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Investigating factors that influence students' help seeking in math homework: A multilevel analysis
LEAIND-01250; No of Pages 7 Learning and Individual Differences xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
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Learning and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/lindif
Investigating factors that influence students' help seeking in math homework: A multilevel analysis Jianxia Du a, Jianzhong Xu b,⁎, Xitao Fan a a b
University of Macau, China Mississippi State University, United States
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 8 February 2015 Received in revised form 10 January 2016 Accepted 5 March 2016 Available online xxxx Keywords: Help seeking Homework Math Middle school students Self-regulation
a b s t r a c t The current investigation examined empirical models of help seeking in math homework. Individual- and classlevel predictors of help seeking were analyzed in a survey of 796 8th graders from 46 classes. Multilevel results indicated that help seeking was positively associated with mastery orientation and homework interest at the individual and class level. At the individual level, help seeking was positively related to family help availability, homework interest, peer participation, performance orientation, monitoring motivation, value belief, and family help frequency. Our results suggest that mastery orientation exerts a powerful influence on students' help seeking in math homework. Our results further suggest that teachers can play a vital role in promoting help seeking, by placing greater emphasis on mastery goals, by making homework more interesting, by helping students learn to maintain homework motivation, and by encouraging families to make themselves available in the homework process. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Although help seeking is conceptualized as a critical component of self-regulation (Newman, 2000; Pintrich, 2000; Zimmerman, 2008), although homework is an important instructional activity across countries (Cooper, Robinson, & Patall, 2006; Eilam, 2001; Epstein & Van Voorhis, 2001; İflazoğlu & Hong, 2012; Núñez et al., 2015), it is surprising to note that little attention has been directed to the issue of help seeking in homework. To fill this notable gap in research on homework, the aim of the current investigation is to propose and examine empirical models of students' help seeking in math homework, with the models informed by research and theorizing on self-regulated learning (e.g., Newman, 1998; Pintrich, 2004; Puustinen, Bernicot, & Erboul, 2011; Zimmerman, 2008). This line of investigation is important, because help seeking can help to avert possible failure, promote academic engagement and achievement, and increase the likelihood of long-term autonomous learning (Karabenick, 2004; Marchand & Skinner, 2007; Newman, 2002). Yet, students do not necessarily seek help when it is needed (Karabenick & Knapp, 1991; Kessels & Steinmayr, 2013; Newman, 2002). Indeed, help seeking tends to decrease during early adolescence (Ryan, Gheen, & Midgley, 1998; Ryan, Shim, Lampkins-uThando, Kiefer, & Thompson, 2009). This becomes more of a concern for homework, as it typically occurs in the middle of competing after-school activities, ⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Foundations, P.O. Box 9727, Mississippi State University, MS 39762, United States. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Xu).
thus placing more demands on students' self-regulation (Fries, Dietz, & Schmid, 2008), with help seeking in particular. Consequently, it would be critically important to examine a range of factors that influence help seeking in homework at this developmental stage. 2. Theoretical framework Help seeking is frequently discussed under the umbrella of selfregulated learning (Newman, 1998, 2000; Pintrich, 2004; Puustinen, Bernicot, & Bert-Erboul, 2011; Ryan & Pintrich, 1997; Zimmerman, 2008). According to Pintrich's (2004) classification, self-regulation includes four phases (forethought, monitoring, control, and reflection). For each phase, self-regulation is delineated in four areas (cognition, motivation, behavioral, and context), in which help seeking is considered as one aspect of behavior for self-regulation or “a behavioral control activity” in self-regulation (Puustinen, Kokkonen, Tolvanen, & Pulkkinen, 2004, p. 232). It refers to the procurement of help from others in the environment to cope with difficulty and ambiguity in the learning process (e.g., aid and advice; Pintrich, 2004; Ryan & Pintrich, 1997). This classification suggests that help seeking may be affected by other three areas of self-regulation, including cognition (e.g., goal orientations), context (e.g., peer interaction), and motivation. One construct expected to be associated with help seeking is goal orientation (Newman, 1990), and research on achievement orientation theory has indicated that children high in mastery orientation use more adaptive help seeking strategies (Aleven, Stahl, Schworm, Fischer, & Wallace, 2003; Karabenick, 2004).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.03.002 1041-6080/© 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Du, J., et al., Investigating factors that influence students' help seeking in math homework: A multilevel analysis, Learning and Individual Differences (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.03.002
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J. Du et al. / Learning and Individual Differences xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
As students with high self-perceived competence use more adaptive self-regulated strategies including help seeking (Aleven et al., 2003; Newman, 1990; Pintrich & Schunk, 2002), help seeking may be influenced by students' beliefs and expectations regarding their competence to perform a task successfully (expectancy belief). In addition, as students who show more interest in a task and views it valuable are more likely to use more adaptive self-regulation strategies (Pintrich & Zusho, 2002), task interest and value may affect self-regulation (Schunk, 2005), with help seeking in particular (Aleven et al., 2003). Furthermore, given that monitoring motivation can sustain interest is a key hypothesis in volition theory (Corno, 2000; Corno & Mandinach, 2004), monitoring motivation may influence help seeking. As individual and social differences can influence students' efforts at self-regulation (Pintrich, 2004), help seeking is likely to be further affected by background variables (e.g., parent education and gender; Aleven et al., 2003; Calarco, 2011; Kessels & Steinmayr, 2013) and social influences (e.g., parents, teachers, and peers; Newman, 2000; Puustinen, Lyyra, Metsapelto, & Pulkkinen, 2008; Ryan, Hicks, & Midgley, 1997). For example, middle-class children (compared with working-class children) requested and received more help from teachers (Calarco, 2011). Peers' achievement goals and attitudes may affect students' attitudes toward the value of school work and help seeking (Newman, 2002). In summary, this line of literature suggests that help seeking is likely to be affected by multiple variables, including background variables (e.g., parent education), social influences (e.g., parent, teacher, and peer), goal orientation (e.g., mastery and performance), expectancy belief, task value and interest, and monitoring motivation. Therefore, there is a need to include these variables in empirical models of students' help seeking in homework. 3. Studies pertaining to help seeking in homework Some recent studies have tapped into students' help seeking in homework. Two studies examined help seeking exchanges on a French online forum providing students with free math homework help, one study including middle school students (Puustinen et al., 2011) and the other including high school students (Puustinen, Bernicot, Volckaert-Legrier, & Baker, 2015). Taken together, these studies suggest that, by middle school level, students are capable of being self-regulated learners and help seekers with unknown teachers in an online learning environment. Other studies have alluded to several factors that may influence students' help seeking in homework. Crystal, Kakinuma, DeBell, Azuma, and Miyashita (2008), for example, found that females sought more homework support from peers and family. In addition, more 6th graders than 8th graders, and more 8th graders than 10th graders sought family homework help. In another related study, Martinez (2011) found that 6 of the 22 Latino high school students doing daily homework on a regular basis; the others appeared to experience difficulties completing their assignments. Their inability to complete homework was confounded by the fact that few of them could turn to their parents for homework help. Data further implied that parent education and parent availability may influence help seeking in homework. Some participants did not seek help from their parents because their parents were not physically available during homework sessions (e.g., working long hours and night shifts). Other commented that their parents were not cognitively available (e.g., not with familiar with the material or having difficulty with the English language) because their parents did not graduate from high school. None of the above studies, however, were specifically designed to examine a range of theoretically grounded variables that influence students' help seeking in homework. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that these studies imply that students' help seeking in homework may be affected by variables such as gender, parent education, and
parent availability, in line with theoretical expectations discussed in the previous section.
