Exploring Precipitating Events and Barriers to Student Help-Seeking in STEM Gateway Courses

• In Event: STEM Education: Assessment, Identity, and Support

Abstract

This paper examines the conceptualization, utilization, and barriers/enablers of academic help-seeking during the first two years of study for first-time STEM undergraduate students enrolled in courses with high rates of Ds, Fs, and withdrawals. We explore the ways that students make sense of and utilize academic help-seeking, including the precipitating events that lead them to seek support and whether they experience barriers or friction in this academic help-seeking. We find that the decisions students make to seek help are both personal to them and universal across students, and the conceptions of help-seeking that students bring with them to college are shaped by prevailing myths that often serve as friction to their likelihood to seek help and barriers to institutional support.

Authors

• Amy N. Farley, University of Cincinnati

• Amy Jane Rodgers Awtrey, University of Cincinnati

• Andrew G. Benson, University of Cincinnati

• Christopher M. Swoboda, University of Cincinnati