Abstract
Academic help-seeking as a learning strategy can influence academic achievement. Indeed, seeking help when needed is considered a self-regulated learning strategy that should be taken into account from the educational perspective. In this study, we review twenty-five articles published over the last 10 years that have analysed academic help-seeking in adolescents or university students. The aims of this review are to describe the relationship between academic help-seeking and other sociodemographic, educational, and psychosocial variables, and to evaluate the instruments that are used to assess academic help-seeking. Our results show that there is a lack of consensus on the structure of help-seeking as a construct. Moreover, the role of sex and age is unclear, and there is little replication in the correlational models. Further research is needed to better define the construct and compare the variables that influence academic help-seeking at different stages of education.
Highlights
Students may face difficulties in completing their assignments and may need assistance in their education
Our research questions are: (1) What are the new contributions in the field of Academic help-seeking (AHS)?; (2) what variables are associated with AHS in adolescents and university students; and (3) which instruments are used most in evaluating the AHS construct? Based on these questions, the objectives of this review are: (1) To summarize the knowledge produced over the last ten years on academic help-seeking in adolescents and university students; (2) to describe the variables associated with academic help-seeking and the nature of this relationship; and (3)
They reported gender differences, e.g., adolescent boys showed less instrumental help-seeking and less help-seeking from teachers and peers, but more expedient help-seeking than adolescent girls
Summary
Students may face difficulties in completing their assignments and may need assistance in their education. Academic help-seeking (AHS) involves seeking support from individuals and other sources to help students to achieve good results in an academic context [1,2]. It has been defined from a self-regulated learning perspective as a social strategy, since it involves classmates, teachers, and parents [3,4]. Executive ( called expedient) help-seeking occurs when students wish to have the task solved for them, while instrumental (or adaptive) help-seeking occurs when students request only the amount of help they need to complete the task on their own. Information searching is proposed as a specific type of help-seeking [6,10]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
