This section covers the literature from psychology and education theory that is related to help seeking. These are: Attribution theory; Self Esteem studies; Reactance Theory; Motivational Goal Theory; and Behavioural Precipitator Theory.
Attributions
Heider (1958) was the pioneer of attribution theory, where he highlighted the distinction between dispositional (internal) and environmental (external) perceptions of an individual‟s actions. Later Kelly (1967) refined the theory by developing a three-part causal attribution model involving consensus (how most people behave), consistency (how an individual typically behaves
towards a specific stimuli) and distinctiveness (whether an individual behaves in the same way to other stimuli). When behaviour is high in consistency and low on consensus and distinctiveness, internal attributions are made; when behaviour is high on all three factors, external attributions are made. Kelsey, Kearney, Plax, Allen and Ritter (2004) have postulated that people develop a framework when a particular social phenomena occurs, which helps them interpret and identify causes in their own and others‟ behaviour. Attribution Theory models the way that individuals process information by making
judgements and assigning causes regarding what other people do (ibid), and is based on an individual‟s desire to understand the causes of events and behaviour in the social world, including their own behaviour, which will help to predict future events and behaviours.
Three assumptions form the basis of this theoretical perspective. Firstly individuals tend to interpret other people‟s behaviour in terms of its causes. Secondly, causes for behavioural responses are assigned to behaviours systematically and not at random and thirdly, these causes play an important role in individual affective and behavioural responses (Martini & Page, 1996). Martini et al. claim that help seeking behaviour is readily explainable through the use of Attribution Theory, perhaps because of the development of the
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Attribution theory by researchers such as Rotter (1975) and Wiener,
Nierenberg and Goldstein (1976). Their work into explanations of success and failure, based on locus of control (internal / external attributions), stability (whether causes are stable or changeable) and controllability (whether a person has control of the situation) are of particular importance in driving students‟ affective and behavioural responses to events.
Ames (1982) claims that this is only one aspect, since she sees help seeking as not only depending on the pattern of attributions made when a student is attempting a task, but also on the underlying goals that students are pursuing. As will be seen later, students‟ goal orientations may have major impacts on the type of help that they seek in an academic context.
Attribution Theory has been applied to help seeking scenarios, and Martini and Page (1996) highlight that much of the literature focuses on the locus dimension involving internal and external attributions. Internal attributions for help seeking can lead to negative evaluations of the self because the need for help is linked to a deficit in ability or skill, as opposed to an external cause beyond the individual‟s control (Karabenick & Knapp, 1988). However, external factors may generate more help acceptance, since external
attributions such as task difficulty may be more acceptable to help seekers (ibid.).
Attribution Theory is useful, as it attempts to explain why some students do not seek academic help when they need it. However, when a researcher is faced with events and their associated outcomes, the cognitive effort in accounting for all the factors involved in attributional models may be too high for practical use. For example, Attribution Theory does not explain the
processes that may be in play, when students seek help and are receiving it. Neither does it explain how students who do not seek help can be
encouraged into seeking and receiving it. The lack of these aspects in this theory appears to be a major deficit, and therefore it may not provide a theoretical base to answer the research questions in this thesis. However, these facets may be explained in terms of students‟ self esteem, as this appears to be an important factor in whether or not they seek help.