4. The present investigation As helping seeking in homework is noticeably and surprisingly lacking from much contemporary homework research, our current study seeks to address this important gap, by examining empirical models of help seeking in math homework. In particular, our models were informed by and built upon the theoretical framework on selfregulation (as discussed above), including the following variables regarding background variables (e.g., parent education), social influences (e.g., parent, teacher, and peer), goal orientation (e.g., mastery and performance), expectancy belief, task value and interest, and monitoring motivation. Specifically, Model 1 includes thirteen individual-level variables – background variables (parent education and gender), social influences (family help frequency, family help availability, teacher feedback, and peer participation), goal orientation (mastery, performance, and avoidance), value belief, expectancy belief, homework interest, and monitoring motivation. Consistent with the self-regulation literature regarding the importance of social influences on help seeking (Newman, 2000; Puustinen, Lyyra, & Metsapelto, 2008), it is hypothesized that help seeking in homework is positively related to family help frequency, family help availability, teacher feedback, and peer participation. Consistent with the self-regulation literature (e.g. Aleven et al., 2003, Newman, 1990, Pintrich & Zusho, 2002, Schunk, 2005), it is further hypothesized that help seeking is positively related to expectancy belief, value belief, homework interest, and monitoring motivation. In addition, consistent with the self-regulation literature (Aleven et al., 2003; Kessels & Steinmayr, 2013), it is hypothesized that females and those children with higher parent education are more likely to seek homework help. Finally, it is hypothesized that help seeking is positively associated with mastery and performance goal orientations, consistent with relevant findings regarding help seeking (Karabenick, 2004; Pintrich, 2004). Model 2 further include five class-level variables regarding goal orientation (mastery, performance, and avoidance), teacher feedback, and homework interest. The justification for including goal orientations at the class level is that classroom achievement goal structure can influence help seeking (Aleven et al., 2003; Bong, 2008; Karabenick, 2004). The justification for including teacher feedback and homework interest as both an individual-level and a class-level variable is that students' shared assessment of teachers' feedback and homework interest in a given class may influence help seeking in addition to their influence at the individual level. The present study focuses on 8th graders, as help seeking becomes increasingly complex at the middle school level (e.g., peer involvement and expectations of benefits; Newman, 2002), and as help seeking tends to decrease during early adolescence (Ryan et al., 1998; Ryan et al., 2009). Meanwhile, they are at the cusp of the transition to high school and have accumulated a rich history of academic performance (Usher, 2009), with homework in particular (i.e., doing homework and seeking homework help). This observation is further substantiated by the finding from several studies that indicated that 8th graders are capable of seeking homework help in online environment (Puustinen et al., 2011) and face-to-face environment (Crystal et al., 2008). As recent research has examined domain-specific aspects of homework (e.g., effort, emotion, motivation, and self-regulation; Goetz et al., 2012; Trautwein, Ludtke, Schnyder, & Niggli, 2006; Hong, Peng, & Rowell, 2009), there is a need to focus on help seeking in one important domain (i.e., math) in this study. Such a focus is particularly important, as (a) math is a major achievement domain with typically high demands for homework (e.g., students spend about 20% to 40% of their homework time on math; Kitsantas, Cheema, & Ware, 2011; Pezdek, Berry, & Renno, 2002), and as (b) doing math homework is
Please cite this article as: Du, J., et al., Investigating factors that influence students' help seeking in math homework: A multilevel analysis, Learning and Individual Differences (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.03.002
J. Du et al. / Learning and Individual Differences xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
viewed as a major challenge for students and parents (Else-Quest, Hyde, & Hejmadi, 2008; Landers, 2013). 5. Method
Table 1 Reliability estimates. Scales
Sample items
α (CI)
Family help availabilitya
My parents always help me if I get stuck with my math homework. My parents help me with math if I ask them. How much of your math HW is checked by math teacher? How much of your math HW is collected by math teacher? My friends discuss things they have learned in math class. My friends discuss things they have learned in math HW. Understanding math is important to me. I prefer math HW that really challenges me so I can learn new things. It is important for me to do math HW well compared to others in this class. My goal in doing math HW is to get a better grade than most of the other students. I want to do as little as possible with math HW. I like math HW best when I do not need to put much effort into it. Our math HW takes a lot of time and is of little use to med. There is no point in my doing math HWd. If I make an effort, I can do all my math homework. I often feel completely lost in my math homework. I look forward to math HW. I enjoy math HW. Find ways to make math HW more interesting. Praise myself for good effort. When I don't understand math HW, I ask a classmate for help. When I don't understand math HW, I ask my parents or other family members for help.
0.88 (0.87–0.89)
5.1. Participants and procedure Participants included 796 eighth graders from 46 classes in China. Among them are 439 males (55.2%). On average, their parent education level was 12.6 years (SD = 3.3). Regarding math homework, approximately one fifth of participants (21.5%) had math assignments three days a week or less, whereas approximately four fifth of participants (78.5%) had math assignments four or more days weekly. Participants spent, on average, 34 min (SD = 22) doing math assignments daily. To address the concern that previous homework studies tend to focus on middle-class students (Xu, 2005; Cooper, Lindsay, Nye, & Greathouse, 1998), the current study included students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds (e.g., family income and parent education level). Specifically, participants came from three middle schools, including two regular middle schools and one key middle school (which is given priority in the assignment of teachers and funds, and in the recruitment of more academically-oriented students). With respect to homework policy, Chinese middle schools were recently asked to assign no more than 90 min daily. In general, teachers were expected to assign homework that was meaningful and achievable (e.g., serving to reinforce or prepare for class learning), and they were expected to provide appropriate feedback along the way. Students were expected to make homework completion a priority during the after-school hours and to be responsible for following through their assignments within the given timeframe. Parents were expected to provide relevant materials, to observe and monitor their child's homework. They were also encouraged to discuss or share any concerns they may have with the teachers. The schools and parents were contacted for permission for conducting this study. The homework instrument was then administered during regular math class periods in spring 2013, in which participants were told: “Some students find math homework helpful, others disagree. The purpose of this survey is to learn more about how you approach math homework so that teaches and your family can better help you.” Overall, the survey response rate was 90.5%.
3
Teacher feedbackb
Peer participationa
Masteryc
Performancec
Avoidancec
Value beliefa
Expectancy beliefa
HW intereste Monitoring motivationf Help seekingc
0.75 (0.72–0.78)
0.90 (0.89–0.91)
0.89 (0.88–0.90)
0.84 (0.82–0.85)
0.86 (0.84–0.87)
0.81 (0.79–0.83)
0.80 (0.77–0.82)
0.93 (0.92–0.94) 0.79 (0.77–0.82)
0.73 (0.69–0.76)
Note. HW = homework. a Rating: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = agree, 4 = strongly agree. b Rating: 1 = none, 2 = some, 3 = about half, 4 = most, 5 = all. c Rating: from 1 (not at all true of me) to 7 (very true of me). d The item was reverse scored. e Rating: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neither disagree nor agree, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree. f Rating: Never = 1, Rarely = 2, Sometimes = 3, Often = 4, Routinely = 5.
5.2. Measures Participants indicated the extent to which they received family help, from never (1) to routinely (5). They also indicated education level for their parents, from elementary school (6 years) to graduate degree (19 years). In addition, a number of scales were applied in this study. Table 1 includes sample items for the scales, along with the reliability information. 5.2.1. Family help availability Adapted from the work from related literature (Martinez, 2011; Trautwein et al., 2006), four items assessed the extent to which parents were available for helping with math homework (e.g., when students had difficulty or got stuck with math assignments; α = 0.88). 5.2.2. Teacher feedback Based on relevant literature on homework feedback (e.g., Xu, 2007, 2008a; Natriello & McDill, 1986), three items measured the extent to which math assignments were monitored by teachers (α = 0.75; the amount of math assignments being collected and checked). 5.2.3. Peer participation Based on the work by Kahle, Meece, and Scantlebury (2000) on peer participation in science activities, six items measured peers'
involvement in math and math homework (α = 0.90; peers' discussion, engagement, and interest). 5.2.4. Goal orientation Adapted from the literature on goal orientation (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1993), three scales measured students' adoption of mastery goal orientation (6 items; α = 0.89), performance goal orientation (6 items; α = 0.84), and work avoidance goal orientation (5 items; α = 0.86). The only difference was that items in our study focused on goals adopted in math homework, as opposed to more general goal orientations. 5.2.5. Value belief Six items measured students' perceived value of math homework, adapted from the work by Trautwein et al. (2006). These items focused on utility and cost of doing math homework (α = 0.81). 5.2.6. Expectancy belief Adapted from the work by Trautwein et al. (2006), this scale incorporated ten items to assess students' expectancy belief regarding math homework (e.g., their confidence to complete math assignments correctly; α = 0.80).
Please cite this article as: Du, J., et al., Investigating factors that influence students' help seeking in math homework: A multilevel analysis, Learning and Individual Differences (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.03.002
0.25⁎⁎ 0.09⁎ 0.25⁎⁎ −0.06 0.31⁎⁎ 0.36⁎⁎ 0.43⁎⁎ 0.30⁎⁎ 0.36⁎⁎ 0.39⁎⁎ −0.03 0.53⁎⁎ 0.39⁎⁎ 0.21⁎⁎ 0.44⁎⁎ 0.32⁎⁎
5 4 3 2 1
0.55 12.55 2.89 2.61 3.35 2.65 5.45 4.72 3.76 3.27 3.02 3.37 3.02 5.50 4.76 3.74 3.34 3.39
SD M
1 Gender (male: 1) 2 Parent education 3 Family help frequency 4 Family help availability 5 Teacher feedback 6 Peer participation 7 Mastery 8 Performance 9 Avoidance 10 Value belief 11. Expectancy belief 12 Homework interest 13 Monitoring motivation 14 Mastery - class 15 Performance - class 16 Avoidance - class 17. Teacher feedback - class 18. Homework interest class 19 Help seeking
The univariate sample statistics showed that all of the continuous variables with skewness values (ranging from −1.00 to 0.20) or kurtosis values (ranging from −0.90 to 0.84) were quite satisfactory. Table 2 includes the descriptive statistics, along with Pearson's correlations of the predictor variables and help seeking in homework. Help seeking in
Variables
6. Results
Table 2 Descriptive Statistics and Correlations.
Due to the nested data (i.e., individuals nested within class), we performed multilevel modeling analysis to address several major issues associated with such data structure (e.g., underestimating standard errors and aggregation bias; Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002). To help interpret the obtained regression coefficients, all continuous variables were standardized (M = 0, SD = 1) before conducting the multilevel analyses. Consequently, the regression weights for all variables (except gender) were largely equivalent with the standardized beta weights from multiple regression analyses. Model 1 included thirteen variables at the individual level (gender, parent education, family help frequency, family help availability, teacher feedback, peer participation, mastery, performance, avoidance, value belief, expectancy belief, homework interest, and monitoring motivation). Model 2 included five variables at the class level (mastery, performance, and avoidance orientations, teacher feedback, and homework interest). Because we had no a priori hypotheses about if or how the predictive power of the individual-level predictor variables would differ across the classes, all models implemented in this study were random-intercept models (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002), using HLM version 6.08. We used full maximum likelihood in the multilevel models, and all the studentlevel variables were centered at the group mean.
