Help seeking has been theorised by several researchers either as
dichotomous entities or along continua (Marchand & Skinner, 2007; Nadler, 1998; Nelson, Le-Gall, 1981; Newman, 1994; Olsson, 2002). This section will consider the following approaches, instrumental-executive, adaptive-coping, autonomous-dependent and indirect-direct.
Instrumental-Executive Help Seeking
This section will outline Nelson Le-Gall‟s model of help seeking which splits the help seeking construct into two parts, instrumental and executive. Her seminal 1981 paper outlined the differences between instrumental and executive approaches to help seeking, and postulates the adaptive nature of instrumental help seeking. Secondly, this section will review the work of Nadler (1998), Newman (1994), Ryan and Pintrich (1998) and Karabenick (1998; 2001). Finally, two discrete approaches to researching help seeking will be examined.
Instrumental Help Seeking
Instrumental help seeking is a term associated with the process where a student obtains enough assistance to solve a problem in question, rather than
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asking for the complete solution. This type of help seeking has also been termed Autonomous Help Seeking (Nadler, 1998), or Adaptive Help Seeking (Newman, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2003) and is often seen in the literature as a discrete from executive help seeking, where the help seeker is more concerned with finding answers. Results from this type of work seem to produce frequencies of help seeking requests, or correlations of self reported help seeking proficiency to other aspects on a self-regulative framework. The instrumental construct was first proposed by Nelson Le-Gall (1981; 1983; 1985), who saw the nature of learning as a social process with learners being directly affected by the cultural, social and physical systems that surrounded them. Such a situation indicated that learners are rarely completely in charge of their learning situation, and consequently help seeking could be a useful self-regulative tool. She postulates that the approach that students may take when using instrumental help seeking would involve becoming aware of the need for help; deciding to seek help; finding someone who might be able to provide help; approaching the identified help giver and reacting to the help given (Nelson Le-Gall, 1983, p.270).
Later, Nelson Le-Gall‟s (1985) analysis of help seeking highlights the
disjuncture that exists between a western cultural espousal of individualism, as typified by such values as competitiveness, self-reliance and independence and other much sought after qualities in students such as socialisation and personality development. An example of such national differences is
exemplified by Graf, Freer & Plaizier (1979) who compared the differences in attitude to help seeking in Dutch and North American contexts. The North American sample derogated help seekers more than participants from the Dutch sample, which Graf et al. claim is due to a stronger North American cultural adherence to self-reliance. Typically, education in the USA tends to reflect and promote ideas of the desirability of students completing activities and solving problems autonomously (Nelson Le-Gall et al., 1998), even though the context of such practices may be essentially social. This type of practice differs from Asian countries such as Japan and China, where more emphasis is placed on social competence as a component of intelligence and achievement. Similar intra-cultural differences were found in a study by
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Nadler (1983), which was conducted in Israel. This study considered help seeking in a New Zealand context, and consequently provide a new dimension to the cultural components of help seeking theory.
Additionally, early theorists often bracketed help seeking as a dependent activity from which students move to the more desired state of self-sufficiency. The inference from such frameworks is that help seeking is seen as an
indicator of immaturity, passivity and incompetence (Nelson Le-Gall, 1985). Consequently, although seeking help may be a necessary strategy in solving a problem, the very construction of such frameworks has characterised it as an activity that should be avoided. Nelson Le-Gall (1985) cites several examples of studies where help seeking has been linked to personal
inadequacy, loss of self-esteem, and an individual participant‟s concern that they will be seen when seeking help. Such work is often seen as stigmatising the help seeking process, and consequently removes it as an effective
alternative for dealing with problem situations for students.
Nelson Le-Gall‟s (1981) influential work reformulated the field, so that help seeking could subsequently be classified as an adaptive strategy.
Consequently, instrumental help seeking is seen as an activity that is „mastery orientated‟ in that students who use this method are more concerned with acquiring the necessary skills and knowledge to solve problems, rather than merely be given solutions. Instrumental help seeking may therefore help students develop necessary skills, and consequently serve as a mechanism to help them move from „other-regulation‟ to „self-regulation‟.
Executive Help Seeking
Executive help seeking refers to those instances when the help seeker is intent on someone solving their problem, or attaining their goal without necessarily developing the required skills to perform the task or solve the problem for themselves (Nelson Le-Gall, 1985). Here, ready-made solutions would be of interest to the help seeker. Students, who seek this type of help, do so because they are passive in their learning and also lack self efficacy (Nadler, 1998). Consequently, this type of help seeking is seen by the student as an end in itself, and help seekers of this type relinquish control of their
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situation to more knowledgeable others (ibid.). Some problems initially may require executive help seeking from students, but a continued reliance on such an approach would be detrimental to the development of independent or mastery orientated help seeking. This type of help seeking includes those situations in which the help sought is not needed for the student to solve the problem and this type of help seeking may have negative long-term effects (Nelson Le-Gall, 1981). Students with effective help-seeking skills are able to refuse help insofar as they can manage a task themselves, but can elicit help when it is needed (ibid).
