Influential Factors Of Academic Help-seeking Behavior Of Junior Middle School Students

Academic help seeking is considered as an important and effective strategy of self-regulating learner. To study the relation between achievement goals, self-esteem, fearing of negative evaluation, self-efficacy and academic help-seeking, 165 eighth graders were assessed. The following results were obtained:Both the high achievers and learning disabilities are prone to seek academic help among their classmates. Their parents and teachers are least they'd like to turn to seek help. High achievers are more effective in their selection of help-seeking source.High achievers are inclined to resort to instrumental help-seeking, while most learning disabilities are executive help-seekers.High achievers are more sensitive to the benefits of help-seeking, while learning disabilities are more sensitive to the costs of help-seeking, especially costs from their companions.Both academic help-seeking attitude (costs of help-seeking, benefits of help-seeking) and academic help-seeking behavior (instrumental help-seeking, executive help-seeking and avoidance of help-seeking) were significantly correlated with achievement goals, self-esteem and self-efficacy. The effects of achievement goals, self-esteem and self-efficacy on academic help-seeking behavior were mediated by academic help-seeking attitude.The results of this experiment support vulnerability hypothesis, and no gender difference was found in this experiment.