Strategic Help Seeking

There is considerable agreement that more successful learners are active, engaged, and self-regulating learners who understand and are motivated to apply learning strategies under appropriate conditions. One important strategic activity is seeking help when necessary, rather than giving up or engaging in fruitless persistence. Research on strategic help seeking has matured significantly in recent years. This volume captures the current state of knowledge, research, and theory on help seeking as a strategic learning resource. It is international in scope, with contributors from the U.S., the Netherlands, Japan, and Israel. As a whole, the book suggests that strategic (adaptive) help seeking is a critical school readiness skill that is facilitated by mastery-oriented classroom achievement and social goals, by teachers who invite questions rather than those who ask them, and by cultural characteristics that support student inquiry. A conceptual overview is followed by three chapters that examine help seeking from complementary theoretical perspectives and make important distinctions between forms of help seeking; two chapters that focus on how learners' achievement and social goals affect classroom help seeking; one chapter specifically devoted to cross-cultural comparisons of help seeking in Western cultures and in Japan; two chapters that examine the most frequent manifestation of help seeking--that of question asking; and one chapter that explores help-seeking in the information age (the library reference process, information technology, and computer-mediated communication). All chapters include attention to the implications of research and theory for help seeking in instructional settings. Strategic Help Seeking is an excellent resource for educational researchers and practitioners including teachers, school administrators, instructional designers, reference librarians.

Building on Karabenick’s earlier volume on this topic and maintaining its high standards of scholarship and intellectual rigor, Help Seeking in Academic Settings: Goals, Groups, and Contexts brings together contemporary work that is theoretically as well as practically important. It highlights current trends in the area and gives expanded attention to applications to teaching and learning. The contributors represent an internationally recognized group of scholars and researchers who provide depth of analysis and breadth of coverage. Help seeking is currently considered an important learning strategy that is linked to students’ achievement goals and academic performance. This volume not only provides answers to who, why, and when learners seek help, but raises questions for readers to consider for future research. Chapters examine: *help seeking as a self-regulated learning strategy and its relationship to achievement goal theory; *help seeking in collaborative groups; *culture and help seeking in K-12 and college contexts; *help seeking and academic support services (such as academic advising centers); *help seeking in computer-based interactive learning environments; *help seeking in response to peer harassment at school; and *help seeking in non-academic settings such as the workplace. This book is intended for researchers, academic support personnel,and graduate students across the field of educational psychology, particularly those interested in student motivation and self-regulation.

Research on help seeking has primarily focused on classrooms interactions that consist primarily of students asking teachers and peers for help. The rapid emergence of information and communications technologies and interactive learning environments, however, requires expanding the help-seeking landscape and rethinking such critical theoretical issues as the distinction between help seeking and information search, and whether help seeking is inevitably a social self-regulated learning strategy. There is also the need to focus attention on help seeking in the broader learning enterprise, which includes its role in the collaboration process, how to support adaptive rather than the over- or under-reliance on help seeking, as well as to scaffold help-seeking skills that render the process more efficient and useful. To examine these and other issues, the present volume assembled contributions from internationally recognized scholars and researchers to capture the state of the art and to anticipate future developments in this expanding field. Its relevance extends to anyone attempting to understand the role of technology in education, including educational researchers and teachers who do now or who expect to use technology to support instruction, and the rapidly expanding numbers of those developing new technological applications.

Designed to present some of the current research on student motivation, cognition, and learning, this book serves as a festschrift for Wilbert J. McKeachie who has been a leading figure in college teaching and learning. The contributions to this volume were written by former students, colleagues and friends. A common focus on a general or social cognitive view of learning is shared throughout the volume, but there are significant differences in the perspectives the researchers bring to bear on the issues. They provide an excellent cross-section of current thinking and research on general cognitive topics such as students' knowledge structures, cognitive and self-regulated learning strategies, as well as reasoning, problem solving, and critical thinking. Social cognitive and motivational topics are also well represented, including self-worth theory and expectancy-value models. More importantly, an explicit attempt is made to link cognitive and motivational constructs theoretically and empirically. This area of research is one of the most important and promising areas of future research in educational psychology. Finally, most of the chapters address instructional implications, but several explicitly discuss instructional issues related to the improvement of college students' motivation and cognition.

