Who asks whom for help in mathematics? A sociometric analysis of adolescents' help-seeking within and beyond clique boundaries

Publication date: May 2019Source: Learning and Individual Differences, Volume 72Author(s): Lysann Zander, I-Chien Chen, Bettina HannoverAbstractIn this research, we investigated adaptive academic helpseeking in mathematics, i.e., asking better performing peers for help, and the factors facilitating or undermining it. We measured adolescents' sociometric friendship and mathematics help-seeking nominations in 50 classrooms of the 9th grade. Based on friendship nominations, we identified cliques and compared mathematics help-seeking within and beyond cliques. Multilevel analyses accounting for individual and classroom characteristics, as well as similarity on the pair level, showed that students, overall, were more likely to nominate better performing helpers who shared their gender, migration background status, and religious affiliation. Further, students were more likely to nominate helpers from within their own friendship cliques. When students outside the clique were nominated as helpers, they performed much better than nominated within-clique helpers. Low-achieving students were less likely to nominate helpers. We discuss how factors undermining adolescents' adaptive help-seeking can be overcome in the classroom.
Source: Learning and Individual Differences - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research