M. Puustinen, HELP-SEEKING BEHAVIOR IN A PROBLEM-SOLVING SITUATION - DEVELOPMENT OFSELF-REGULATION, European journal of psychology of education, 13(2), 1998, pp. 271-282
The development of self-regulation in school-aged children's help-seek
ing behavior was studied in a Vygotskian framework. If was hypothesize
d that studying pupils of two different ages would make it possible to
define two levels reached by the children in their capacity to take c
harge of their help-seeking behavior, When placed in a problem-solving
situation, children (80 2nd-graders and 87 4th-graders) had the oppor
tunity to seek help from the experimenter, if needed. Three self-regul
ation aspects were evaluated: (I) awareness of the need for help, (2)
capacity to restrict questions to what is necessary, and (3) ability t
o re-use received help in analogous tasks. The results showed that the
level of self-regulation depended on both age and academic achievemen
t; only high-achieving 4th-graders exhibited advanced capacities of se
lf-regulation.