Children's help seeking and impulsivity

The aim of the present study was to analyze the relationship between students' (100 children aged 8 to 12) help-seeking behavior and impulsivity. Help-seeking behavior was evaluated using a naturalistic experimental paradigm in which children were placed in a problem-solving situation and had the opportunity to seek help from the experimenter, if needed. Impulsivity was analyzed using the Hyperactivity–Impulsivity Scale from the Teacher Rating Form of the Multidimensional Peer Nomination Inventory (TR-MPNI), Circle Tracing Task (CTT), Matching Familiar Figures (MFF), and Impulsiveness and Venturesomeness scales from the Eysenck Junior I₆ questionnaire. Structural equation modeling (SEM) showed that impulsivity was not related to children's question asking. Different correlational patterns were found for question asking and other help-seeking variables (i.e., performance scores and mean reflection time preceding question asking). The two Eysenck Junior I₆ scales showed no significant correlations with other measures. The importance of considering the many sidedness of both help-seeking and impulsivity constructs is discussed.     

Academic help-seeking and peer relations in school

This study investigated the relationship between peer relations and help-seeking behaviors. The subjects were 26 third grade and 48 fifth grade boys and girls. The roster-rating technique was used to obtain measures of children's perceived academic competence and social attractiveness in their reading and math classes. Intensive naturalistic observation of a subset of these children in their classrooms provided data on actual help-seeking behavior. The relationship between peer status and academic help-seeking was found to vary with the target of the help-seeking overture and the type of help requested.     

Improving students’ help-seeking skills using metacognitive feedback in an intelligent tutoring system

The present research investigated whether immediate metacognitive feedback on students’ help-seeking errors can help students acquire better help-seeking skills. The Help Tutor, an intelligent tutor agent for help seeking, was integrated into a commercial tutoring system for geometry, the Geometry Cognitive Tutor. Study 1, with 58 students, found that the real-time assessment of students’ help-seeking behavior correlated with other independent measures of help seeking, and that the Help Tutor improved students’ help-seeking behavior while learning Geometry with the Geometry Cognitive Tutor. Study 2, with 67 students, evaluated more elaborated support that included, in addition to the Help Tutor, also help-seeking instruction and support for self-assessment. The study replicated the effect found in Study 1. It was also found that the improved help-seeking skills transferred to learning new domain-level content during the month following the intervention, while the help-seeking support was no longer in effect. Implications for metacognitive tutoring are discussed.     

Executive function training for kindergarteners after the Great East Japan Earthquake: intervention effects

Japan’s Social Thinking and Academic Readiness Training (START) program Academic Readiness (AR) lesson aims to improve self-regulation, executive function, and behavior problems in kindergarten children, but the effects of the START program AR lessons in unfavorable circumstances are unclear. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of the START program AR lesson in affected areas after the Great East Japan Earthquake. A cluster randomized trial was conducted with 111 5-year-old children in two kindergartens in Miyagi Prefecture to evaluate the effectiveness of the six-week AR lesson. One kindergarten was randomly chosen to implement the AR lesson, and the other maintained standard education. In the intervention group, trained classroom teachers provided the children with a 20-min AR lesson once a week. Executive function, behavioral self-regulation, and internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors were measured before and after the six-week intervention. The intervention group showed improved inhibitory control and enhanced behavioral self-regulation compared with the standard practice group. In addition, teachers’ evaluations showed that children’s internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors improved significantly. The results indicate that the START program AR lesson was effective in enabling teachers to help students improve executive function, self-regulation, and problematic behaviors. Therefore, educators and policy-makers should consider implementing the START program AR lesson in kindergartens after a disaster.

     

Perceived parent goals and student goal orientations as predictors of seeking or not seeking help: Does age matter?

To study the contribution of perceived parent achievement goals to students' attitudes towards academic help seeking, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 9th grade students in Greece (n = 712) reported perceptions of their parents' achievement goals, personal achievement goal orientations, and help-seeking beliefs and intentions. Students' mastery goal orientation positively predicted their help-seeking attitudes (perceived benefits and intentions to seek help) and negatively predicted their help-seeking avoidance attitudes (perceived costs and intentions to avoid seeking help), whereas performance-avoidance orientation directly predicted their help-seeking avoidance attitudes. Multiple-group path analysis indicated that perceived parent goals predicted student help seeking and help avoidance attitudes through students' own achievement goal orientations. Further, the pattern of relations varied by grade level. Results are discussed in light of current theory and research on the developmental phases of parental influence on student motivation and self-regulated learning.     

Self-regulation in young children: Is there a role for sociodramatic play?

