Toward a Contextually Grounded and Sociocultural Understanding of Academic Help-Seeking: New Directions and Perspectives

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Although academic help-seeking is a well-studied self-regulated learning (SRL) strategy, understanding its contextual and sociocultural antecedents remains largely unexplored. Our session aims to broaden and complexify the role of context in help-seeking research by sharing results from four innovative studies using qualitative (case study and phenomenology) and quantitative (structural equation modeling and scale development) designs. By integrating help-seeking with concepts not historically used in SRL such as microaggressions, racial climate, belonging, and cultural traits, we seek to address shortcomings in help-seeking research in line with the AERA Studying and Self-Regulated Learning Special Interest Group’s recommendations to make SRL more inclusive. Implications for advancing our conceptual understanding of the contextual and sociocultural nature of help-seeking will be discussed.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Studying and Self-Regulated Learning

Chairs

• Alana Aiko Uilani Kennedy, Northern Arizona University

• Carlton J. Fong, Texas State University

Papers

• Academic Help-Seeking and Belonging in the Classroom: Experiences of Asian American and Latinx Undergraduates - Alana Aiko Uilani Kennedy, Northern Arizona University; Mabel Eunice Hernandez, University of Southern California

• Developing a Measure of Help Seeking Climate: Links with Belonging, Help-seeking Tendencies, and Campus Climate - Pedram Zarei, Texas State Unniversity; Carlton J. Fong, Texas State University

• Academic Help-Seeking in a Cultural Context: The Roles of Individualism and Collectivism - Amos Jeng, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Picking and Choosing Battles: Self-Regulatory Responses to Help-Seeking as a Black Latina Woman in Engineering - Destiny Williams-Dobosz, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Discussants

• Teomara Rutherford, University of Delaware

• Kara A. Makara, University of Glasgow