R3 2.8 May 3, 2024 Relatedness, Competence, and Autonomy: Do They Predict the Right Kind of Help-Seeking in STEM Courses?
This issue of R3 focuses on a key, but easily overlooked factor driving student success: help seeking.
I find this topic especially intriguing as it spans several different areas within the psychology of learning – theories of motivation, but also self-regulated learning. Help-seeking also involves tangible, transferable skills and behaviors that we can help our students develop early on in their college careers, which can only help set them up for success down the road.
It's something that has been on my mind a lot over the last few months as well as I’ve had the opportunity to help lead a new, updated iteration of my university’s program for first-year student success. The previous version of this program, the First Year Learning Initiative, has been going strong for years now, but the time is right to re-examine and update it. Together with my colleague Cody Canning, we’re gathering input from faculty, students, and leadership to figure out the right things to emphasize in the new program. A lot is still under construction, but our original program specifically sought to promote help-seeking among our first- and second-year students, and I am confident that this will be a cornerstone of the new program as well.
And so, the article I’m sharing today was a timely find for me. The study’s authors look at predictors of not just the likelihood of seeking help, but also the kind of help-seeking students do – meaning whether they approach the instructor or their peers, and what kind of help they ask for when they do. The article also takes on the uncomfortable issue of help-seeking practices that we faculty don’t want to encourage – pasting in homework answers, copying from other students’ work and so on. Both positive and negative forms of help-seeking are examined in this study, in the context of engineering education, specifically engineering courses that students perceive as particularly difficult.
The framework the authors use to do this will be familiar to many of us who work in the motivation and learning space: Self-Determination Theory, or SDT. As with any important theory, there are lots of ins and outs to SDT, but the essential idea is this: People are the most motivated in environments where they have a high degree of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In other words, motivation (and well-being generally) thrives when people feel like they have meaningful choices and agency, are confident in their abilities, and feel a social connection to others. It’s something I referenced in my book Minds Online in the chapter on motivation, and that continues to inspire behavioral science and education researchers across a range of different areas and topics.
Today’s article places special emphasis on the “relatedness” component of SDT, and especially, whether feeling a high degree of relatedness to the instructor is particularly predictive of approaching that instructor for help in a positive and productive way. This, too, is timely; relatedness is having a moment in today’s pedagogical discussions, and deservedly so. It’s a central theme of Peter Felten and Leo Lambert’s excellent recent book Relationship-Rich Education: How Human Connections Drive Success in College. The influential POD Network even chose “relationships at the core of educational development” as the theme for its upcoming Annual Conference. All in all, it’s a good time to be thinking about fostering the kinds of relationships that welcome students into approaching faculty for help, any time they need it.
Citation:
Oh, H., Patrick, H., Kilday, J., & Ryan, A. (2024). The need for relatedness in college engineering: A self-determination lens on academic help seeking. Journal of Educational Psychology, 116(3), 426–447.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000831
Paywall or Open:
Paywall
Summary:
Using self-determination theory as a framework, this study explored how the fulfillment of basic psychological needs (BPN)—competence, autonomy, and relatedness—predicts academic help-seeking behaviors among undergraduate engineering students, with a particular focus on female students given their underrepresentation within the field of engineering and concerns about attracting and retaining engineering students from underrepresented groups. Relatedness with peers and instructors in particular predicts students' adaptive (learning-oriented) and maladaptive (avoidance or direct solution-seeking) help-seeking behaviors. Results also suggest that instructor relatedness is particularly important for promoting positive help-seeking among female engineering students.
Research Questions:
How do ratings of different components of SDT/BPN, especially relatedness with instructors and peers, predict students’ help-seeking behaviors in STEM courses?
What is the relationship between competence, autonomy, and the types of help-seeking behaviors students engage in, and how are those relationships changed or moderated by relatedness?
Does the gender of the student change or moderate the relationship between BPN ratings and help-seeking behaviors?
Sample:
590 undergraduate engineering majors, 38.3% female, at a large Midwestern university; the engineering program at this university is highly selective and in the top 10 of national rankings. Participants were recruited via an email from the registrar’s office, with the incentive of being entered into drawings for $20 gift cards.