This study tested Vygotsky’s assumption that sociodramatic play in early childhood contributes importantly to the development of self-regulation. It also explored whether the link between sociodramatic play and self-regulation differs for impulsive and nonimpulsive preschoolers. In a short-term longitudinal design, 51 middle-income 3- and 4-year-olds were observed in their preschool classrooms. Naturalistic observations of total dramatic play, complex sociodramatic (CSD) play, and solitary dramatic play and of self-regulation in two classroom contexts—clean-up periods and group circle time—were gathered at Time 1, in the fall of the school year. To assess development of self-regulation, clean-up and circle time observations were repeated at Time 2, in late winter and early spring. CSD play predicted development of self-regulation during clean-up periods, whereas solitary dramatic play was negatively correlated with improvement in clean-up performance. The CSD play/improved self-regulation relationship was particularly strong for high-impulsive children, nil for low-impulsive children. Findings are consistent with Vygotsky’s theory and suggest that sociodramatic experiences may be especially advantageous for impulsive children, who are behind their peers in self-regulatory development.     

远程学习者学业求助策略研究

远程学习者在学习过程中遇到困难时进行积极地学业求助,是一种比较好的解决问题的策略。对当前远程学习者在学业求助行为倾向、求助对象、求助方式等方面的调查研究发现：我国远程学习者具有比较积极地学业求助行为倾向,能够进行工具性求助,但也存在执行性求助和回避求助等不良的学业求助策略。以网络课程为平台,建设学业求助的硬环境;以教师为主导、同伴协作为途径,设计学业求助的软环境;激发学习者个体的自我效能,促进远程学习者的学业求助策略的改进。     

Chinese Students’ Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help

In this study 1,453 Chinese high school and college students’ attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help and factors contributing to attitude differences were examined. Results revealed that Chinese students possessed generally positive attitudes and their attitudes were significantly associated with gender, prior counseling contact and prior knowledge about counseling and psychology. Previous help-seeking behavior for a major problem was predictive of respondent attitudes. Students with a broad range of help-seeking preferences had more positive attitudes than students with a narrower range. Students who sought help from parents or teachers perceived counseling more positively than students not seeking such help; this result was more significant for high school students. College students’ attitudes differed more in the area of whether or not to seek help. In addition, family structure was related to two dimensions of attitudes toward help seeking—interpersonal openness and stigma tolerance, but not to attitudes toward seeking psychological help.     

Early Childhood Professional Development: Coaching and Coursework Effects on Indicators of Children’s School Readiness

Research Findings: Effects on children’s school readiness were evaluated for 2 interventions focused on improving teacher–student interactions (coursework, coaching) implemented sequentially across 2 years. Teachers from public prekindergarten programs in 10 locations were assigned randomly to treatment or control conditions in each year. Children’s language behavior was observed during the coaching year: Coaching and the course each had positive impacts on children’s multiword language behavior. Treatment impacts on directly assessed literacy, language, and self-regulation skills were evaluated within an intent-to-treat framework for children taught by the participating teachers in the coaching and postcoaching years. Children demonstrated higher levels of inhibitory control in direct assessments when their teacher had received coaching the prior year. Teachers who received both coursework and coaching reported in the postcoaching year that children in their classrooms demonstrated greater levels of behavioral control. Treatment effects did not differ as a consequence of child, classroom, or program characteristics, and there were no significant effects on directly assessed literacy or language skills. Practice or Policy: Results suggest modest benefits for children’s language behavior and self-regulation for intervention(s) that improve the quality of teacher–child interaction.     

Children's strategies and goals in response to help-giving and help-seeking tasks within a friendship

The present research tested whether children's responses to help-giving and help-seeking friendship tasks predicted how many friends they had and the quality of their best friendship. Fifth-grade children (N=511; typically 10 or 11 years old) responded to vignettes in which they could either give help to a friend or seek help from a friend. Children's strategies and goals in both contexts were significantly correlated with the number of friends children had. Responses in the help-giving context but not in the help-seeking context were significantly associated with friendship quality. Although gender differences in strategies and goals were found, strategies and goals were related to the number of friends and friendship quality for both boys and girls.     