24 Self Esteem
Studies concerning the relationship of self esteem and help seeking revolve around the threat that seeking help poses to a student‟s self esteem
(Hartman-Hall & Haaga, 2002; Karabenick & Knapp, 1991; Kitsantas & Chow, 2007; Ryan, Pintrich & Midgley, 2001). The results seem inconclusive initially, since some studies indicate that students with high self esteem who perform poorly are more likely to seek help to redress the imbalance in their self esteem, whereas others claim that students with high self esteem are less likely to seek help. This position has been termed the vulnerability versus consistency hypothesis (Tesslar & Schwartz, 1972, p.318; Nadler, 1983, p. 308). A connection with Attribution theory occurs here, as a potential threat to self-esteem can result if help seeking is attributed to personal failure to meet the task demands. This type of attribution is likely to occur in the absence of an external attribution. Alternatively, the perceived difficulty of the task could influence the degree of external attributions, and reduce the internal
responsibility attributed to failure. Equally, the perceived failure of others on the same task can also reduce internal responsibility for failure on a task (Tesslar & Schwartz, 1972). Additionally, Crocker & Nuer (2003) found that students who were normally academically successful, experienced more negative effects to their self esteem if they performed poorly. This was because they tended to measure their success and base their self worth in terms of academic success. According to the consistency hypothesis, they would therefore not seek help. Crocker & Nuer‟s study supports Tesslar and Schwartz‟s (1972) and Nadler‟s (1983) findings, where it was concluded that high self esteem students were less likely to seek needed help than students with poor self esteem. However, this only occurred in areas where the higher self esteem students felt that they should have performed better. Nadler (1983) terms this phenomenon ego centrality (p.313).
One issue with self esteem studies seems to be the breadth attached to the later developments of the construct (ibid., p.314), in counterpoint to
Rosenberg‟s (1960) definition of self esteem being a person‟s stable sense of personal worth or worthiness. Nadler (1983) claims that the construct of self
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esteem cannot be purely defined and consequently it needs to be partitioned conceptually into other variables, such as ego-defensiveness.
It seems that measuring a student‟s self esteem may be problematic, and ascertaining whether or not high or low self esteem in students causes them to seek help or not is difficult. Possibly students‟ self esteem may not be the only factor in whether or not they seek help, rather their perception of the potential debt to the help giver may play a significant role in their help seeking decisions. This phenomenon has been theorised by Reactance Theory. Reactance
The underlying assumption of Reactance Theory is that people are able to react freely, and that they perceive they can act in any way they choose in response to specific events (Brehm and Brehm, 1981, p.12).
Researchers who have studied reactance theory, in relation to help seeking posit that people react in direct response to the possibility of their freedom being impaired because they feel they need to seek help (Brehm & Brehm, 1981; Fisher, Nadler & Whitcher-Alagna, 1983; Miller, Lane, Deatrick, Young, & Potts, 2007). Wacker (2007) claims that the nature of this reaction is an adverse or negative psychological state, which causes a person to attempt to restore their previous state of freedom. The strength of the reaction is
dependent on the value to the recipient of the freedom that has been limited or removed. Fisher Nadler and Whitcher-Alagna (1983) claim that reactance theory could explain why some people refuse help, even if they need it. The possibility that they may need to reciprocate or be indebted to the help giver may prevent them from asking for help or accepting it if it is offered.
Reactance Theory may be a useful approach to describing help seeking in a tertiary context, since students may feel the help giver expects a return or they may not wish to feel indebted to the help giver, so they don‟t seek help.
However, Reactance Theory falls short as a complete description as to why people may not seek help. Firstly, help seekers may only feel unable to ask for help if it was clear that accepting the help would be restrictive in some way. Secondly, the theory makes no predictions about „non-restrictive help‟ when it is offered (Fisher, Nadler & Whitcher-Alagna, 1983, p.59). In an earlier study Broll, Gross and Piliavin (1974) attempted to address this problem and
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found that students who were offered help rather than having to request it tended to be more receptive of help and liked the help giver more. This may have applications in a Learning Support context, as it may be more useful for learning support tutors offer help to students who need it rather than waiting for them to request it.
However, Brehm and Brehm (1981) claim that offers of help can create reactance, but that to predict the magnitude of reactance in a help seeking situation it is necessary to measure the importance of the freedom that is being impaired for the help seeker (p.194).This aspect is crucial if the theory is to be predictive in help seeking situations. Additionally, students‟ perceptions of loss of freedom in an academic context may not impact their help seeking, if they see that having help results in them achieving their academic goals. Reactance theory was considered as one approach in answering the research questions posed in this thesis.
