HELP-SEEKING BEHAVIOR IN A PROBLEM-SOLVING SITUATION - DEVELOPMENT OFSELF-REGULATION

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.