Exploring Psychosociocultural, Personal, and Institutional Factors Associated With Latina/o/x College Students’ Help-Seeking Tendencies

• In Event: Reimagining Help-Seeking Contexts for Minoritized College Students: Toward Equity-Focused and Asset-Based Research

Abstract

Objectives
Although much is known about the motivational antecedents of help-seeking (i.e., achievement goals; Ryan & Pintrich, 1997), less attention has been paid to psychosociocultural factors, particularly for Students of Color. Given the need for a culturalized, asset-based, and contextual understanding of help-seeking processes, our study examines how such factors are linked to help-seeking tendencies of Latina/o/x college students.

Background
Guided by research on self-regulated learning, we conceptualized help-seeking as a resource management strategy learners use to obtain academic assistance. As learners experience difficulty, they negotiate whether to seek help (avoidant help-seeking, help-seeking threat), the source of help (formal, informal), and their approach to help-seeking (expedient, instrumental; Karabenick, 2003), which matter for how well they perform academically (Fong et al., 2023). We also drew from various frameworks including sense of belonging (Hurtado & Carter, 2003), campus racial climate (Byrd, 2019), and community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005). Students’ sense of belonging occurs on multiple levels--holistically on campus, academically in the classroom, and socially among peers. Students also perceive multiple dimensions of campus racial climate, including stereotyping and the frequency of interactions they have with students from different races/ethnicities. Lastly, Students of Color possess various cultural assets such as aspirational, navigational, and familial capital.

Method
Within undergraduate courses at a U.S. public university, we conducted a QUAN-qual, mixed-method study with 247 students who identified as Latina/o/x. We measured various predictors including belonging (academic, social, campus), community cultural wealth (aspirational, navigational, familial capitals), campus racial climate (positive interactions, stereotyping), and institutional support, controlling for personal background variables (Table 1). We regressed these predictors on the following six help-seeking variables: avoidant, expedient, instrumental, formal and informal help-seeking, as well as help-seeking threat. We also conducted follow-up interviews with 10 students and used a basic qualitative approach to derive themes about social and culturalized factors that influenced their help-seeking.

Findings
Regression results revealed that type of belonging mattered when predicting different types of help-seeking. Social belonging positively predicted expedient help-seeking and help-seeking threat but negatively predicted formal help-seeking. Contrastingly, academic belonging negatively predicted expedient, avoidant, and informal help-seeking tendencies but positively predicted instrumental help-seeking. Campus belonging and academic belonging negatively predicted help-seeking threat. Perceptions of campus racial climate were also salient; stereotyping was positively associated with help-seeking threat and expedient, avoidant, and informal help-seeking. For community cultural wealth, aspirational capital was negatively associated with expedient help-seeking, avoidant help-seeking, and help-seeking threat. Navigational capital was a positive predictor of instrumental help-seeking; familial capital was a positive predictor of formal help-seeking. Our qualitative data (Table 2) supports these findings as well.

Significance
Our study highlights the critical role of psychsociocultural factors in shaping help-seeking tendencies of Latina/o/x students. We complexify relationships between various forms of belonging and how students seek help strategically. Moreover, we identified a) asset-based perspectives that center cultural capital as robust antecedents to seeking academic assistance and b) the need for equity-oriented learning environments (e.g., positive campus climate) that may encourage adaptive help-seeking.

Authors

• Cassandra Gonzales, Mercedes ISD

• Carlton J. Fong, Texas State University