Adaptive help seeking and learner independence

Manal Raoui  |  manalraoui.com

Adaptive help seeking means recognizing when continuing alone is no longer enough to overcome a difficulty and asking for the amount of help that will allow learning to continue independently. Help becomes one of the resources a learner uses to maintain their independence.

This account draws directly on Newman (2002), who describes adaptive help seeking as seeking the help needed to learn independently, rather than simply to obtain the correct answer. Learners using this strategy monitor their performance, recognize a difficulty they cannot resolve alone, and take the initiative to request appropriate help from someone more knowledgeable. Newman therefore places adaptive help seeking among the strategies of self-regulated learning.

In this article, we treat other people as learning resources whom students can consult without handing over responsibility for the task. Independence includes knowing when help is needed, what to ask for, and how to use it to resume working on one's own.

Why the strategy matters

Adaptive help seeking enables learners to remain engaged instead of giving up or staying stuck. Newman links it to avoiding potential failure, sustaining engagement, succeeding with a task, and creating opportunities for greater mastery and independence over time.

These benefits do not follow from every request for help. Consider two students who say, “Tell me the answer,” and “I tried this method, but I don't know what to do at this step.” Both are asking for help. The second is seeking assistance that will allow them to resume solving the problem themselves.

The educational aim is to improve what questions do for learning, rather than to increase or reduce their number.

When help seeking is adaptive

Help seeking is adaptive when learners can assess whether they need assistance, identify what they need, choose a suitable resource, and request enough help to continue independently.

Newman describes cognitive, social, and motivational resources involved in this process. Learners need to recognize when help has become necessary, understand that other people can assist them, and formulate a question that yields precisely what they need. They also need to know whom to approach and how to ask in a socially appropriate way.

For classroom use, these considerations can be expressed through four questions:

1. Do I need help?
2. What exactly do I need help with?
3. Who or what is the most suitable resource right now?
4. How much help would allow me to continue on my own?

The strategy begins before a student raises a hand. It begins when they assess a difficulty and decide how to respond.

Finding the balance

Immediately turning to someone else at every obstacle can prevent a learner from using their own resources. A student may ask the teacher or a classmate before rereading the instructions, recalling relevant knowledge, or trying an approach. In that case, help can replace the thinking the student needs to do.

Newman notes that environments emphasizing performance or appearing competent can be associated with maladaptive patterns, including asking directly for the right answer without first attempting the task.

At the same time, independence does not require students to remain stuck on their own. When their resources are insufficient, persisting without progress or abandoning the task does little to support learning.

Ryan and Pintrich (1997) explicitly distinguish avoiding help when it is needed from adaptive help seeking. They describe the latter as requesting hints, examples of similar problems, or clarification: assistance limited to what the learner needs to solve the problem independently.

Students therefore need to assess what they can do for themselves while remaining willing to seek help when it becomes necessary.

Why students may need support

Knowing that questions can be useful does not necessarily make a student willing to ask. Help seeking differs from many learning strategies because it combines cognitive activity with social interaction. Asking requires a learner to reveal a need to another person. Perceptions of competence, personal goals, anticipated reactions from classmates and teachers, and the expected benefits of asking can all enter into the decision.

Ryan and Pintrich describe help seeking as involving both cognitive engagement and social interaction. In their study of 203 seventh- and eighth-grade students in mathematics classes, students' perceptions of help seeking were associated with how they used it.

Perceived benefits were associated with less avoidance and more adaptive help seeking. Perceived threats, such as concern about classmates' or teachers' judgments, were associated with greater avoidance. In the predictive analyses, both perceived benefits and perceived threats contributed to explaining help avoidance; of the variables examined, it was perceived benefits that predicted adaptive help seeking.

A student who needs help may therefore also be wondering:

• “Will this make me look as though I don't understand?”
• “What will my classmates think?”
• “How will the teacher respond?”
• “Will asking actually help me?”

The threats examined in the study included concerns about self-worth and possible negative judgments from classmates or the teacher. Telling a class, “Ask if you don't understand,” may therefore be insufficient.

What teachers can do

Students benefit from support with the decisions that precede and accompany a request for help.

First, help them assess their need. They can reread, recall what they know, consult available resources, or try an approach before identifying where they are stuck.

Second, help them formulate a specific question in place of a general “I don't understand.”

Third, help them choose a suitable resource: “Can I continue on my own? Could a classmate help? Do I need the teacher now?”

Fourth, help them use the assistance to return to the task. Their role should continue after someone answers.

The teacher's response also matters. Newman suggests that providing no more help than is necessary can help learners distinguish adaptive from excessive help seeking. He discusses the value of hints and graduated assistance in place of direct, controlling answers, followed by encouragement to use the help and return to the problem.

When a student asks, “What's the answer?”, a useful response may therefore be “What have you tried?”, “Where did you get stuck?”, or “Which part do you need help with?”

These questions do not withhold help. They help students clarify their request and identify what they need. When assistance is needed, a hint, explanation, or example can provide enough support to get them working again.

The teacher is one possible resource. Newman also notes that collaborative work gives students opportunities to ask clearer, more specific questions and learn when and how to seek help from one another. Explanatory assistance is more useful than simply supplying an answer when the learner subsequently uses it constructively.

A classmate's presence, however, is not an invitation to interrupt at any moment. Selecting a resource also means choosing a suitable person and time, and explaining what has already been tried and what help is needed.

Support can be explicit at first, then gradually reduced as students become better able to assess their needs, specify their requests, choose a resource, and use the help independently.

The strategy in practice

The decision process begins when a difficulty arises. The learner considers what they know and could try, decides whether help is necessary, identifies the help needed, chooses a suitable resource, asks a specific question, and uses the response to return to the task.

This is the thinking behind our visual aid, “Pause before asking for help.” Students record their question, pause to think and search, and try their own resources first, then ask a classmate, and then turn to the teacher if they still need help.

This sequence allows for judgment. Some situations require direct help from the teacher, and a classmate may be unavailable or unsuitable as a resource.

The aid makes part of the decision process visible. Instead of moving automatically from “I don't know” to asking someone, students consider what they can do, whether they still need help, and who could provide it.

The purpose is to help students preserve their own thinking while using assistance when it is needed. It should not delay necessary help.

The central idea

Adaptive help seeking supports independence when a learner encounters a difficulty they cannot overcome alone.

Ultimately, we want students to be able to say, “I know when I can continue on my own, when I need help, whom to ask, and what to ask for so that I can keep learning.”

Independence includes knowing how to use other people as resources for returning to learning. Newman gives this strategy a distinctive place: unlike strategies a learner can carry out alone, help seeking involves regulating learning through interaction with others.

References

Newman, R. S. (2002). How self-regulated learners cope with academic difficulty: The role of adaptive help seeking. Theory Into Practice, 41(2), 132–138.

Ryan, A. M., & Pintrich, P. R. (1997). “Should I ask for help?” The role of motivation and attitudes in adolescents' help seeking in math class. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89(2), 329–341.

See it in a classroom situation: When students keep asking for help during explanations