Academic help seeking as a process of seeking formative feedback on learning

Makara, K. A. and Kuusinen, C. (2023) Academic help seeking as a process of seeking formative feedback on learning. In: Remembering the Life, Work, and Influence of Stuart Karabenick: a Legacy of Research on Self-Regulation, Help-Seeking, Teacher Motivation, and More. Series: Advances in motivation and achievement (22). Emerald Publishing Limited: Bingley, pp. 69-90. ISBN 978180457112 (doi: 10.1108/S0749-742320230000022006)

Abstract

When learners need help, the literature on academic help seeking suggests that it is beneficial to reach out and ask others for help. More specifically, adaptive help seeking is considered a valuable self-regulated learning strategy in which learners seek help when they can no longer solve an academic problem on their own. However, much of the existing research on help seeking takes us to the point in the process when the student is asking for help—but how does help seeking translate into improved learning? How might different types of help seeking help students learn how to successfully navigate the learning environment? What roles do relationships with peers and teachers and their feedback play in this process? Research on assessment for formative purposes focuses on how the feedback received from teacher, peer, or self-assessment can be used to support and move forward learning. In this chapter, we aim to bring these two ideas together in order to conceptualize academic help see king as a way in which learners seek formative feedback during the learning process, at a time when they need it the most, in order to progress in their learning. In the first section of this chapter, we review and critique the literature on academic help seeking. In the second section, we review and critique the literature on assessment for formative purposes. In the third section of this chapter, we propose that the concepts of academic help seeking and formative assessment should be integrated because they have strong theoretical overlap, rely on similar processes, and have the same ultimate purposes to move forward learning. Using the concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) from Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory, we offer a theoretical model linking the concepts of academic help seeking and the formative assessment process. In the fourth section, through reviewing and integrating these concepts of academic help seeking and formative assessment, we offer implicat ions for practice to ensure that the potential benefits of help seeking for learning can be realized for students and raise some questions and empirical work still needed in this area. In the final section of the chapter, we offer a remembrance of our former doctoral advisor, Stuart Karabenick, renown in the field of academic help seeking research.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Keywords: Formative assessment, academic help seeking, self-regulated learning, assessment and feedback, help seeking.
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Makara Fuller, Dr Kara
• Authors: Makara, K. A., and Kuusinen, C.
• Subjects: L Education > L Education (General); L Education > LB Theory and practice of education
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Education > People, Place & Social Change
• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• ISBN: 978180457112
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2023 Kara A. Makara and Colleen M. Kuusinen. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher

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