Motivation to seek help and help efficiency in students who failed in an initial task

In the present study, we investigated whether help-seeking behaviors differ in their respective links to motivational variables such as achievement goals, help-seeking perceptions and self-efficacy. Eighty-two students who had failed to solve an initial word-processing task were invited - but not forced - to choose help before engaging in a comprehension task. While 19 of them did not seek help of any kind, 63 students opted for help. Taken together, our results suggest that i) those who refused to seek help did not differ from those who agreed to seek help on either motivational variables (except for self-efficacy), but ii) those who succeed on the comprehension task after using help were those who showed higher self-efficacy. The implications of these results for future research on the help-seeking process in interactive learning environments are discussed.