Executive help seeking contrasts with instrumental help seeking that has been previously described, and highlights the varying nature that help seeking can take. This form of help seeking has similarly been termed dependent help seeking (Nadler, 1998) with little conceptual difference from Nelson Le-Gall‟s (1981) analysis. Nadler postulates that help may be sought for varying
reasons. That is, the student may want to avoid criticism or academic penalty from a course tutor for incomplete work, or may want to lessen their workload in order to keep up with their course assignments.
Additionally, there is some evidence to link positive peer relations within academic institutions with the type of help seeking sought by students. For example, Nelson Le-Gall & Glor-Scheib‟s (1986) study with younger students concludes that there is support for the hypothesis that the relationship
between help-seeking behaviours and acceptance by a student‟s peers may vary depending on the helper and the type of help requested (p.191). So, students who request executive help are still able to develop successful peer relationships. This is at counterpoint to results from previous studies with younger populations (Hartup, 1970) where negative correlations existed between peer relations and help seeking from adult sources. Consequently, seeking appropriate help from a tutor may be seen as an acceptable method for an adult tertiary level student, whereas this may not be the case in a secondary context. This may be subject dependent however (Nelson Le-Gall, 1986), as well as dependent on other students‟ perceptions of the help seeker in question (ibid). If peer help seeking is excessive and presumably executive, then students may associate this negatively with perceived academic
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competence because the help-seeker is seen as not trying to sort out their own academic problems. The perception may be that the help seeker is
asking for a large amount of help, which may indicate to students that the help seeker not only lacks knowledge but also an ability to learn the specified subject matter (ibid). Similarly, the pursuance of such help seeking may indicate to peers that the student is attempting to achieve their goals
illegitimately, without gaining the necessary skills to support their academic results. The consequence of this is that students who seek excessive executive help from their peers may be perceived as being unable to
reciprocate with help in the future, since the help seeker‟s skill set may not be honed enough to facilitate help giving (ibid).
However, Nelson Le-Gall and Glor-Scheib (1986) postulate that if the help seeking in question is instrumental, then a different set of social reactions from peers comes into play. This is ostensibly because requests for
instrumental help do not place all of the responsibility for problem solving on the helper (p. 192). Rather, it may at some stage, because of the perception that the help seeker is interested in acquiring competence rather than
solutions, mitigate against thoughts that the help seeking is uni-directional. That is, the help seeker may be able to reciprocate at some time in the future using a skill set from another area.
The consideration of peer help is relevant in a tertiary help seeking context since these studies indicate that it is more likely that such help seeking may be successful if it is instrumental.
Nelson Le-Gall characterises help seeking as either „instrumental‟ or
„executive‟, where each category is discrete from the other (Nelson Le-Gall, 1981, 1985; Newman, 1998; Nadler; 1998). This approach to theorising help seeking has been replicated by other researchers. The next subsection will consider Newman‟s (1990) approach, that is, adaptive-coping help seeking. Adaptive-Coping
Marchand and Skinner (2007) claim that help seeking theory can be seen as coming from two distinct perspectives. These are as an adaptive strategy and
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as a coping strategy. From an adaptive perspective, students of all ages would use help seeking when they encounter problems that they cannot solve for themselves. However, in an academic context adaptive help seekers attempt to learn processes rather than just the answers to specific questions that have been posed. This approach to help seeking and the subsequent research is exemplified by such writers as Karabenick (1998), Newman (1990) and Ryan and Pintrich (1998). In contrast to this perspective is help seeking as a coping strategy, where both adults and children use help seeking to cope with stressful aspects of their lives. In some instances this could include academic work. This approach has been researched by such writers as Compas (1987). Despite this bifurcation there are many similarities between these perspectives, and both claim that help seeking is a legitimate strategy, and that it forms one approach among many for dealing with stressful
situations (Marchand & Skinner, 2007, p.65). This resonates with the self regulation literature (Pintrich, 2000; Pintrich & De Groot, 1990), which claims that help seeking is one aspect in the panoply of approaches that students can use in their academic pursuits.