6
5.3. Statistical analyses
0.22⁎⁎
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
5.2.9. Help seeking Informed by relevant literature on adaptive or instrumental help seeking (Duncan & McKeachie, 2005; Karabenick, 2003; Pintrich et al., 1993; Ryan & Pintrich, 1997), this scale was developed to measure student initiatives to seek help in math homework. It included five items (α = 0.73), ranging from getting help from adults (e.g., teachers and family members) to their peers (e.g., classmates) or online sources. The development of the above scales and the existing empirical evidence for their validity and reliability were discussed in previous studies (e.g., Trautwein et al., 2006; Xu, 2008b). Regarding ten reliability estimates in this study (two were in the .90s, six were in the .80s, and three were in the .70s), they are generally considered in the range of adequate to excellent (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). Regarding the validity evidence of outcome variable (i.e., help seeking), help seeking was positive related to math test scores (r = 0.12, p b 0.001). These correlations were largely consistent with theoretical expectation (e.g., Pintrich, 2004) and related empirical evidences (e.g., college students' help seeking was positively associated with course performance, r = 0.14, p b 0.001; Karabenick, 2004).
4.68 1.35 −0.07⁎
14
15
5.2.8. Monitoring motivation Four items measured students' efforts to enhance or sustain their motivation while doing math homework (Xu, 2008b; α = 0.79). These items ranged from trying to make math assignments more engaging and interesting for themselves to reassuring themselves for successful completion of math assignments.
Note. N = 796. ⁎ p b 0.05. ⁎⁎ p b 0.01.
16
17
18
5.2.7. Homework interest Five items measured students' interest in math homework (α = 0.93), based on literature on interest (Denissen, Zarrett, & Eccles, 2007; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002) and homework interest (Cooper et al., 1998; Xu, 2008a). The scale assessed the extent to which students liked and looked forward to math homework.
– −0.12⁎⁎ – 0.06 16⁎⁎ – −0.01 0.28⁎⁎ 0.61⁎⁎ – ⁎ 0.07 0.08 0.28⁎⁎ 0.26⁎⁎ – −0.05 0.09⁎ 0.23⁎⁎ 0.33⁎⁎ 0.20⁎⁎ – −0.05 0.21⁎⁎ 0.12⁎⁎ 0.21⁎⁎ 0.11⁎⁎ 0.32⁎⁎ – 0.02 0.12⁎⁎ 0.11⁎⁎ 0.14⁎⁎ 0.10⁎⁎ 0.23⁎⁎ 0.56⁎⁎ – 0.04 0.02 −0.02 −0.01 −0.10⁎⁎ −0.07 −0.08⁎ 0.19⁎⁎ – −0.04 0.05 0.09⁎⁎ 0.22⁎⁎ 0.18⁎⁎ 0.27⁎⁎ 0.45⁎⁎ 0.18⁎⁎ −0.26⁎⁎ – ⁎⁎ ⁎⁎ ⁎ ⁎⁎ ⁎⁎ ⁎⁎ 0.09 0.28 0.00 0.22 0.09 0.15 0.41 0.18 −0.25⁎⁎ 0.42⁎⁎ – ⁎⁎ ⁎⁎ ⁎⁎ ⁎⁎ ⁎⁎ ⁎⁎ ⁎⁎ 0.02 0.07 0.20 0.26 0.21 0.40 0.46 0.28 −0.29 0.41⁎⁎ 0.43⁎⁎ – 0.06 0.24⁎⁎ 0.18⁎⁎ 0.28⁎⁎ 0.17⁎⁎ 0.20⁎⁎ 0.37⁎⁎ 0.29⁎⁎ −0.12⁎⁎ 0.22⁎⁎ 0.38⁎⁎ 0.40⁎⁎ – −0.17⁎⁎ 0.36⁎⁎ 0.13⁎⁎ 0.20⁎⁎ 0.02 0.27⁎⁎ 0.42⁎⁎ 0.28⁎⁎ −0.10⁎⁎ 0.29⁎⁎ 0.25⁎⁎ 0.26⁎⁎ 0.18⁎⁎ – −0.08⁎ 0.33⁎⁎ 0.12⁎⁎ 0.20⁎⁎ 0.06 0.25⁎⁎ 0.33⁎⁎ 0.36⁎⁎ −0.01 0.21⁎⁎ 0.17⁎⁎ 0.18⁎⁎ 0.15⁎⁎ 0.77⁎⁎ – 0.12⁎⁎ 0.04 −0.01 0.00 0.04 −0.04 −0.15⁎⁎ −0.01 0.29⁎⁎ −0.21⁎⁎ −0.17⁎⁎ −0.15⁎⁎ −0.01 −0.36⁎⁎ −0.02 – 0.05 0.09⁎⁎ 0.21⁎⁎ 0.09⁎ 0.42⁎⁎ 0.14⁎⁎ 0.02 0.05 0.03 0.04 −0.08⁎ 0.09⁎ 0.06 0.05 0.14⁎⁎ 0.11⁎⁎ – −0.10⁎⁎ 0.07 0.23⁎⁎ 0.20⁎⁎ 0.10⁎⁎ 0.29⁎⁎ 0.27⁎⁎ 0.16⁎⁎ −0.11⁎⁎ 0.21⁎⁎ 0.13⁎⁎ 0.40⁎⁎ 0.15⁎⁎ 0.64⁎⁎ 0.44⁎⁎ −0.37⁎⁎ 0.23⁎⁎ –
J. Du et al. / Learning and Individual Differences xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
0.50 3.30 1.09 0.72 1.05 0.69 1.32 1.41 1.56 0.48 0.47 0.83 0.91 0.55 0.52 0.47 0.46 0.34
4
Please cite this article as: Du, J., et al., Investigating factors that influence students' help seeking in math homework: A multilevel analysis, Learning and Individual Differences (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.03.002
J. Du et al. / Learning and Individual Differences xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
homework was significantly associated with all predictor variables, except avoidance orientation at the individual and class level. The observations in this study are clustered in that individuals are nested within classes. The intraclass correlations in this study ranged from 0.03 to 0.38 (M = 0.13, SD = 0.09). These included avoidance (ICC = 0.03), monitoring motivation (ICC = 0.05), performance (ICC = 0.07), family help availability (ICC = 0.08), help seeking (ICC = 0.10), homework interest (ICC = 0.11), peer participation (ICC = 0.12), mastery (ICC = 0.13), family help frequency (ICC = 0.13), teacher feedback (ICC = 0.13), value belief (ICC = 0.13), expectancy belief (ICC = 0.17), and parent education (ICC = 0.38). As these ICCs can potentially bias results, the remainder of the analyses was performed using HLM. The fully unconditional model showed that, with 10.0% of the variance in the outcome variable of help seeking in homework occurred at the class level, thus the nested data has ICC of 0.10. As is commonly argued in the literature (Kreft & de Leeuw, 1998; Von Secker, 2002), with ICC at this level, there is a need to conduct multilevel analysis to appropriately address relevant issues related to such a nested data structure. Model 1 included thirteen individual-level variables (parent education, gender, family help frequency, family help availability, teacher feedback, peer participation, mastery, performance, avoidance, value belief, expectancy belief, homework interest, and monitoring motivation). We employed the likelihood ratio test to compare Model 1 and the fully unconditional model. As hypothesized, Model 1 provided a statistically significantly better fit (χ2(df = 13) = 401.791; p b 0.001). As shown in Table 3, Model 1 explained 41.5% of the variance in help seeking in homework at the individual level. In addition to thirteen individual-level variables in Model 1, Model 2 incorporated five class-level variables (mastery, performance, avoidance orientations, teacher feedback, and homework interest). We employed the likelihood ratio test to compare Model 2 to Model 1. As hypothesized, the results revealed that, compared with Model 1, Model 2 provided a statistically significantly better fit (χ2 (df = 5) = 58.391, p b 0.001). Results further revealed that Model 2 accounted for Table 3 HLM results for help seeking. Model 1 Model predictor Student level Gender (female: 0, male: 1) Parent education Family help frequency Family help availability Teacher feedback Peer participation Mastery Performance Avoidance Value belief Expectancy belief Homework interest Monitoring motivation Class level Mastery Performance Avoidance Teacher feedback Homework interest 2 R individual level R2 group level R2 total Deviance statistics Number of estimated parameters
b
−0.11 0.04 0.08⁎ 0.21⁎⁎ 0.02 0.11⁎⁎ 0.25⁎⁎ 0.11‑ 0.05 0.08⁎ 0.01 0.12⁎⁎ 0.08⁎
0.415 0.000 0.373 1823.704 16
Model 2 SE
0.06 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.04
b
−0.11 0.04 0.08⁎ 0.21⁎⁎ 0.02 0.11⁎⁎ 0.25⁎⁎ 0.11⁎⁎
SE
0.05 0.08⁎ 0.01 0.12⁎⁎ 0.08⁎
0.06 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.04
0.75⁎⁎ −0.10 0.25 0.13 0.23⁎⁎
0.13 0.17 0.14 0.09 0.11
0.415 0.893 0.462 1765.313 21
Note. N = 796 from 46 classes. b = unstandardized regression coefficient. SE = standard error of b. R2 = amount of explained variance. ⁎ p b 0.05. ⁎⁎ p b 0.01.