Academic help-seeking in the university setting: The effects of motivational set,attributional style,and help source characteristics

We examined university students' academic help-seeking under task-involved and ego-involved classroom conditions. The effects of these motivational sets on frequency of help-seeking were expected to depend on students' attributions for failure. Use of two types of help sources was investigated: (1) an instrumental help source that imparted useful strategies to the help-seeker, thereby allowing him or her to retain responsibility for solving the problem; (2) an executive help source that disclosed the solutions, thus relinquishing the help-seeker of the responsibility for independent problem-solving. We found that ego involvement increased executive help-seeking in students who attributed failure to low ability, but not in students who made effort attributions. Moreover, task involvement produced more instrumental help-seeking than ego involvement in all students regardless of their attribution style. Since executive help-seeking can impede academic development by inhibiting skill acquisition and by fostering dependence on a help source, university teachers should consider classroom strategies that promote task involvement.Support for this research was provided to Jamie-Lynn Magnusson by The University of Manitoba Research Funds Committee and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Support was provided to Raymond P. Perry by Franz E. Weinert, the Max Planck Institute, Munich. Portions of this paper were presented at the meetings of the American Educational Research Association. This paper is based on research conducted for a doctoral thesis submitted by Jamie-Lynn Magnusson, under the supervision of Raymond P. Perry, to the Department of Psychology at The University of Manitoba.     

Social skills and problem behaviors as mediators of the relationship between behavioral self-regulation and academic achievement

Early behavioral self-regulation is an important predictor of the skills children need to be successful in school. However, little is known about the mechanism(s) through which self-regulation affects academic achievement. The current study investigates the possibility that two aspects of children's social functioning, social skills and problem behaviors, mediate the relationship between preschool self-regulation and literacy and math achievement. Additionally, we investigated whether the meditational processes differed for boys and girls. We expected that better self-regulation would help children to interact well with others (social skills) and minimize impulsive or aggressive (problem) behaviors. Positive interactions with others and few problem behaviors were expected to relate to gains in achievement as learning takes place within a social context. Preschool-aged children (n = 118) were tested with direct measures of self-regulation, literacy, and math. Teachers reported on children's social skills and problem behaviors. Using a structural equation modeling approach (SEM) for mediation analysis, social skills and problem behaviors were found to mediate the relationship between self-regulation and growth in literacy across the preschool year, but not math. Findings suggest that the mediational process was similar for boys and girls. These findings indicate that a child's social skills and problem behaviors are part of the mechanism through which behavioral self-regulation affects growth in literacy. Self-regulation may be important not just because of the way that it relates directly to academic achievement but also because of the ways in which it promotes or inhibits children's interactions with others.     

Cognitive-Motivational Influences on the Task-Related Help-Seeking Behavior of Black Children

The present study examined the relation between children's mastery motivation, self-assessment of performance, and task-related help-seeking behavior during task performance. Average-achieving black American children, varying in mastery motivation as measured by subscales of the Harter's Intrinsic-Extrinsic Orientation in the Classroom Scale, performed a multitrial verbal task and were given the opportunity to seek help on each trial after making a tentative response and assessing their performance by rating their confidence in the correctness of the response. A response-contingent payoff system was implemented to encourage children to restrict their help seeking to those instances in which they perceived that they could not make a correct response without assistance. As predicted, children's self-assessments of performance, regardless of their accuracy, appeared to influence help seeking more than the actual performance outcomes. Neither children's self-assessments of performance nor their overall rate of help seeking varied with level of measured mastery motivation. However, the type of help sought varied as expected with mastery motivation. Children characterized by high intrinsic orientations toward independent mastery in academic achievement contexts sought indirect help (i.e., hints) more often than they sought direct help (i.e., answers), whereas children characterized by low intrinsic orientations toward independent mastery showed no preference. These differences in motivational orientation influenced requests for help only when children perceived their initial solutions to be incorrect. These findings are discussed in the context of the analyses of help seeking as an instrumental learning and achievement strategy. The implications of the findings for analyses of black children's achievement styles are highlighted.     

Preliminary construct and concurrent validity of the Preschool Self-regulation Assessment (PSRA) for field-based research

This study introduces a portable direct assessment of young children's self-regulation—the Preschool Self-Regulation Assessment (PSRA). The PSRA was designed to assess self-regulation in emotional, attentional, and behavioral domains by using a brief, structured battery of tasks in conjunction with a global report of children's behavior. Factor analyses from a pilot sample (N = 63) of Head Start children revealed two self-regulation factors reflecting children's performance on tasks of impulse control and tasks of compliance/executive control. Assessor report of children's behavior during the assessment was reduced into two additional factors reflecting children's global attention/impulse control and positive emotion. Moderate correlations between self-regulation factors and children's social competence, behavior problems, and early academic skills, provide preliminary evidence of the new measure's validity, and additional empirical evidence for bivariate relations between academic and self-regulatory competence.     

Regulatory Contributors to Children's Kindergarten Achievement

The present study sought to examine whether preschool children's emotion regulation, problem behaviors, and kindergarten behavioral self-regulation in the classroom were predictors of kindergarten achievement scores. The children (N = 122, 47% male and 63% European American) who were participating in an ongoing longitudinal study, were seen at both a preschool and kindergarten assessment. The present study examined the relation between parent report, teacher report, and laboratory measures of regulation and children's achievement test scores. Children's emotion regulation and behavioral self-regulation in the classroom were related to all measures of achievement. The relation between preschool emotion regulation and kindergarten achievement was mediated by behavioral self-regulation in the kindergarten classroom. In addition, all measures of regulation were correlated, suggesting that some children who have difficulty regulating their behavior in one setting (such as home) may also have difficulty with regulation in other settings (such as school).     

