Junior Middle School Students' Academie Help-seeking: Its Relation To Parent-child Communication And Social Goals

Academic help-seeking has been one of the main research topics in the western researches of education and psychology since1980s. Many scholars increasingly conform that academic help-seeking is a very important self-regulated learning strategy for students' academic achievement and success in future, and that it is a significant capability that students regard others as utility resources. Though a mount of data showed some of the related phenomena and laws, some contradiction and questions are still left.Previous studies haven't shown any family factors (including parent-child communication) on the relationship between academic help-seeking, but the family environment plays an important part on children and adolescents' mental and behavioral development, especially for these junior middle school students who just start to explore the development of self-identity. The quality of parent-child communication effects children's mental and behavior development. Social goal is an important element of social dimension in achievement development theory, it promotes the achievement goal to develop more perfect. Many studies have shown the achievement goals orientation has far-reaching influence on academic help-seeking.On the basis of the previous studies, we use questionnaire survey to discuss the three grades of junior secondary students' mathematics academic help-seeking situation, academic help-seeking differences on demographic variables, and the relationship between parent-child communication, social goals and academic help-seeking.The conclusions of this essay are as follows:1. Gender difference is remarkable in mathematical academic help-seeking.When the junior middle school students have academic problems, they can get help from teachers or classmates by instrumental help-seeking. On the whole, girls are more inclined to seek adaptive help, while boys prefer help-seeking avoidance.2. Grade difference is remarkable in mathematical academic help-seeking.The junior middle school students' help-seeking executive and help-seeking avoidance follow the grade trend. With increasing grades, the differences between each grade become more significant, studies show that at first, the instrumental help-seeking increase, then it start to decrease remarkably (the lowest in the third grade).3. There is a significant relationship between mathematical academic help-seeking and parent-child communication.If the parent-child communication goes well, the instrumental help-seeking will be more positive. On the contrary, if the parent-child communication is bad, the help-seeking executive and help-seeking avoidance will be negative.4. There is a significant relationship between mathematical academic help-seeking and social goals.If the social affiliation goals and social responsibility goals are high, the instrumental help-seeking will be high, the help-seeking executive and help-seeking avoidance will be low. If the social approval goals are high, the help-seeking executive and help-seeking avoidance will be high.