Earlier, Newman (1994) expanded on Nelson Le-Gall‟s work, by claiming that instrumental help seeking is an adaptive strategy rather than a coping one that involves students in a four-part process. Firstly, students need to
understand the difficulty of the task that has to be performed. Newman sees this as unproblematic, however understanding the difficulty of a task requires students to exhibit some form of metacognition, since they would be
considering their own state of knowledge as they attempt to perform a task or solve a problem. Secondly, all the available information has to be considered in deciding whether the request for help is necessary or not. Adaptive help seeking indicates that such requests occur only when the student recognises that their knowledge state is insufficient to reach a desired outcome with a particular problem (ibid., p.285). Thirdly, the request for help has to be expressed in a way that is suitable for the situation so that help seekers have the opportunity to avoid short term failure, but ultimately enhance their skills so that long term mastery is acquired (ibid., p.285). Lastly, Newman (1994) states that, the help that is given has to be processed by the help seeker so
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that there is a chance of solving the problem or completing the task. This is important because the help seeker has to decide if further help is needed to solve the problem (p.285). If the help seeking session is to be successful then this last part of the process is clearly a priority. In some cases the tutor would have to revisit the subject material or attempt another approach to ensure that the help seeker is able to interpret the relevant subject matter and hence solve the problem.
Although Newman‟s (1994) analysis has some merits, it is difficult to specify exactly how adaptive help seeking presents itself during a help seeking session. He claims that these factors are not explicitly understood in a school setting. However, tertiary students may be able to provide more adequate explanations of their instrumental help seeking processes during help seeking sessions. There appears to be little difference between Newman‟s analysis of help seeking and Nelson Le Gall‟s (1981) model. A further approach to theorising help seeking will be considered in the next section, that is, autonomous-dependent help seeking.
Autonomous-Dependent
Autonomous help seeking is where an individual seeks help in order to improve their skill set, and consequently be able to solve problems on their own (Nadler, 1998, p.64). Autonomous help seeking is akin to Nelson Le- Gall‟s (1985) instrumental, and Newman‟s (1994) adaptive help seeking. One possible difference between autonomous help seeking and its instrumental or adaptive counterpart is that individuals who seek autonomous help are
concerned about retaining their autonomy when it comes to dealing with their problems (ibid.). This would have higher priority than developing the skills required to solve a problem.
In contrast to autonomous help seeking, Nadler (1998) defines dependent help seeking as help that is sought out of passivity, and where the help seeker seeks help whether they need it or not. Here, the help seeker is attempting to resolve a problem situation with minimal effort, by relying on more
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As with instrumental-executive and adaptive-coping help seeking,
autonomous-dependent help seeking is seen as two facets of help seeking behaviour that are opposite to each other. Help seekers are either using autonomous or dependent help seeking. The next section considers the styles of help seeking that help seekers employ.
Direct-Indirect
Help seeking style has been the subject of two major studies (Bornstein, 1998; Olsson, 2002). Olsson (2002) identified two styles of help seeking - direct and indirect. Direct help seeking occurs when the help seeker is explicit in the request for help. Indirect help seeking occurs when the help seeker does not explicitly ask for help, rather drops hints that help is needed or acts in such a way as to elicit help without specifically asking for assistance
(Bornstein, 1998, p. 782). In the latter case the help seeker would not mention that help was needed, nor refer to help in any way. Olsson (2002) concluded from participant self reports that it was not clear whether the majority of help seeking in professional relationships is direct or indirect in nature, but that most participants in studies reported using a direct rather than an indirect style to seek the help they needed (p.15). Indirect help seeking may well be a useful tool for help seekers especially taking into account the costs of help seeking in relation to the help seekers‟ self esteem (ibid.).
The costs and benefits of seeking help using both a direct and an indirect style, have been the subject of several studies (De Paulo & Fisher, 1980; Holtgraves & Yang, 1990, 1992). Direct help seeking may assist the
relationship between help seeker and help giver to strengthen (ibid.), whereas indirect help seeking allows the help seeker to save face if either the help is denied or there is a negative reaction on the part of the help giver. Olsson (2002) concluded that direct help is more often used by males, especially in circumstances where they are asking for help from a more powerful person, whereas indirect help seeking is more often used by females (Olsson, 2002, p.13), but that people in a close relationship tend to seek help directly
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This result is counter to Bornstein‟s (1998) conclusions, where he studied direct and indirect help seeking in a college sample. In this case, over a four week period Bornstein found that there was less difference between direct and indirect help seeking in relation to gender than expected. He claims that the non significant gender differences for direct help seeking, and marginally significant gender differences for indirect help seeking were due to a
departure from traditional gender roles among the college sample he studied. If this were the case then help givers in a tertiary setting, could expect little difference between the help seeking styles of male and female students. Each of the continua or dichotomies outlined in this section postulate that help seekers seek help either to improve their ability to solve their presented
problem or to have the problem solved by the help giver. This seems to be at the core of the instrumental-executive, adaptive-coping and autonomous- dependent dichotomies. Help seeking style is distinct from these three
dichotomies as it looks at the way help seekers seek help rather than the type of help they seek. For the purposes of this thesis I will use Nelson Le Gall‟s (1981) instrumental-executive model, as it appears to be the basis for Newman‟s (1994) and Nadler‟s (1998) later approach to modelling help
seeking. The adaptive-coping and autonomous-dependent models seem to be similar in type to Nelson Le Gall‟s influential work.