Teacher–Student Conflict and Preschoolers’ Adjustment in the Transition to Primary School: The Role of Child Self-Regulation and Parents’ Positive Relations With Others

Research Findings: This study examined the contribution of teacher-student conflict at kindergarten to the child’s school adjustment in primary school using a Hong Kong sample. It investigated self-regulation as a mediator and parents’ positive relations with others as a moderator in that transition. At Time 1 (T1), kindergarten teachers reported their levels of conflict with individual children (N = 324, 168 girls), whereas children’s self-regulation was assessed with a Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders Task. Fathers and mothers also rated their positive relations with others. At Time 2 (T2; 8 months later), when children were enrolled in primary school (N = 247, 126 girls), primary school teachers rated how well they adjusted to the new school. Moderated mediation analyses showed that although the direct effect of T1 teacher-student conflict on T2 school adjustment was not significant, the indirect effect of self-regulation was. T1 teacher-student conflicts were negatively related to children’s self-regulation, which in turn predicted subsequent school adjustment. Interestingly, this indirect effect was significant only when parents’ positive relations with others were low rather than high. Practice or Policy: The findings highlight the importance of both a warm and caring relationship in the home and self-regulation to successful school transition.     

Influence of academic self-regulation,critical thinking,and age on online graduate students’ academic help-seeking

Academic help-seeking is an invaluable learning strategy that has not yet received much attention in the distance education research literature. The asynchronous nature of distance education and many online courses presents an inherent roadblock to help-seeking. The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of academic self-regulation, critical thinking, and age on online graduate students’ help-seeking. Results indicate that these variables did significantly influence help-seeking, and that as self-regulation and critical thinking increased so did help-seeking. However, as age increased, help-seeking decreased. These results and implications for practice are discussed.     

Relation of Young Children's Parasympathetic Reactivity During a Learning Task to Their Self-Regulation and Early Academic Skills

There is growing interest among educational researchers in using heart rate variability (HRV) as an index of children's capacity to regulate their physiological arousal. Links between HRV and young children's self-regulation have, however, been inconsistent, and there is limited research on children's HRV in learning-related contexts. HRV was collected from 86 children aged 3.41 to 5.83 years before, during, and after they engaged in a learning interaction with an examiner. Higher HRV during a pre-learning episode and a larger drop in HRV during the learning interaction were associated with stronger behavioral performance on self-regulation and early academic skill assessments. Children's capacity to modulate their HRV in response to learning opportunities may be linked to their broader self-regulation and early academic skill development. Effects varied by episode and gender, underscoring a need for further research to rigorously evaluate the utility and generalizability of HRV in authentic educational settings.     

Personal and contextual determinants of ethnically diverse female high school students’ patterns of academic help seeking and help avoidance in English and mathematics

This study investigated female high school students’ (N = 293) patterns of help seeking in the domains of English and mathematics. Help seeking was operationalized using both self-report measures of need-contingent help seeking and help avoidance, as well as a behavioral measure of help seeking, namely the number of times students attended after-school tutoring sessions. As predictors of help seeking, the motivational variables of achievement goals, task-value, and expectancy for success were considered, alongside cognitive and metacognitive strategy-use, need for cognition, academic procrastination, and a belief in quick learning. Overall, the motivational variables of expectancy for success, task-value, and mastery goals and the cognitive variables of metacognitive self-regulation and rehearsal were found to significantly predict help seeking in English and math. No discernable effects of grade level or ethnicity on patterns of help seeking were detected. Several subject-level differences, however, were found, suggesting that students’ help-seeking patterns do vary by domain.     

Development of emotional and behavioral regulation in children born extremely preterm and very preterm: biological and social influences

This study describes the development of emotional and behavioral regulation in a regional cohort of children born extremely preterm (<28 weeks gestational age, n = 39), very preterm (<34 weeks gestational age, n = 56), and full term (n = 103). At 2 and 4 years, children born at younger gestational ages demonstrated poorer self-regulation across multiple contexts spanning observed interactions, formal cognitive testing, and parental report of child behavior at home. Among children born preterm, the 2 strongest predictors of impairments in self-regulation were the presence of moderate-to-severe cerebral white matter abnormalities on neonatal magnetic resonance and a less sensitive parenting style when children were aged 2 years. Findings support the importance of early neurological development and parenting for developing regulation in children born very preterm.