5
89.3% of the variance in help seeking in homework at the class level. Overall, Model 2 accounted for 46.2% of the total variance in help seeking in homework. As indicated in Table 3, help seeking in homework was positively associated with eight individual-level variables, including mastery orientation (b = 0.25, p b 0.01), family help availability (b = 0.21, p b 0.01), homework interest (b = 0.12, p b 0.01), peer participation (b = 0.11, p b 0.01), performance orientation (b = 0.11, p b 0.01), monitoring motivation (b = 0.08, p b 0.05), value belief (b = 0.08, p b 0.05), and family help frequency (b = 0.08, p b 0.05). In addition, at the class level, helping seeking was positively associated with mastery orientation (b = 0.75, p b 0.01) and homework interest (b = 0.23, p b 0.05). 7. Discussion Our present study tested empirical models of help seeking in math homework for middle school students. Help seeking was positively associated with two variables (mastery orientation and homework interest) at the individual and class level. At the individual level, help seeking was positively associated with family help availability, performance orientation, peer participation, monitoring motivation, value belief, and family help frequency. The findings that help seeking in homework was positively associated with value belief, homework interest, and monitoring motivation are consistent with the related literature regarding the importance of task value, task interest, and regulation of motivation on students' self-regulation in general (Corno & Mandinach, 2004; Pintrich & Zusho, 2002; Schunk, 2005), and with help seeking in particular (Aleven et al., 2003). In addition, the findings that help seeking in homework was positively related to family help frequency, family help availability, and peer participation are consistent with (a) the self-regulation literature about the importance of social influences on help seeking (Newman, 2000; Puustinen et al., 2008; Ryan et al., 1997) and (b) the inference drawn from one qualitative study that that parent availability may facilitate students' efforts to help seeking (Martinez, 2011). Our investigation may be viewed as extending previous research on homework, as no previous studies explicitly linked these variables to help seeking in homework. Taken together, these findings suggest that it would be important to pay close attention to these variables (i.e., relating to task value, task interest, regulation of motivation, and social influence) in research and theorizing on help seeking in homework during early adolescence, a critical junction that help seeking in general has been found to decrease (Ryan et al., 1998; Ryan et al., 2009). What is notable about these findings is that they were derived from a fairly large sample of students while controlling for other theoretically important covariates in multilevel analyses (e.g., social influences such as family help availability and peer participation). Meanwhile, how do we explain the finding that help seeking in homework was not associated with expectancy belief? This finding is not consistent with the self-regulation literature that students with higher perceived competence use more adaptive help seeking strategies (Aleven et al., 2003; Newman, 1990; Pintrich & Schunk, 2002). One possible explanation is that the association between perceived competence and help seeking may be mediated by perceived threat to self-esteem (Butler, 2006). Such a threat may become more of a concern for Chinese students, as cultural norms in East Asian societies tend to discourage help seeking (e.g., fearing a loss of face by asking a foolish question; Barbee & Cunningham, 1995; Radclyffe-Thomas, 2007). This is an important hypothesis for future investigation. In addition, how do we make out of the result that help seeking was not associated with teacher feedback? One plausible explanation is that teacher feedback may be mediated by homework interest, value belief, monitoring motivation, and goal orientation. For example, teacher feedback was found to promote students' learning-goal orientation and make homework assignments more interesting for students (Xu, 2008b; Zimmerman, 2008), which, in turn, may serve to foster students'
Please cite this article as: Du, J., et al., Investigating factors that influence students' help seeking in math homework: A multilevel analysis, Learning and Individual Differences (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.03.002
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willingness to seek homework help. To examine this hypothesis, we performed additional analyses by excluding these variables from Model 1. As hypothesized, teacher feedback was positively associated with help seeking in homework. Another important contribution of the current investigation concerns the role of goal orientations associated with help seeking in homework. The findings that help seeking in homework was positively associated with mastery and performance orientations are consistent with empirical results regarding the importance of goal orientations in help seeking (Aleven et al., 2003; Karabenick, 2004; Wolters, 2004). In addition, they are in line with previous findings with college students (Karabenick, 2004) in that help seeking was positively associated with mastery orientation and, to a less extent, performance orientation. Meanwhile, how do we explain our finding that help seeking in homework was positively associated with mastery orientation at the class level? Whereas consistent with previous research on the importance of classroom goal structure (mastery orientation, Aleven et al., 2003; Bong, 2008), our finding is not consistent with the finding (Karabenick, 2004) that college students' help seeking was not related to mastery orientation at the class level. One likely explanation, Karabenick (2004) contended, is that there may be limited betweenclass variation in mastery orientation, which may be largely a function of the limited classes in his study (n = 13). With the inclusion of students from more classes, the current investigation provides new empirical evidence supporting Karabenick's contention, by revealing that mastery orientation at the class level had a powerful influence on help seeking beyond its positive influence at the individual level. Taken together, the present investigation suggests that there is a need to differentiate mastery and performance goal orientations in the context of help seeking in homework for middle school students, particularly at the class level. Our result concerning parent education is not consistent with the study by Calarco (2011) that middle-class children (compared with working-class children) were more likely to seek help. One possible explanation is that parent education may be mediated by family help availability and frequency (as shown in Table 2), which, in turn, may serve to promote children's initiatives to seek homework help. This explanation is, to some extent, substantiated by findings from a qualitative study (Martinez, 2011), in the sense that those parents with less than high school education were less likely to make themselves available and provide homework help (either because they were not physically available during homework sessions, or because they are not cognitively available to their children), which, in turn, discouraged their children to seek homework help from them. This explanation is also in line with the previous finding by Xu (2010) that the influence of parent education on another related self-regulatory behavior (i.e., homework time management) was mediated by family homework help.
8. Limitations and implications for future investigation The current investigation it contains limitations that need to be acknowledged. First, our findings were primarily drawn from a crosssectional survey. Furthermore, although special care was given to control for potential confounding variables (e.g., informed by a selfregulated learning perspective and related empirical evidences), other variables might have contributed to help seeking in math homework had they been incorporated (e.g., students' prior achievement and perceived threat to self-esteem). Regarding future investigation, there is a need to study how students seek homework help in different subject areas (e.g., English), as gender difference in help seeking may be domain specific (Aleven et al., 2003; Newman, 1998). In addition, future investigation is needed in crosscultural settings, as help seeking may be influenced by cultural norms and expectations (e.g., worry about losing face and worrying about burdening others; Bong, 2008; Radclyffe-Thomas, 2007).
It would also be informative to incorporate a longitudinal design to investigate how students seek homework help over time, and how their help seeking is shaped by variables such as those studied in the current investigation. Such a longitudinal design would allow more conclusive examination of possible causal influences of predictor variables on help seeking (e.g., reciprocal effects of causal ordering; Marsh, Trautwein, Ludtke, Koller, & Baumert, 2005). Finally, it would be critical to test causal hypotheses directly, for example, by strategically manipulating variables such as goal orientation and homework interest, and by testing their effects on subsequent help seeking in homework, homework completion, and academic achievement. 9. Implications for practice Concerning homework practices, what do we make out of the findings that help seeking in math homework was positively associated with mastery orientation at both the individual and class level? Consistent with previous research that mastery orientation plays a predominant role in students' engagement and achievement (Karabenick, 2004; Wolters, 2004), our findings suggest that there is a need to place greater emphasis on mastery orientation in the context of help seeking in math homework. Our findings further suggest that teachers play a vital role in promoting students' help seeking in math homework, by placing greater emphasis on mastery goals (e.g., the importance of effort and the intrinsic value of learning and understanding). In addition, as help seeking in homework was positively associated with homework value, interest, and monitoring motivation, teachers can promote students' help seeking in math homework, by making math homework more purposeful and engaging, by guiding students to learn how to maintain homework motivation in the face of competing after-school activities. Meanwhile, what do we make out of the findings regarding family help availability and family help frequency (i.e., the regression coefficient for family help availability was approximately three as large as family help frequency)? These findings suggest that, to foster help seeking in math homework, it would be more important for parents to make themselves available and accessible to their children than the frequency of family homework help. These findings further suggest that it would be beneficial for teachers to encourage parents to make themselves available in the homework process at the middle school level. Finally, the finding that help seeking in math homework was positively related to peer participation suggests that teachers and families cannot afford to overlook peer influence in help seeking in math homework. As a result, they may want to nurture and develop a norm of peer involvement and support, by promoting students' shared interest in math and math homework, by providing opportunities for students to discuss, share, and reflect upon what they have learned in math and in math homework, and by learning how to seek for clarification and elaboration of peers' perspectives. References Aleven, V., Stahl, E., Schworm, S., Fischer, F., & Wallace, R. (2003). Help seeking and help design in interactive learning environments. Review of Educational Research, 73, 277–320. Barbee, A. P., & Cunningham, M. R. (1995). An experimental approach to social support communications: Interactive coping in close relationships. In B. R. Burleson (Ed.), Communication yearbook 18 (pp. 381–413). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bong, M. (2008). Effects of parent-child relationships and classroom goal structures on motivation, help-seeking avoidance, and cheat. Journal of Experimental Education, 76, 191–217. Butler, R. (2006). An achievement goal perspective on student help seeking and teacher help giving in the classroom: Theory, research, and educational implications. In S. A. Karabenick, & R. S. Newman (Eds.), Help seeking in academic settings: Goals, groups, and contexts (pp. 15–44). New York: Routledge. Calarco, J. M. (2011). “I need help!” Social class and children's help-seeking in elementary school. American Sociological Review, 76, 862–882. Cooper, H., Lindsay, J. J., Nye, B., & Greathouse, S. (1998). Relationships among attitudes about homework, amount of homework assigned and completed, and student achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90, 70–83.