Method/Design:
Data were collected through brief surveys. Participants were instructed to focus their responses on their most difficult current course that was required for the engineering major.
Measures included academic help seeking, with a focus on four different types of help seeking, crossed with different sources of help (instructor, peers, TA): avoidant (e.g., guessing, not asking for help when needed); expedient (e.g., asking peers for homework answers but not explanations); adaptive (e.g., asking peers for hints but not answers, asking an instructor or TA to explain general ideas). SDT features (relatedness, competence, autonomy) were assessed with measures of basic psychological needs (BPN) satisfaction, adapted for a college sample. Peer relatedness and instructor relatedness were assessed separately within this measure.
Structural equation modeling was used to assess interrelationships between BPN and help-seeking measures, as well as whether these relationships were different (stronger or weaker) for female students in particular.
Key Findings:
Overall, as BPN increases, adaptive help-seeking increases and maladaptive (expedient and avoidant) help-seeking decreases. However, there were a number of complex relationships uncovered by the model. As autonomy increases, expedient help seeking increases; as competence increases, avoidant help seeking decreases. As relatedness to the instructor increases, expedient help-seeking decreases.
A number of gender-related effects were found, including that male students scored higher on competence and autonomy, but lower on peer relatedness; male students were also less likely to engage in adaptive help-seeking overall. For female students, autonomy and instructor relatedness were both particularly important for predicting help-seeking; when instructor relatedness is low but autonomy is high, female students are more likely to engage in help avoidance. Overall, the interrelationships between autonomy, competence, and relatedness were more important for predicting help-seeking among female students.
Choice Quote from the Article:
[W]e propose that the tendency for students’ low perceived competence to be related to maladaptive help seeking may be attenuated by supportive relationships with people who can provide help. Thus, students who question their ability may be reluctant to ask for explanations from someone they think will probably not respond supportively and sensitively, thus leading them to respond in less adaptive ways. However, if such students feel confident that they will not experience ridicule or derision, they may be more likely to admit to having difficulty and seek help to understand. By contrast, any bolstering effect of supportive relationships may not occur for students with high perceived competence. Similarly, links between feeling controlled or having low autonomy and maladaptive help seeking may be attenuated by positive and supportive relationships.
Why it Matters:
I thought that the article offered a useful and clear discussion of the differences between adaptive and maladaptive help seeking, along with the factors that might push students to engage in one or the other. I also think it provides a good reminder that the situation a person is in, and not just characteristics of that person, is a major driver of behavior. The tendency to over-focus on individual or internal factors (“they did Y because they’re X type of person”) is a well-known cognitive bias called the fundamental attribution error, and it is something I’ve seen play out in various teaching contexts. In the face of a class that’s not going well, it can be tempting to conclude, for example, that today’s students are just exceptionally unprepared for demanding coursework, or that they simply don’t care.
Besides being most-likely incorrect, assuming that student choices are driven mostly by personal characteristics can instill a sense of uncontrollability, or even futility in the motivation side of our teaching. We instructors can’t control the vast majority of what causes our students to engage productively, or not, but we can control how we communicate with students, the policies we set up, and how those policies are presented. And so, as one who’s often advocated for taking action to create better systems and practices involving teaching, I’m drawn to work that does look at the environmental influences - relationships, incentives, and disincentives - that shape student motivation.
There are also some gems within the article relating to another important framework for discussing student motivation: mastery-focused versus performance-focused class climates. As the article reminds us, instructors may subtly (or not so subtly) communicate to students that the class is all about growth and improvement (and, it follows, with failing occasionally along the way), or merely about scoring better than one’s classmates. This wasn’t a major facet of the study design itself, but the authors’ discussion of the distinction serves as an important reminder that student help-seeking thrives best when failure is normalized, improvement over time takes priority over performing perfectly right out of the gate, and asking for help is treated as a good thing rather than a sign of weakness.
And although the interrelationships between SDT components and help seeking turned out to be rather complex in the end, there are several important and reasonably straightforward principles that come out of the analysis. For one, relatedness might not be best considered in isolation, at least not when it comes to help-seeking. When coupled with high relatedness to the instructor, feelings of competence seem to set up a positive dynamic, one that discourages expedient and avoidant forms of help-seeking. There was also an unexpected (to me) down side to having a high sense of autonomy: When coupled with low relatedness to the instructor, this combination seems to push students toward expedient help.
