What Matters More for Students' Beliefs About Help-Seeking: Academic Goals or Social Goals?

• In Event: Motivational, Cognitive, and Dispositional Antecedents of Academic Help Seeking

Abstract

Academic help seeking (HS) is both an academic and social process. Research demonstrates the importance of academic achievement goals for students’ HS (e.g., Butler & Neuman, 1995; Karabenick, 2004) and growing evidence indicates that social achievement goals matter for HS as well (Roussel, Elliot, & Feltman, 2011; Ryan, Hicks, & Midgley, 1997). Achievement goal theory states that students may be oriented toward developing competence, demonstrating competence, or avoiding demonstrating incompetence, and these goal orientations (in the academic or social domain) have implications for educational outcomes. However, it remains unclear whether academic or social goals are more important for students’ HS. Which goals should schools promote to encourage students to seek needed help? The research objective was to determine the extent to which academic and social goals predict adaptive perceptions of the benefits of HS and maladaptive perceptions of the costs of HS. The proposed model is shown in Figure 1. A supplementary research objective was to determine whether academic and social goals are structurally distinct factors.
Hardcopy surveys were administered to 9th-12th grade students (n = 756, 51% female) attending a US public high school. HS benefits (beliefs that help seeking is beneficial) and HS costs (perceived threat of seeking help from peers and teachers) were assessed with adapted measures from Ryan and Pintrich (1997). The three academic achievement goals and three social achievement goals were measured using adapted version of PALS (Midgley et al., 2000) and SAGOS (Ryan & Shim, 2008). Table 1 displays sample items and scale descriptives.
Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted using MPlus software. Separating academic and social goals, with three goals in each domain, resulted in the best fit (Table 2). After establishing the factor structure, a structural equation model was estimated to examine the relations between the six goals and two HS beliefs. The model allows for the estimation of the effect of each goal while simultaneously controlling for the other goals and covariances between the goals. Students’ academic achievement (GPA) and gender were controlled for as covariates. The model (Figure 2) had an acceptable fit: χ2(632, n=756)=1999.38, CFI=.92, TLI=.91, RMSEA=.05, SRMR=.06. The variables explained a significant proportion of variance in HS benefits (34%) and HS costs (48%). Students focused on academic understanding and improvement (mastery) reported greater HS benefits. Students who aimed to improve academically (mastery) and who wanted to appear popular (demonstration-approach) reported lower HS costs, while those focused on avoiding appearing academically incompetent (performance-avoidance) and especially those avoiding looking unpopular (demonstration-avoidance) reported higher HS costs.
The results suggest that only academic achievement goals matter for perceived HS benefits, while both academic and social achievement goals are associated with perceived HS costs. Social demonstration-avoidance goals exhibited the strongest relationship with HS costs. As expected, academic mastery goals were adaptive for HS beliefs, and avoidance-oriented goals were maladaptive. Surprisingly, demonstration-approach goals were adaptive. Both academic and social goals matter for HS at school, but in different ways depending upon whether the aim is to increase benefits or decrease costs.

Author

• Kara A. Makara, University of Glasgow