Motivational Goals
Goal development has been seen as an important aspect of self-regulation and has been linked to help seeking (Butler & Neuman, 1995; Karabenick, 2004; Newman & Schwager, 1995; Newman, 1998; 1994). Shah and Kruglanski (2000) claim that goals are reference points for an individual‟s actions, helping to provide a concrete focus in the fulfilment of needs (p.85). They would necessarily apply to adaptive help seeking, since this is seen in the literature as a self regulative strategy.
Different individuals have different goals, but they may also have different ways of achieving the same or similar goals. Shah and Kruglanski (2000) define a goal as a knowledge structure. In this sense a goal is a cognitive construct that an individual can relate to other constructs in their mental architecture. Shah and Kruglanski (2000) also take a connectionist view of this. They claim that a goal can be represented in terms of a set of neural connections. So, it is possible to represent goal structures as cognitive components, constituting perceptions on the part of the person attempting to attain a specified goal.
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The goal orientation models that have been proposed (Karabenick, 2004; Ryan, Hicks & Migdeley, 1997; Ryan, Gheen & Midgeley, 1998) are neatly summarised by Pintrich (2000), as being of two general purpose orientations. These are learning goals and performance goals. Pintrich also states that both these type of goals have an „approach‟ or „avoidance‟ focus. Learning or achievement goals relate to an individual‟s need to increase their competence at a particular task. These are often called mastery goals in the psychological literature (Pintrich, 2000, p.415). Performance goals entail attempts to elicit positive judgements of competence on the part of an individual, or the
avoidance of negative judgements (Ryan, Pintrich & Midgley, 2001; Midgley, Kaplan & Middleton, 2001). The approach and avoidance focus indicates how the goal is achieved. For example, a student with a mastery-orientated goal, who had an approach focus, would concentrate on learning or understanding a particular item. If the goal had an avoidance focus, then the student would be concentrating on avoiding not mastering the task or item.
Ryan, Pintrich and Midgley (2001) state that goals can be classified as
achievement orientated and social orientated (pp. 97-98). Both would have an effect on student help seeking. Latterly, Peng and Cherng (2005) and Cherng (2003) have found with samples of high school students (932 and 610,
respectively), that personal goals as opposed to contextual goals have a four dimensional structure. Within this structure they supported Pintrich‟s (2000) classification of goals as having both an approach and an avoidance focus. Combining this structure with a mastery and performance goal formation results in a four dimensional model of goal attribution where goals can be - approach/mastery; avoidance/mastery; approach/performance; and
avoidance/performance.
Pintrich (2000) claims that all the varying goal orientation models include mastery goals with an approach focus (p.479). Therefore these types of goals have an important place in the development of any model of self regulated learning of which help seeking is a part. There is a limited amount of research linking the use of mastery goals and the acquisition of content knowledge or metacognitive behaviour (Pintrich, 2000, p.480). These studies may be crucial
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if tertiary educators are to develop methods that help students develop self regulative processes and encourage help seeking and hence deeper rather than surface learning (Ibid., p. 486). Such methods may also help to
overcome many students‟ resistance to help seeking, as students who approach tasks with a mastery orientation tend not to see help seeking as a negative reflection on their ability (Newman, 1998).
Goal Structure and Help Seeking
The majority of work assessing achievement goal structure and help seeking has revolved around students‟ personal goal orientations (Butler & Neuman, 1995; Chang, 2008; Karabenick, 2004; Newman, 1994; 1998), and class or contextual goal structures (Deemer, 2004; Pintrich, 2000; 2004; Peng & Cherng, 2005). There seem to be significant relationships between the types of goals that students have and their approach to academic help seeking, as well as the congruence or incongruence of personal and class-based goals. The following sections will consider students‟ goal orientations in relation to types of help seeking.