Social and emotional aspects of schooling and the learning environment can dramatically affect one's attention, understanding, and memory for learning. This topic has been of increasing interest in both psychology and education, leading to an entire section being devoted to it in the third edition of the International Encyclopedia of Education. Thirty-three articles from the Encyclopedia form this concise reference which focuses on such topics as social and emotional development, anxiety in schools, effects of mood on motivation, peer learning, and friendship and social networks. Saves researchers time in summarizing in one place what is otherwise an interdisciplinary field in cognitive psychology, personality, sociology, and education Level of presentation focuses on critical research, leaving out the extraneous and focusing on need-to-know information Contains contributions from top international researchers in the field Makes MRW content affordable to individual researchers

During the last several decades, self-regulation of learning has permeated all areas of learning and development, including teaching preparation programs. Self-regulatory competences are essential for successful academic achievement and performance. This book is written for teacher candidates to believe that if they heard a call to teach, they can see in each paragraph of this book that they can do it. Teacher candidates reading this book will find themselves vicariously portrayed in the journey of the four teacher candidates described in this book. They can empathize with their struggles but will also find assurance that through self-regulation their own journeys and dreams could have great outcomes. This book is also written for teacher educators in teaching education programs so that they would realize that by transforming their curriculum in light of new findings on self-regulation, they could facilitate the training process of teacher candidates under their supervision and that self-regulation of learning and teaching matters for teacher candidates. Drawing on a rich body of research and theory on self-regulation of learning, Bembenutty, White, and Vélez present compelling case studies indicating that the capability of teacher candidates to self-regulate their attainment of educational goals depends on their exposure to self-regulated teacher educators, especially as they model, scaffold, and mentor in classroom settings. This important text gives numerous examples of how teacher educators can become role models and agents for self-regulatory change, and it will be an invaluable resource for courses in education, psychology, and human development. Barry J. Zimmerman, Professor Emeritus Graduate Center, The City University of New York In an effective blend of theory and case histories, Bembenutty, White, and Vélez provide valuable information and advice for prospective teachers and teacher educators. Their focus on help seeking is critical given the array of resources available to overcome early difficulties especially for teachers with significant challenges. Also important is helping them understand the role of delay of gratification in the face of expanding sources of distraction. Stuart A. Karabenick, Research Professor University of Michigan This book builds a really strong case for the importance of self-regulation in teacher education. Moreover, it tells a fascinating story of educational success against the odds, made possible by personal stamina as well as contextual support. Both teacher students and teacher educators around the world will find this book a wonderful inspiration. Ivar Bråten, Professor University of Oslo, Norway This is a practical book which provides a compelling narrative with page after page on teacher self-regulatory functioning. I recommend this book for teacher preparation programs, and I will definitely share it with many of my students and colleagues. Anastasia Kitsantas, Professor George Mason University

While there are certainly numerous influences on individuals’ learning and performance, cognitive strategies are the processes most directly related to making meaningful progress on a learning task or problem. Written by a leading expert on strategic processing, this book situates the topic within the broader context of educational psychology research and theory and brings it to a wider audience. With chapters on the fundamentals of domain-general and domain-specific strategies, connections to other constructs, and advice for instructing students, this concise volume is designed for any education course that includes learning or study strategies in the curriculum. It will be indispensable for student researchers and both pre- and in-service teachers.

Handbook of Strategies and Strategic Processing provides a state-of-the-art synthesis of conceptual, measurement, and analytical issues regarding learning strategies and strategic processing. Contributions by educational psychology experts present the clearest-yet definition of this essential and quickly evolving component of numerous theoretical frameworks that operate across academic domains. This volume addresses the most current research and theory on the nature of strategies and performance, mechanisms for unearthing individuals’ strategic behaviors, and both long-established and emerging techniques for data analysis and interpretation.