This was particularly true for female students, which provides an important set of clues for faculty and leaders who are working to increase gender equity in historically male-dominated fields such as engineering. The authors lay out in detail how, especially when relationships are weak or negative, a perfect storm of of stereotype threat, micro-aggressions, and social stigma can conspire to deter minoritized students from asking for help.
This is concerning stuff for anyone working to advance equity in STEM. In the end, though, the findings paint an optimistic picture as well – one of an ideal class atmosphere for supporting help-seeking, and perhaps academic persistence overall. It’s one where students, foremost, feel a personal connection to their instructors, and secondarily to their peers. Specifically, these connections should create feelings of safety in asking for help. Students would be focused on improvement over time rather than simply turning in passable work, and their instructors would praise improvement as well, thus setting the stage for developing feelings of competence. There are a number of virtuous cycles that could develop in such a setting, all rooted in relatedness.
Most Relevant For:
Engineering faculty; STEM faculty; leaders working to address gender equity in STEM programs; researchers focused on SDT or motivation; staff leading student success and academic persistence programs
Limitations, Caveats, and Nagging Questions:
It is important to keep in mind that this was not an observational study or one involving an intervention – rather, it was a survey of student experiences and perceptions. This isn’t a negative per se, but it’s worth noting that the work can’t speak directly to the impacts of specific policies or practices.
Student respondents were also asked to focus on only their most difficult class, rather than their whole degree program overall. I don’t see any obvious bias introduced by this approach, but this does mean that the course in question would vary from participant to participant. It was interesting to see the breakdown of those perceptions of difficulty, in and of itself: “Across all students, 291 (50.6%) named a mathematics class as their most difficult; the next most-frequently identified difficult subjects were mechanical engineering (66 students; 11.2%) and electrical engineering (51 students; 8.7%)” (p. 432).
Although the authors do open the question of help-seeking among students of color in STEM programs, and do discuss relevant research in their literature review, they did not end up drawing firm conclusions about ethnicity for the simple reason that they did not have enough underrepresented minority students in the sample. The authors were appropriately transparent about this issue, but I agree with them that this is one of those cases where more research truly is needed.
I came away with another impression that isn’t a criticism, but more of a “what’s next” question: What should we in higher education be doing to promote relatedness, especially in settings and programs where equity and inclusion are a priority? Is this the type of goal that’s best promoted from the top down, through initiatives and support for certain types of pedagogy offered to faculty by leadership? Is it a cultural issue, something to spread peer-to-peer, perhaps at the unit or college level? Would targeted professional development – workshops, speakers, reading groups – be helpful? The findings from the article are powerful, especially in context of the rest of the research on academic persistence. I am all for turning them into action, and am always on the lookout for new ideas for how to do that successfully.
If you liked this article, you might also appreciate:
Canning, E. A., Muenks, K., Green, D. J., & Murphy, M. C. (2019). STEM faculty who believe ability is fixed have larger racial achievement gaps and inspire less student motivation in their classes. Science Advances, 5, eeau4734.
Miller, M.D. (2014). Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology. Chapter 8: Motivating students. Harvard University Press.
Miller, M.D., & Scarnati, B. (2014). Engaging faculty for student success: The First Year Learning Initiative. Teacher-Scholar: The Journal of the State Comprehensive University, 6.
Penner, M. R., Sathy, V., & Hogan, K. A. (2021). Inclusion in neuroscience through high impact courses. Neuroscience Letters, 750(February). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2021.135740
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2020). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 61(3), Article 101860. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2020.101860
Ryan, R.M., &Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. Guilford Publications.
Schwartz, S. E. O., Kanchewa, S. S., Rhodes, J. E., Gowdy, G., Stark, A. M., Paul, J., & Parnes, M. (2018). “I’m Having a Little Struggle With This, Can You Help Me Out?”: Examining impacts and processes of a social capital intervention for first-generation college students. American Journal of Community Psychology,61, 166-178. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12206
File under:
Student motivation; academic support; STEM; gender bias; ethnic and racial bias; stereotype threat; help seeking