover, the effect of group awareness on student satisfaction and dropout intention is partially mediated by successful academic help-seeking (engineering only). Both social variables can contribute to help-seeking behavior and student’s academic success. The results provide evidence to advice researchers and practitioners to improve academic help-seeking among students.

ACADEMIC HELP SEEKING TERHADAP DOSEN PADA MAHASISWA FAKULTAS PSIKOLOGI UNIVERSITAS PADJADJARAN: PERAN FEAR OF FAILURE

Keberhasilan pembelajaran di perguruan tinggi menuntut keaktifan dari mahasiswa baik secara fisik, emosional, maupun mental. Meski demikian, mahasiswa tetap membutuhkan orang lain ketika mengalami kesulitan melaksanakan aktivitas akademik, misalnya dengan meminta bantuan dosen (academic help seeking). Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui hubungan antara fear of failure dengan academic help seeking terhadap dosen. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode korelasional. Metode sampling yang digunakan adalah simple random sampling dengan sampel penelitian sebanyak 185 orang mahasiswa Fakultas Psikologi Universitas Padjadjaran tahun kedua dan ketiga. Alat ukur yang digunakan adalah Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory serta Computer Science Help Seeking Scales. Data dianalisis menggunakan korelasi Spearman. Hasil yang diperoleh menunjukkan bahwa fear of failure memiliki hubungan dengan academic help seeking pada tiga dimensi, yaitu instrumental help seeking, executive help seeking, dan avoidance help seeking. Tidak ditemukan hubungan antara fear of failure dengan perceived benefit of help seeking. Fear of failure menimbulkan dua kecenderungan pada mahasiswa, yakni kecenderungan meminta bantuan dan kecenderungan menghindari meminta bantuan kepada dosen.

Academic Help-Seeking Attitudes, and Their Relationship with Emotional Variables

Academic help seeking is a self-regulatory strategy that is closely related to students’ school functioning and successful school outcomes. The aim of the present study is to gain greater insight into the associations between help-seeking behavior and attitudes (i.e., emotional costs, perception of benefits, threats and avoidance of academic help seeking), and socio-emotional factors (i.e., functional social support, satisfaction with life, happiness, academic and social self-concept, emotional loneliness and social network). Two hundred and thirty-two students from three public secondary schools (53.9% girls; mean age = 16.61, SD = 2.85) participated in this study by completing the assessment form during school hours. As expected, the results showed significant associations between attitudes toward academic help seeking and socioemotional factors except for (1) perceived emotional cost of academic help seeking and happiness, academic self-concept and social network, (2) threat of academic help seeking and satisfaction with life and social network and (3) avoidance of academic help seeking and social network, in which cases the correlations were not significant. Finally, (1) emotional loneliness was found to be a significant predictor of the perceived emotional cost of academic help seeking, (2) functional social support, academic self-concept, social self-concept and subjective evaluation of the social network were found to be significant predictors of the perceived benefits of academic help seeking, (3) emotional loneliness and academic self-concept were found to be significant predictors of both threat of academic help seeking and avoidance of academic help seeking. The results of this study suggest that psycho-emotional variables play an important role in academic help-seeking strategies and can affect students’ final behavior in help seeking.

Help-Seeking in an Academic Context: A Systematic Review

Academic help-seeking as a learning strategy can influence academic achievement. Indeed, seeking help when needed is considered a self-regulated learning strategy that should be taken into account from the educational perspective. In this study, we review twenty-five articles published over the last 10 years that have analysed academic help-seeking in adolescents or university students. The aims of this review are to describe the relationship between academic help-seeking and other sociodemographic, educational, and psychosocial variables, and to evaluate the instruments that are used to assess academic help-seeking. Our results show that there is a lack of consensus on the structure of help-seeking as a construct. Moreover, the role of sex and age is unclear, and there is little replication in the correlational models. Further research is needed to better define the construct and compare the variables that influence academic help-seeking at different stages of education.