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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Learning and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/lindif
Investigating factors that influence students' help seeking in math homework: A multilevel analysis Jianxia Du a, Jianzhong Xu b,⁎, Xitao Fan a a b
University of Macau, China Mississippi State University, United States
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 8 February 2015 Received in revised form 10 January 2016 Accepted 5 March 2016 Available online xxxx Keywords: Help seeking Homework Math Middle school students Self-regulation
a b s t r a c t The current investigation examined empirical models of help seeking in math homework. Individual- and classlevel predictors of help seeking were analyzed in a survey of 796 8th graders from 46 classes. Multilevel results indicated that help seeking was positively associated with mastery orientation and homework interest at the individual and class level. At the individual level, help seeking was positively related to family help availability, homework interest, peer participation, performance orientation, monitoring motivation, value belief, and family help frequency. Our results suggest that mastery orientation exerts a powerful influence on students' help seeking in math homework. Our results further suggest that teachers can play a vital role in promoting help seeking, by placing greater emphasis on mastery goals, by making homework more interesting, by helping students learn to maintain homework motivation, and by encouraging families to make themselves available in the homework process. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Although help seeking is conceptualized as a critical component of self-regulation (Newman, 2000; Pintrich, 2000; Zimmerman, 2008), although homework is an important instructional activity across countries (Cooper, Robinson, & Patall, 2006; Eilam, 2001; Epstein & Van Voorhis, 2001; İflazoğlu & Hong, 2012; Núñez et al., 2015), it is surprising to note that little attention has been directed to the issue of help seeking in homework. To fill this notable gap in research on homework, the aim of the current investigation is to propose and examine empirical models of students' help seeking in math homework, with the models informed by research and theorizing on self-regulated learning (e.g., Newman, 1998; Pintrich, 2004; Puustinen, Bernicot, & Erboul, 2011; Zimmerman, 2008). This line of investigation is important, because help seeking can help to avert possible failure, promote academic engagement and achievement, and increase the likelihood of long-term autonomous learning (Karabenick, 2004; Marchand & Skinner, 2007; Newman, 2002). Yet, students do not necessarily seek help when it is needed (Karabenick & Knapp, 1991; Kessels & Steinmayr, 2013; Newman, 2002). Indeed, help seeking tends to decrease during early adolescence (Ryan, Gheen, & Midgley, 1998; Ryan, Shim, Lampkins-uThando, Kiefer, & Thompson, 2009). This becomes more of a concern for homework, as it typically occurs in the middle of competing after-school activities, ⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Foundations, P.O. Box 9727, Mississippi State University, MS 39762, United States. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Xu).
thus placing more demands on students' self-regulation (Fries, Dietz, & Schmid, 2008), with help seeking in particular. Consequently, it would be critically important to examine a range of factors that influence help seeking in homework at this developmental stage. 2. Theoretical framework Help seeking is frequently discussed under the umbrella of selfregulated learning (Newman, 1998, 2000; Pintrich, 2004; Puustinen, Bernicot, & Bert-Erboul, 2011; Ryan & Pintrich, 1997; Zimmerman, 2008). According to Pintrich's (2004) classification, self-regulation includes four phases (forethought, monitoring, control, and reflection). For each phase, self-regulation is delineated in four areas (cognition, motivation, behavioral, and context), in which help seeking is considered as one aspect of behavior for self-regulation or “a behavioral control activity” in self-regulation (Puustinen, Kokkonen, Tolvanen, & Pulkkinen, 2004, p. 232). It refers to the procurement of help from others in the environment to cope with difficulty and ambiguity in the learning process (e.g., aid and advice; Pintrich, 2004; Ryan & Pintrich, 1997). This classification suggests that help seeking may be affected by other three areas of self-regulation, including cognition (e.g., goal orientations), context (e.g., peer interaction), and motivation. One construct expected to be associated with help seeking is goal orientation (Newman, 1990), and research on achievement orientation theory has indicated that children high in mastery orientation use more adaptive help seeking strategies (Aleven, Stahl, Schworm, Fischer, & Wallace, 2003; Karabenick, 2004).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.03.002 1041-6080/© 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Du, J., et al., Investigating factors that influence students' help seeking in math homework: A multilevel analysis, Learning and Individual Differences (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.03.002
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As students with high self-perceived competence use more adaptive self-regulated strategies including help seeking (Aleven et al., 2003; Newman, 1990; Pintrich & Schunk, 2002), help seeking may be influenced by students' beliefs and expectations regarding their competence to perform a task successfully (expectancy belief). In addition, as students who show more interest in a task and views it valuable are more likely to use more adaptive self-regulation strategies (Pintrich & Zusho, 2002), task interest and value may affect self-regulation (Schunk, 2005), with help seeking in particular (Aleven et al., 2003). Furthermore, given that monitoring motivation can sustain interest is a key hypothesis in volition theory (Corno, 2000; Corno & Mandinach, 2004), monitoring motivation may influence help seeking. As individual and social differences can influence students' efforts at self-regulation (Pintrich, 2004), help seeking is likely to be further affected by background variables (e.g., parent education and gender; Aleven et al., 2003; Calarco, 2011; Kessels & Steinmayr, 2013) and social influences (e.g., parents, teachers, and peers; Newman, 2000; Puustinen, Lyyra, Metsapelto, & Pulkkinen, 2008; Ryan, Hicks, & Midgley, 1997). For example, middle-class children (compared with working-class children) requested and received more help from teachers (Calarco, 2011). Peers' achievement goals and attitudes may affect students' attitudes toward the value of school work and help seeking (Newman, 2002). In summary, this line of literature suggests that help seeking is likely to be affected by multiple variables, including background variables (e.g., parent education), social influences (e.g., parent, teacher, and peer), goal orientation (e.g., mastery and performance), expectancy belief, task value and interest, and monitoring motivation. Therefore, there is a need to include these variables in empirical models of students' help seeking in homework. 3. Studies pertaining to help seeking in homework Some recent studies have tapped into students' help seeking in homework. Two studies examined help seeking exchanges on a French online forum providing students with free math homework help, one study including middle school students (Puustinen et al., 2011) and the other including high school students (Puustinen, Bernicot, Volckaert-Legrier, & Baker, 2015). Taken together, these studies suggest that, by middle school level, students are capable of being self-regulated learners and help seekers with unknown teachers in an online learning environment. Other studies have alluded to several factors that may influence students' help seeking in homework. Crystal, Kakinuma, DeBell, Azuma, and Miyashita (2008), for example, found that females sought more homework support from peers and family. In addition, more 6th graders than 8th graders, and more 8th graders than 10th graders sought family homework help. In another related study, Martinez (2011) found that 6 of the 22 Latino high school students doing daily homework on a regular basis; the others appeared to experience difficulties completing their assignments. Their inability to complete homework was confounded by the fact that few of them could turn to their parents for homework help. Data further implied that parent education and parent availability may influence help seeking in homework. Some participants did not seek help from their parents because their parents were not physically available during homework sessions (e.g., working long hours and night shifts). Other commented that their parents were not cognitively available (e.g., not with familiar with the material or having difficulty with the English language) because their parents did not graduate from high school. None of the above studies, however, were specifically designed to examine a range of theoretically grounded variables that influence students' help seeking in homework. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that these studies imply that students' help seeking in homework may be affected by variables such as gender, parent education, and
parent availability, in line with theoretical expectations discussed in the previous section.
