كليدواژه :
مددجويي تحصيلي , دانشآموزان ابتدايي , Attitude toward classroom environment , نگرش نسبت به محيط كلاس , Academic help seeking , Elementary students , Attitude toward math , نگرش نسبت به درس رياضي
چكيده لاتين :
Introduction
Students’ attitude toward help seeking behaviors can affect some of their social, psychological and educational behaviors (Freyer et al., 2005). When students do not have enough information to solve a problem independently, help seeking can be an effective strategy for successive learning (Ryan et al., 1997). In fact, through achieving this strategy, students become independent learners (Newman & Schwager, 1995). Help seeking is a multiple construction which encompasses meta-cognitive strategy (Roll et al., 1991). Therefore, Students’ help seeking behavior is a kind of self-regulating behavior in which the student tries to control him/ herself or others for achieving her/his goal (Newman, 2002). When help seeking behaviors are studied in classroom, it is called academic help seeking. There are two scopes in studies of help seeking: instrumental help seeking and mastery orientation in help seeking. In instrumental help seeking, in order to give a whole response, help seeker asks questions. But in mastery orientation, help seeker merely asks those points that help to solve her/his problems. The latter is applied in classroom (Puustinen et al., 2004, 2007). Researchers show many elements such as the nature of help seeking, peers’ help, attitudes toward classroom environment, learning style and interaction between students and teachers that can affect students’ help seeking. As academic help seeking behavior seems to be an important variable in classroom, the study of help seeking behaviors can lead to good suggestions for students’ effective learning
Research questions
The purpose of the study was the survey of elementary students’ help seeking behaviors in math class. Therefore, the major questions of present research include:
- According to educational grade, are there any differences between students` attitude toward help-seeking behavior, class environment, and math in students with different levels of math achievement (high, medium and low)?
- What variables (students` level of math achievement, students` attitude toward classroom environment, and students` attitude toward math) can significantly predict students` attitude toward help-seeking behavior?
- Are there any differences in students` math scores, attitude toward math and attitude toward classroom environment, between students that think "Stupid students ask question" and those who deem" intelligent students ask question"?
Method
In this research the population was elementary school students of fourth and fifth grade from Shiraz. The sample concluded of 184 elementary students (99 fourth students and 85 fifth students) that were chosen by a randomized cluster sampling. The measuring instruments were Mathematics Learning Classroom Questionnaire (MLCQ) (Newman, 1982) and Mathematics Achievement Test was made by researcher. According to their scores on Mathematics Achievement Test, students were categorized in three groups (high, medium and low level). MLCQ concludes three subscales. These subscales are: 1) attitude toward help-seeking behaviors, 2) attitude toward class environment, and 3) attitude toward math. Cronbach`s alpha were 0.60, 0.70 and 0.54 and test-re test coefficient were 0.69, 0.72 and 0.61, respectively for attitude toward class environment, attitude toward help-seeking behavior and attitude toward math. The correlation between math scores and previous math scores was 0.89. The Split-half coefficient for Mathematics Achievement Test was 0.78.
To analyze data Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) and multivariate analysis of regression were utilized.
Results
Results showed that fifth grade students` attitude toward classroom environment was higher than fourth grade students`. Also students with high level of math achievement had higher attitude toward classroom environment than that of those with low level of math achievement. The more students’ increase in level of math achievement, the more increase in students` attitude toward help seeking behavior. Attitude toward math in students with medium level of math achievement was higher than those students with low level of math. Students` attitude toward help seeking behavior was significantly predicted by students` attitude toward classroom environment. Also math scores, attitude toward math and attitude toward classroom environment in students that think "Intelligent students ask question" are higher than in those that consider “Stupid students ask question".
Discussion
Consistent with previous findings that demonstrate correlation between help seeking behaviors and their achievement (e.g., Newman & Schwager, 1995) results of present study showed a relationship between these variables. That is, with students’ feeling suitability of classroom climate to ask, their attitude toward help seeking behaviors increases. Since help seeking behavior is a kind of self-regulating learning that can affect students` learning, regarding this paperʹs findings, it is recommended that teachers encourage students` help seeking behaviors.
