Is This Worth Asking Now? Role Identity and Situated Help Seeking in an Introductory Statistics Course

• In Event: Identity, Motivation, and Situated Action in Educational Contexts

Abstract

Purpose
Question asking is an important means by which individuals and groups seek information and regulate learning (Graesser & Black, 2017), yet students’ questions are scarce in many classrooms (Dillon, 1998). While researchers have recognized the multifaceted and situational nature of help seeking decisions (Karabenick & Dembo, 2011), little empirical research has investigated how students—in a given moment when a particular question occurs to them—decide whether and how to seek help. The proposed paper aims to extend theoretical and empirical research on help seeking by examining how students’ role identities frame the situated and dynamic nature of help seeking decisions in the classroom.

Theoretical Framework
The proposed paper applies the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI, Kaplan & Garner, 2017) to frame help seeking decisions as emerging from an individual’s role identity as a student in a formal group learning setting. The DSMRI posits that role identity encompasses a network of role-specific knowledge, perceptions, and emotions that function as a dynamic system. Key system elements include role-related ontological and epistemological beliefs; purposes and goals in the role; self-perceptions in the role; and perceived action possibilities. The DSMRI positions the individual as the unit of analysis and focuses on the role identity system’s elements and processes with an aim toward understanding the person’s situated meaning of actions in the particular context (e.g., What does it mean to ask a question in this situation?)

Method and Data
Participants were 12 graduate students (10 female) enrolled in an introductory statistics course in a college of education at a public university. Data sources were: (1) a semi-structured interview using a stimulated recall protocol with each student following a class meeting to investigate situated help seeking decisions; and (2) field observations. Multiple-case study thematic analysis of verbatim transcripts (Creswell, 1998; Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014) guided by the DSMRI sought to understand patterns within and across cases regarding help seeking perceptions and behaviors.

Results
Analyses revealed nine ontological dimensions that framed the situated meaning of question asking (see Table 1). Whether a student asked a particular question depended on their appraisal of the question, context, and their perceived role, with decisions reflecting both stable and fluid role identity elements. Role identity components often aligned to form an attractor state that discouraged students from asking questions during class. Results also revealed tensions among role identity elements, such as distinct appraisals of their own questions (e.g., may interfere with others’ learning) and of classmates’ questions (e.g., are useful for my learning).

Significance
The paper offers a novel conceptualization of help seeking by framing the choice to ask questions during class as emerging from one’s situated role identity. The study demonstrates how networks of perceptions that constitute role identity influence moment-to-moment help seeking decision, extending help seeking theory beyond its traditional focus on achievement goal orientations. Findings revealed the situated and fluid nature of students’ help seeking decisions and provide examples of the complex dynamics that lead students to ask or withhold questions during instruction.

Author

• Bradley W. Bergey, Queens College, CUNY