4. The present investigation As helping seeking in homework is noticeably and surprisingly lacking from much contemporary homework research, our current study seeks to address this important gap, by examining empirical models of help seeking in math homework. In particular, our models were informed by and built upon the theoretical framework on selfregulation (as discussed above), including the following variables regarding background variables (e.g., parent education), social influences (e.g., parent, teacher, and peer), goal orientation (e.g., mastery and performance), expectancy belief, task value and interest, and monitoring motivation. Specifically, Model 1 includes thirteen individual-level variables – background variables (parent education and gender), social influences (family help frequency, family help availability, teacher feedback, and peer participation), goal orientation (mastery, performance, and avoidance), value belief, expectancy belief, homework interest, and monitoring motivation. Consistent with the self-regulation literature regarding the importance of social influences on help seeking (Newman, 2000; Puustinen, Lyyra, & Metsapelto, 2008), it is hypothesized that help seeking in homework is positively related to family help frequency, family help availability, teacher feedback, and peer participation. Consistent with the self-regulation literature (e.g. Aleven et al., 2003, Newman, 1990, Pintrich & Zusho, 2002, Schunk, 2005), it is further hypothesized that help seeking is positively related to expectancy belief, value belief, homework interest, and monitoring motivation. In addition, consistent with the self-regulation literature (Aleven et al., 2003; Kessels & Steinmayr, 2013), it is hypothesized that females and those children with higher parent education are more likely to seek homework help. Finally, it is hypothesized that help seeking is positively associated with mastery and performance goal orientations, consistent with relevant findings regarding help seeking (Karabenick, 2004; Pintrich, 2004). Model 2 further include five class-level variables regarding goal orientation (mastery, performance, and avoidance), teacher feedback, and homework interest. The justification for including goal orientations at the class level is that classroom achievement goal structure can influence help seeking (Aleven et al., 2003; Bong, 2008; Karabenick, 2004). The justification for including teacher feedback and homework interest as both an individual-level and a class-level variable is that students' shared assessment of teachers' feedback and homework interest in a given class may influence help seeking in addition to their influence at the individual level. The present study focuses on 8th graders, as help seeking becomes increasingly complex at the middle school level (e.g., peer involvement and expectations of benefits; Newman, 2002), and as help seeking tends to decrease during early adolescence (Ryan et al., 1998; Ryan et al., 2009). Meanwhile, they are at the cusp of the transition to high school and have accumulated a rich history of academic performance (Usher, 2009), with homework in particular (i.e., doing homework and seeking homework help). This observation is further substantiated by the finding from several studies that indicated that 8th graders are capable of seeking homework help in online environment (Puustinen et al., 2011) and face-to-face environment (Crystal et al., 2008). As recent research has examined domain-specific aspects of homework (e.g., effort, emotion, motivation, and self-regulation; Goetz et al., 2012; Trautwein, Ludtke, Schnyder, & Niggli, 2006; Hong, Peng, & Rowell, 2009), there is a need to focus on help seeking in one important domain (i.e., math) in this study. Such a focus is particularly important, as (a) math is a major achievement domain with typically high demands for homework (e.g., students spend about 20% to 40% of their homework time on math; Kitsantas, Cheema, & Ware, 2011; Pezdek, Berry, & Renno, 2002), and as (b) doing math homework is
Please cite this article as: Du, J., et al., Investigating factors that influence students' help seeking in math homework: A multilevel analysis, Learning and Individual Differences (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.03.002
J. Du et al. / Learning and Individual Differences xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
viewed as a major challenge for students and parents (Else-Quest, Hyde, & Hejmadi, 2008; Landers, 2013). 5. Method
Table 1 Reliability estimates. Scales
Sample items
α (CI)
Family help availabilitya
My parents always help me if I get stuck with my math homework. My parents help me with math if I ask them. How much of your math HW is checked by math teacher? How much of your math HW is collected by math teacher? My friends discuss things they have learned in math class. My friends discuss things they have learned in math HW. Understanding math is important to me. I prefer math HW that really challenges me so I can learn new things. It is important for me to do math HW well compared to others in this class. My goal in doing math HW is to get a better grade than most of the other students. I want to do as little as possible with math HW. I like math HW best when I do not need to put much effort into it. Our math HW takes a lot of time and is of little use to med. There is no point in my doing math HWd. If I make an effort, I can do all my math homework. I often feel completely lost in my math homework. I look forward to math HW. I enjoy math HW. Find ways to make math HW more interesting. Praise myself for good effort. When I don't understand math HW, I ask a classmate for help. When I don't understand math HW, I ask my parents or other family members for help.
0.88 (0.87–0.89)
5.1. Participants and procedure Participants included 796 eighth graders from 46 classes in China. Among them are 439 males (55.2%). On average, their parent education level was 12.6 years (SD = 3.3). Regarding math homework, approximately one fifth of participants (21.5%) had math assignments three days a week or less, whereas approximately four fifth of participants (78.5%) had math assignments four or more days weekly. Participants spent, on average, 34 min (SD = 22) doing math assignments daily. To address the concern that previous homework studies tend to focus on middle-class students (Xu, 2005; Cooper, Lindsay, Nye, & Greathouse, 1998), the current study included students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds (e.g., family income and parent education level). Specifically, participants came from three middle schools, including two regular middle schools and one key middle school (which is given priority in the assignment of teachers and funds, and in the recruitment of more academically-oriented students). With respect to homework policy, Chinese middle schools were recently asked to assign no more than 90 min daily. In general, teachers were expected to assign homework that was meaningful and achievable (e.g., serving to reinforce or prepare for class learning), and they were expected to provide appropriate feedback along the way. Students were expected to make homework completion a priority during the after-school hours and to be responsible for following through their assignments within the given timeframe. Parents were expected to provide relevant materials, to observe and monitor their child's homework. They were also encouraged to discuss or share any concerns they may have with the teachers. The schools and parents were contacted for permission for conducting this study. The homework instrument was then administered during regular math class periods in spring 2013, in which participants were told: “Some students find math homework helpful, others disagree. The purpose of this survey is to learn more about how you approach math homework so that teaches and your family can better help you.” Overall, the survey response rate was 90.5%.
3
Teacher feedbackb
Peer participationa
Masteryc
Performancec
Avoidancec
Value beliefa
Expectancy beliefa
HW intereste Monitoring motivationf Help seekingc
0.75 (0.72–0.78)
0.90 (0.89–0.91)
0.89 (0.88–0.90)
0.84 (0.82–0.85)
0.86 (0.84–0.87)
0.81 (0.79–0.83)
0.80 (0.77–0.82)
0.93 (0.92–0.94) 0.79 (0.77–0.82)
0.73 (0.69–0.76)
Note. HW = homework. a Rating: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = agree, 4 = strongly agree. b Rating: 1 = none, 2 = some, 3 = about half, 4 = most, 5 = all. c Rating: from 1 (not at all true of me) to 7 (very true of me). d The item was reverse scored. e Rating: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neither disagree nor agree, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree. f Rating: Never = 1, Rarely = 2, Sometimes = 3, Often = 4, Routinely = 5.
5.2. Measures Participants indicated the extent to which they received family help, from never (1) to routinely (5). They also indicated education level for their parents, from elementary school (6 years) to graduate degree (19 years). In addition, a number of scales were applied in this study. Table 1 includes sample items for the scales, along with the reliability information. 5.2.1. Family help availability Adapted from the work from related literature (Martinez, 2011; Trautwein et al., 2006), four items assessed the extent to which parents were available for helping with math homework (e.g., when students had difficulty or got stuck with math assignments; α = 0.88). 5.2.2. Teacher feedback Based on relevant literature on homework feedback (e.g., Xu, 2007, 2008a; Natriello & McDill, 1986), three items measured the extent to which math assignments were monitored by teachers (α = 0.75; the amount of math assignments being collected and checked). 5.2.3. Peer participation Based on the work by Kahle, Meece, and Scantlebury (2000) on peer participation in science activities, six items measured peers'
involvement in math and math homework (α = 0.90; peers' discussion, engagement, and interest). 5.2.4. Goal orientation Adapted from the literature on goal orientation (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1993), three scales measured students' adoption of mastery goal orientation (6 items; α = 0.89), performance goal orientation (6 items; α = 0.84), and work avoidance goal orientation (5 items; α = 0.86). The only difference was that items in our study focused on goals adopted in math homework, as opposed to more general goal orientations. 5.2.5. Value belief Six items measured students' perceived value of math homework, adapted from the work by Trautwein et al. (2006). These items focused on utility and cost of doing math homework (α = 0.81). 5.2.6. Expectancy belief Adapted from the work by Trautwein et al. (2006), this scale incorporated ten items to assess students' expectancy belief regarding math homework (e.g., their confidence to complete math assignments correctly; α = 0.80).
Please cite this article as: Du, J., et al., Investigating factors that influence students' help seeking in math homework: A multilevel analysis, Learning and Individual Differences (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.03.002
0.25⁎⁎ 0.09⁎ 0.25⁎⁎ −0.06 0.31⁎⁎ 0.36⁎⁎ 0.43⁎⁎ 0.30⁎⁎ 0.36⁎⁎ 0.39⁎⁎ −0.03 0.53⁎⁎ 0.39⁎⁎ 0.21⁎⁎ 0.44⁎⁎ 0.32⁎⁎
5 4 3 2 1
0.55 12.55 2.89 2.61 3.35 2.65 5.45 4.72 3.76 3.27 3.02 3.37 3.02 5.50 4.76 3.74 3.34 3.39
SD M
1 Gender (male: 1) 2 Parent education 3 Family help frequency 4 Family help availability 5 Teacher feedback 6 Peer participation 7 Mastery 8 Performance 9 Avoidance 10 Value belief 11. Expectancy belief 12 Homework interest 13 Monitoring motivation 14 Mastery - class 15 Performance - class 16 Avoidance - class 17. Teacher feedback - class 18. Homework interest class 19 Help seeking
The univariate sample statistics showed that all of the continuous variables with skewness values (ranging from −1.00 to 0.20) or kurtosis values (ranging from −0.90 to 0.84) were quite satisfactory. Table 2 includes the descriptive statistics, along with Pearson's correlations of the predictor variables and help seeking in homework. Help seeking in
Variables
6. Results
Table 2 Descriptive Statistics and Correlations.
Due to the nested data (i.e., individuals nested within class), we performed multilevel modeling analysis to address several major issues associated with such data structure (e.g., underestimating standard errors and aggregation bias; Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002). To help interpret the obtained regression coefficients, all continuous variables were standardized (M = 0, SD = 1) before conducting the multilevel analyses. Consequently, the regression weights for all variables (except gender) were largely equivalent with the standardized beta weights from multiple regression analyses. Model 1 included thirteen variables at the individual level (gender, parent education, family help frequency, family help availability, teacher feedback, peer participation, mastery, performance, avoidance, value belief, expectancy belief, homework interest, and monitoring motivation). Model 2 included five variables at the class level (mastery, performance, and avoidance orientations, teacher feedback, and homework interest). Because we had no a priori hypotheses about if or how the predictive power of the individual-level predictor variables would differ across the classes, all models implemented in this study were random-intercept models (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002), using HLM version 6.08. We used full maximum likelihood in the multilevel models, and all the studentlevel variables were centered at the group mean.
