Avoiding seeking help in the classroom: Who and why?

Why do some students avoid seeking help in the classroom when they need it? When students do not seek the help they need, they put themselves at a dis advantage for learning. We discuss how students' personal motivational char acteristics relate to their avoidance of help seeking. In particular, we di scuss our work regarding perceived academic and social competence and achie vement-and social-goal orientations We also discuss how various dimensions of the classroom context relate to help avoidance. Specifically, we discuss rules and norms of classrooms as well as our work examining the achievemen t goal structure and social climate of classrooms. We conclude by discussin g how new developments in achievement goal theory distinguishing between ap proach-and avoidance-goal orientations might add to psychologists' understa nding of help avoidance. We also consider how students' strivings for auton omy and different aspects of the social climate might be incorporated into theories of students' help avoidance behavior.