Not everybody needs help to seek help: Surprising effects of metacognitive instructions to foster help-seeking in an online-learning environment

Offering help functions is a standard feature of computer-based interactive learning environments (ILE). Nevertheless, a number of recent studies indicate that learners are not using such help facilities effectively. We compared the effects of different metacognitive supports to foster learners’ help-seeking behavior in an ILE for plant identification. Four groups of university students (n = 51), each receiving a different metacognitive instruction, had to determine living plants. They had to think-aloud and were video recorded during the experiment. At the end of the session they completed a knowledge test. The surprising effect was that students in all groups were effective help-seekers. They adapted their help-seeking behavior to the complexity of the plants in an effective way. The results indicate that for students on university level effective help-seeking seems to depend largely on motivational factors.