Help Seeking in Math Class Term Paper

Role of Motivation and Attitudes in Adolescents' Help Seeking in Math Class," Allison Ryan and Raul Pintrich examine the motivational influences on help-seeking behavior in math classrooms in the seventh and eighth grades. The article, published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, investigates cognitive, motivational, and social influences on help-seeking behavior in math class to offer a fuller understanding of help-seeking behavior in general. The authors present the findings of their research clearly, explain their methodology well, and offer extensive background information, literature reviews, and suggestions for future research. The problem in question is clearly stated at the beginning of the article. Metacognitive skills greatly improve in adolescence, and students become more aware of when they need help with their work. However, research has shown that adolescents are not actively seeking help with their work when needed. The contradiction between the awareness of needing help and the avoidance of seeking help is the focus of the current study, as is clearly stated on the first page of the article. Furthermore, the authors take care to note that the problem deserves investigation and has a sound theoretical rationale. For example, they state that "when students don't garner help when it is needed they put themselves at a disadvantage for learning and performance," (329).

Review of literature is provided throughout the article, as needed, and the studies cited are always relevant to the current research.The authors begin by citing research regarding adolescent metacognitive skills in general and move on to provide the theoretical rationales for the present study: the decision to seek help in class is "filtered through a motivational-affective system that includes students' perceptions of competence, achievement goals, and attitudes," (329). These three factors: perceived cognitive and social competence; achievement goal orientation; and attitudes toward help-seeking, become the basis for the hypotheses of the current study. Prior research has shown that students who believe they are capable (perceived cognitive competence) are more likely to seek help, or less likely to avoid seeking help. Likewise, perceived social competence is positively related to help-seeking. Literature has also indicated that students who have task-focused goal orientation, or who perceive learning as an end in itself without regard to what others think, are also more likely to seek help or less likely to avoid help-seeking. Finally, a student's attitudes toward help-seeking behavior can mediate between competence and achievement goals in predicting help-seeking behavior in math class. All hypotheses are clearly stated in the paper, which is well-organized. For example, the authors state that perceived cognitive competence is "expected to be related to help-seeking behavior," (329). Ryan et al. also note that….....