Help-seeking or help avoidance: Important motivational, personality and metacognitive antecedents role in help-seeking and help-avoidance between normal and gifted students

Abstract

Educational help-seeking is one of the important self-regulation strategies that plays an important role in students learning process. The purpose of current study was investigation of the relationship between motivational, personality and metacognition variables in educational help-seeking and help avoidance for mathematics. The sample for the study consisted of 557 high school students in Bushehr city who were selected randomly from the high school population in Bushehr, and completed NEO-FFI questionnaire and Zushu and Barnett Cognitive- Motivational Strategies Questionnaire. Regression analysis results showed that metacognition, task value and conscientiousness were the educational help-seeking predictors and neuroticism, metacognition and task value predicted the avoidance of help-seeking. ANOVA results indicated that from the expectation for success and tasks value, gifted students are higher than normal students and in agreeableness trait normal students have more scores than gifted students. Results indicated that many numbers of factors affect educational help-seeking behavior that all them would seal the help seeking is a positive strategies in learning.