Instrumental Help Seeking and Goal Structure
Karabenick (2004) claims that students who adopt mastery goals are more likely to engage in instrumental/autonomous help seeking (p.569), but that the incidence of help seeking seems to rely on the response of the teacher or tutor in question. However, it is unclear whether or not instrumental help seekers would prefer formal sources of help rather than informal sources. Some evidence seems to point to the latter (Karabenick & Knapp, 1988). Newman (1998) claims that students with mastery or learning goals tend to seek help concerning task related information, as well as confirming
previously completed work. This supposedly helps students find errors, sort out any difficulties they may have with the material and subsequently improve their task mastery.
The academic benefits of class based goals that stress learning rather than performance has been well researched (Karabenick, 2004; Peng & Cherng, 2005; Ryan & Pintrich, 1997), and indicates that students benefit from being asked to master aspects of a subject rather than just produce assignments
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that meet with course criteria. Students whose classes operate along these lines seem to ask for instrumental help when they have academic difficulties (Butler & Neuman, 1995). Pintrich (2004) confirms these findings with tertiary students, where those who had a mastery orientated goal focus tended to ask for more help, whereas help seeking avoidance patterns were inversely
related to this type of focus (p.578).
Consequently, students with strong mastery goals when placed in a situation where these types of goals are espoused would seek process (instrumental) related help for tasks rather than task related help. Strong personal mastery goals also tend to boost help seeking if the context of the class or course is mastery orientated (Newman, 1998, p.646). Conversely, students with strong mastery goals tend to seek less help if the goal orientation of the course or class is performance based (ibid.).
Executive Help Seeking and Goal Structure
Students who adopt performance goals either avoid seeking help or seek expedient/executive help (Karabenick, 1998, 2003). Newman (1998) claims that students with strong performance goals or who are working within an environment that is performance based tend to seek more help if the course or class espouses mastery based goals. This tendency arises when both the student in question and the class are congruently attempting to do less work in the fulfillment of their goals. The type of help sought may be unnecessary help, or help that seeks immediate answers to questions. In some
circumstances students may not seek help at all (ibid.). There seems to be little research available in a tertiary context to address such research questions. The research questions posed in this thesis may form a basis to further explore students‟ goal orientations and their relationship to help seeking.
The reasons tertiary students do seek particular types of help is an important question to address, and the next sub section which considers types of behavioural precipitators is useful in producing a theory that may explain the precipitators that lead to help seeking.
30 Behavioural Precipitators
Behavioural precipitators have not been researched in a help seeking context to date, however aspects of Wortley‟s (2008) analysis in criminology provides a useful starting point from which to theorise help seeking precipitators in this thesis. Precipitators are events and influences that occur prior to behaviour, and which cause it. They are described by Wortley (2001, 2008) and Cornish and Clarke (2003) as prompts, pressures, permissions and provocations (Wortley, 2001, p.63; 2008, p. 51). Wortley claims that these behavioural precipitators are located in learning theory, social psychology, social cognitive theory, and environmental psychology respectively. Aspects of his approach have implications for the precipitating of help seeking behaviour.
Prompts
Prompts are part of the immediate environment that causes thoughts and feelings to come to the surface (Wortley, 2001, p.65; Cornish & Clarke, 2003, p.43). Four types of prompts are evident in eliciting behaviour. These are triggers, signals, imitation, and expectancies. Triggers are defined as prompts that elicit physiological responses in people, such as, salivation or sweating. Their original conception may not have an application to help seeking;
however, other aspects of Wortley‟s approach could be amalgamated with this definition so it could be used to theorise a help seeking setting. Signals are environmental cues that indicate what the appropriate behaviour should be in a given context. For example, in a help seeking context, it might be
inappropriate to seek executive help with a tutor, and this may be signalled to the help seeker by the tutor not responding to executive help seeking. In some instances imitation may precipitate behaviour. This is the result of a person modelling appropriate behaviour in a given context, and where the
observation of that behaviour causes someone to replicate it. In a help seeking context the help giver may be the main modeller of behaviour, and this may cause particular help seeking types of behaviour to occur. In a help seeking session, the help seeker may have expectations about how the
session should proceed. These are a person‟s preconceived ideas of what will