6
5.3. Statistical analyses
0.22⁎⁎
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
5.2.9. Help seeking Informed by relevant literature on adaptive or instrumental help seeking (Duncan & McKeachie, 2005; Karabenick, 2003; Pintrich et al., 1993; Ryan & Pintrich, 1997), this scale was developed to measure student initiatives to seek help in math homework. It included five items (α = 0.73), ranging from getting help from adults (e.g., teachers and family members) to their peers (e.g., classmates) or online sources. The development of the above scales and the existing empirical evidence for their validity and reliability were discussed in previous studies (e.g., Trautwein et al., 2006; Xu, 2008b). Regarding ten reliability estimates in this study (two were in the .90s, six were in the .80s, and three were in the .70s), they are generally considered in the range of adequate to excellent (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). Regarding the validity evidence of outcome variable (i.e., help seeking), help seeking was positive related to math test scores (r = 0.12, p b 0.001). These correlations were largely consistent with theoretical expectation (e.g., Pintrich, 2004) and related empirical evidences (e.g., college students' help seeking was positively associated with course performance, r = 0.14, p b 0.001; Karabenick, 2004).
4.68 1.35 −0.07⁎
14
15
5.2.8. Monitoring motivation Four items measured students' efforts to enhance or sustain their motivation while doing math homework (Xu, 2008b; α = 0.79). These items ranged from trying to make math assignments more engaging and interesting for themselves to reassuring themselves for successful completion of math assignments.
Note. N = 796. ⁎ p b 0.05. ⁎⁎ p b 0.01.
16
17
18
5.2.7. Homework interest Five items measured students' interest in math homework (α = 0.93), based on literature on interest (Denissen, Zarrett, & Eccles, 2007; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002) and homework interest (Cooper et al., 1998; Xu, 2008a). The scale assessed the extent to which students liked and looked forward to math homework.
– −0.12⁎⁎ – 0.06 16⁎⁎ – −0.01 0.28⁎⁎ 0.61⁎⁎ – ⁎ 0.07 0.08 0.28⁎⁎ 0.26⁎⁎ – −0.05 0.09⁎ 0.23⁎⁎ 0.33⁎⁎ 0.20⁎⁎ – −0.05 0.21⁎⁎ 0.12⁎⁎ 0.21⁎⁎ 0.11⁎⁎ 0.32⁎⁎ – 0.02 0.12⁎⁎ 0.11⁎⁎ 0.14⁎⁎ 0.10⁎⁎ 0.23⁎⁎ 0.56⁎⁎ – 0.04 0.02 −0.02 −0.01 −0.10⁎⁎ −0.07 −0.08⁎ 0.19⁎⁎ – −0.04 0.05 0.09⁎⁎ 0.22⁎⁎ 0.18⁎⁎ 0.27⁎⁎ 0.45⁎⁎ 0.18⁎⁎ −0.26⁎⁎ – ⁎⁎ ⁎⁎ ⁎ ⁎⁎ ⁎⁎ ⁎⁎ 0.09 0.28 0.00 0.22 0.09 0.15 0.41 0.18 −0.25⁎⁎ 0.42⁎⁎ – ⁎⁎ ⁎⁎ ⁎⁎ ⁎⁎ ⁎⁎ ⁎⁎ ⁎⁎ 0.02 0.07 0.20 0.26 0.21 0.40 0.46 0.28 −0.29 0.41⁎⁎ 0.43⁎⁎ – 0.06 0.24⁎⁎ 0.18⁎⁎ 0.28⁎⁎ 0.17⁎⁎ 0.20⁎⁎ 0.37⁎⁎ 0.29⁎⁎ −0.12⁎⁎ 0.22⁎⁎ 0.38⁎⁎ 0.40⁎⁎ – −0.17⁎⁎ 0.36⁎⁎ 0.13⁎⁎ 0.20⁎⁎ 0.02 0.27⁎⁎ 0.42⁎⁎ 0.28⁎⁎ −0.10⁎⁎ 0.29⁎⁎ 0.25⁎⁎ 0.26⁎⁎ 0.18⁎⁎ – −0.08⁎ 0.33⁎⁎ 0.12⁎⁎ 0.20⁎⁎ 0.06 0.25⁎⁎ 0.33⁎⁎ 0.36⁎⁎ −0.01 0.21⁎⁎ 0.17⁎⁎ 0.18⁎⁎ 0.15⁎⁎ 0.77⁎⁎ – 0.12⁎⁎ 0.04 −0.01 0.00 0.04 −0.04 −0.15⁎⁎ −0.01 0.29⁎⁎ −0.21⁎⁎ −0.17⁎⁎ −0.15⁎⁎ −0.01 −0.36⁎⁎ −0.02 – 0.05 0.09⁎⁎ 0.21⁎⁎ 0.09⁎ 0.42⁎⁎ 0.14⁎⁎ 0.02 0.05 0.03 0.04 −0.08⁎ 0.09⁎ 0.06 0.05 0.14⁎⁎ 0.11⁎⁎ – −0.10⁎⁎ 0.07 0.23⁎⁎ 0.20⁎⁎ 0.10⁎⁎ 0.29⁎⁎ 0.27⁎⁎ 0.16⁎⁎ −0.11⁎⁎ 0.21⁎⁎ 0.13⁎⁎ 0.40⁎⁎ 0.15⁎⁎ 0.64⁎⁎ 0.44⁎⁎ −0.37⁎⁎ 0.23⁎⁎ –
J. Du et al. / Learning and Individual Differences xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
0.50 3.30 1.09 0.72 1.05 0.69 1.32 1.41 1.56 0.48 0.47 0.83 0.91 0.55 0.52 0.47 0.46 0.34
4
Please cite this article as: Du, J., et al., Investigating factors that influence students' help seeking in math homework: A multilevel analysis, Learning and Individual Differences (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.03.002
J. Du et al. / Learning and Individual Differences xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
homework was significantly associated with all predictor variables, except avoidance orientation at the individual and class level. The observations in this study are clustered in that individuals are nested within classes. The intraclass correlations in this study ranged from 0.03 to 0.38 (M = 0.13, SD = 0.09). These included avoidance (ICC = 0.03), monitoring motivation (ICC = 0.05), performance (ICC = 0.07), family help availability (ICC = 0.08), help seeking (ICC = 0.10), homework interest (ICC = 0.11), peer participation (ICC = 0.12), mastery (ICC = 0.13), family help frequency (ICC = 0.13), teacher feedback (ICC = 0.13), value belief (ICC = 0.13), expectancy belief (ICC = 0.17), and parent education (ICC = 0.38). As these ICCs can potentially bias results, the remainder of the analyses was performed using HLM. The fully unconditional model showed that, with 10.0% of the variance in the outcome variable of help seeking in homework occurred at the class level, thus the nested data has ICC of 0.10. As is commonly argued in the literature (Kreft & de Leeuw, 1998; Von Secker, 2002), with ICC at this level, there is a need to conduct multilevel analysis to appropriately address relevant issues related to such a nested data structure. Model 1 included thirteen individual-level variables (parent education, gender, family help frequency, family help availability, teacher feedback, peer participation, mastery, performance, avoidance, value belief, expectancy belief, homework interest, and monitoring motivation). We employed the likelihood ratio test to compare Model 1 and the fully unconditional model. As hypothesized, Model 1 provided a statistically significantly better fit (χ2(df = 13) = 401.791; p b 0.001). As shown in Table 3, Model 1 explained 41.5% of the variance in help seeking in homework at the individual level. In addition to thirteen individual-level variables in Model 1, Model 2 incorporated five class-level variables (mastery, performance, avoidance orientations, teacher feedback, and homework interest). We employed the likelihood ratio test to compare Model 2 to Model 1. As hypothesized, the results revealed that, compared with Model 1, Model 2 provided a statistically significantly better fit (χ2 (df = 5) = 58.391, p b 0.001). Results further revealed that Model 2 accounted for Table 3 HLM results for help seeking. Model 1 Model predictor Student level Gender (female: 0, male: 1) Parent education Family help frequency Family help availability Teacher feedback Peer participation Mastery Performance Avoidance Value belief Expectancy belief Homework interest Monitoring motivation Class level Mastery Performance Avoidance Teacher feedback Homework interest 2 R individual level R2 group level R2 total Deviance statistics Number of estimated parameters
b
−0.11 0.04 0.08⁎ 0.21⁎⁎ 0.02 0.11⁎⁎ 0.25⁎⁎ 0.11‑ 0.05 0.08⁎ 0.01 0.12⁎⁎ 0.08⁎
0.415 0.000 0.373 1823.704 16
Model 2 SE
0.06 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.04
b
−0.11 0.04 0.08⁎ 0.21⁎⁎ 0.02 0.11⁎⁎ 0.25⁎⁎ 0.11⁎⁎
SE
0.05 0.08⁎ 0.01 0.12⁎⁎ 0.08⁎
0.06 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.04
0.75⁎⁎ −0.10 0.25 0.13 0.23⁎⁎
0.13 0.17 0.14 0.09 0.11
0.415 0.893 0.462 1765.313 21
Note. N = 796 from 46 classes. b = unstandardized regression coefficient. SE = standard error of b. R2 = amount of explained variance. ⁎ p b 0.05. ⁎⁎ p b 0.01.
5
89.3% of the variance in help seeking in homework at the class level. Overall, Model 2 accounted for 46.2% of the total variance in help seeking in homework. As indicated in Table 3, help seeking in homework was positively associated with eight individual-level variables, including mastery orientation (b = 0.25, p b 0.01), family help availability (b = 0.21, p b 0.01), homework interest (b = 0.12, p b 0.01), peer participation (b = 0.11, p b 0.01), performance orientation (b = 0.11, p b 0.01), monitoring motivation (b = 0.08, p b 0.05), value belief (b = 0.08, p b 0.05), and family help frequency (b = 0.08, p b 0.05). In addition, at the class level, helping seeking was positively associated with mastery orientation (b = 0.75, p b 0.01) and homework interest (b = 0.23, p b 0.05). 7. Discussion Our present study tested empirical models of help seeking in math homework for middle school students. Help seeking was positively associated with two variables (mastery orientation and homework interest) at the individual and class level. At the individual level, help seeking was positively associated with family help availability, performance orientation, peer participation, monitoring motivation, value belief, and family help frequency. The findings that help seeking in homework was positively associated with value belief, homework interest, and monitoring motivation are consistent with the related literature regarding the importance of task value, task interest, and regulation of motivation on students' self-regulation in general (Corno & Mandinach, 2004; Pintrich & Zusho, 2002; Schunk, 2005), and with help seeking in particular (Aleven et al., 2003). In addition, the findings that help seeking in homework was positively related to family help frequency, family help availability, and peer participation are consistent with (a) the self-regulation literature about the importance of social influences on help seeking (Newman, 2000; Puustinen et al., 2008; Ryan et al., 1997) and (b) the inference drawn from one qualitative study that that parent availability may facilitate students' efforts to help seeking (Martinez, 2011). Our investigation may be viewed as extending previous research on homework, as no previous studies explicitly linked these variables to help seeking in homework. Taken together, these findings suggest that it would be important to pay close attention to these variables (i.e., relating to task value, task interest, regulation of motivation, and social influence) in research and theorizing on help seeking in homework during early adolescence, a critical junction that help seeking in general has been found to decrease (Ryan et al., 1998; Ryan et al., 2009). What is notable about these findings is that they were derived from a fairly large sample of students while controlling for other theoretically important covariates in multilevel analyses (e.g., social influences such as family help availability and peer participation). Meanwhile, how do we explain the finding that help seeking in homework was not associated with expectancy belief? This finding is not consistent with the self-regulation literature that students with higher perceived competence use more adaptive help seeking strategies (Aleven et al., 2003; Newman, 1990; Pintrich & Schunk, 2002). One possible explanation is that the association between perceived competence and help seeking may be mediated by perceived threat to self-esteem (Butler, 2006). Such a threat may become more of a concern for Chinese students, as cultural norms in East Asian societies tend to discourage help seeking (e.g., fearing a loss of face by asking a foolish question; Barbee & Cunningham, 1995; Radclyffe-Thomas, 2007). This is an important hypothesis for future investigation. In addition, how do we make out of the result that help seeking was not associated with teacher feedback? One plausible explanation is that teacher feedback may be mediated by homework interest, value belief, monitoring motivation, and goal orientation. For example, teacher feedback was found to promote students' learning-goal orientation and make homework assignments more interesting for students (Xu, 2008b; Zimmerman, 2008), which, in turn, may serve to foster students'
Please cite this article as: Du, J., et al., Investigating factors that influence students' help seeking in math homework: A multilevel analysis, Learning and Individual Differences (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.03.002
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willingness to seek homework help. To examine this hypothesis, we performed additional analyses by excluding these variables from Model 1. As hypothesized, teacher feedback was positively associated with help seeking in homework. Another important contribution of the current investigation concerns the role of goal orientations associated with help seeking in homework. The findings that help seeking in homework was positively associated with mastery and performance orientations are consistent with empirical results regarding the importance of goal orientations in help seeking (Aleven et al., 2003; Karabenick, 2004; Wolters, 2004). In addition, they are in line with previous findings with college students (Karabenick, 2004) in that help seeking was positively associated with mastery orientation and, to a less extent, performance orientation. Meanwhile, how do we explain our finding that help seeking in homework was positively associated with mastery orientation at the class level? Whereas consistent with previous research on the importance of classroom goal structure (mastery orientation, Aleven et al., 2003; Bong, 2008), our finding is not consistent with the finding (Karabenick, 2004) that college students' help seeking was not related to mastery orientation at the class level. One likely explanation, Karabenick (2004) contended, is that there may be limited betweenclass variation in mastery orientation, which may be largely a function of the limited classes in his study (n = 13). With the inclusion of students from more classes, the current investigation provides new empirical evidence supporting Karabenick's contention, by revealing that mastery orientation at the class level had a powerful influence on help seeking beyond its positive influence at the individual level. Taken together, the present investigation suggests that there is a need to differentiate mastery and performance goal orientations in the context of help seeking in homework for middle school students, particularly at the class level. Our result concerning parent education is not consistent with the study by Calarco (2011) that middle-class children (compared with working-class children) were more likely to seek help. One possible explanation is that parent education may be mediated by family help availability and frequency (as shown in Table 2), which, in turn, may serve to promote children's initiatives to seek homework help. This explanation is, to some extent, substantiated by findings from a qualitative study (Martinez, 2011), in the sense that those parents with less than high school education were less likely to make themselves available and provide homework help (either because they were not physically available during homework sessions, or because they are not cognitively available to their children), which, in turn, discouraged their children to seek homework help from them. This explanation is also in line with the previous finding by Xu (2010) that the influence of parent education on another related self-regulatory behavior (i.e., homework time management) was mediated by family homework help.
8. Limitations and implications for future investigation The current investigation it contains limitations that need to be acknowledged. First, our findings were primarily drawn from a crosssectional survey. Furthermore, although special care was given to control for potential confounding variables (e.g., informed by a selfregulated learning perspective and related empirical evidences), other variables might have contributed to help seeking in math homework had they been incorporated (e.g., students' prior achievement and perceived threat to self-esteem). Regarding future investigation, there is a need to study how students seek homework help in different subject areas (e.g., English), as gender difference in help seeking may be domain specific (Aleven et al., 2003; Newman, 1998). In addition, future investigation is needed in crosscultural settings, as help seeking may be influenced by cultural norms and expectations (e.g., worry about losing face and worrying about burdening others; Bong, 2008; Radclyffe-Thomas, 2007).
It would also be informative to incorporate a longitudinal design to investigate how students seek homework help over time, and how their help seeking is shaped by variables such as those studied in the current investigation. Such a longitudinal design would allow more conclusive examination of possible causal influences of predictor variables on help seeking (e.g., reciprocal effects of causal ordering; Marsh, Trautwein, Ludtke, Koller, & Baumert, 2005). Finally, it would be critical to test causal hypotheses directly, for example, by strategically manipulating variables such as goal orientation and homework interest, and by testing their effects on subsequent help seeking in homework, homework completion, and academic achievement. 9. Implications for practice Concerning homework practices, what do we make out of the findings that help seeking in math homework was positively associated with mastery orientation at both the individual and class level? Consistent with previous research that mastery orientation plays a predominant role in students' engagement and achievement (Karabenick, 2004; Wolters, 2004), our findings suggest that there is a need to place greater emphasis on mastery orientation in the context of help seeking in math homework. Our findings further suggest that teachers play a vital role in promoting students' help seeking in math homework, by placing greater emphasis on mastery goals (e.g., the importance of effort and the intrinsic value of learning and understanding). In addition, as help seeking in homework was positively associated with homework value, interest, and monitoring motivation, teachers can promote students' help seeking in math homework, by making math homework more purposeful and engaging, by guiding students to learn how to maintain homework motivation in the face of competing after-school activities. Meanwhile, what do we make out of the findings regarding family help availability and family help frequency (i.e., the regression coefficient for family help availability was approximately three as large as family help frequency)? These findings suggest that, to foster help seeking in math homework, it would be more important for parents to make themselves available and accessible to their children than the frequency of family homework help. These findings further suggest that it would be beneficial for teachers to encourage parents to make themselves available in the homework process at the middle school level. Finally, the finding that help seeking in math homework was positively related to peer participation suggests that teachers and families cannot afford to overlook peer influence in help seeking in math homework. As a result, they may want to nurture and develop a norm of peer involvement and support, by promoting students' shared interest in math and math homework, by providing opportunities for students to discuss, share, and reflect upon what they have learned in math and in math homework, and by learning how to seek for clarification and elaboration of peers' perspectives. References Aleven, V., Stahl, E., Schworm, S., Fischer, F., & Wallace, R. (2003). Help seeking and help design in interactive learning environments. Review of Educational Research, 73, 277–320. Barbee, A. P., & Cunningham, M. R. (1995). An experimental approach to social support communications: Interactive coping in close relationships. In B. R. Burleson (Ed.), Communication yearbook 18 (pp. 381–413). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bong, M. (2008). Effects of parent-child relationships and classroom goal structures on motivation, help-seeking avoidance, and cheat. Journal of Experimental Education, 76, 191–217. Butler, R. (2006). An achievement goal perspective on student help seeking and teacher help giving in the classroom: Theory, research, and educational implications. In S. A. Karabenick, & R. S. Newman (Eds.), Help seeking in academic settings: Goals, groups, and contexts (pp. 15–44). New York: Routledge. Calarco, J. M. (2011). “I need help!” Social class and children's help-seeking in elementary school. American Sociological Review, 76, 862–882. Cooper, H., Lindsay, J. J., Nye, B., & Greathouse, S. (1998). Relationships among attitudes about homework, amount of homework assigned and completed, and student achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90, 70–83.
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