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Psychosociocultural predictors of help seeking among Latino community college students

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Psychosociocultural predictors of help seeking among Latino community college students

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Content HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 1

PSYCHOSOCIOCULTURAL PREDICTORS OF HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO
COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS

by

Christine Ersig-Marcus

________________________________________________________________________

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

December 2014

Copyright 2014 Christine Ersig-Marcus

HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 2

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank those who have supported and guided me on my educational
journey to complete my doctorate. First, I would like thank my committee chair, Dr. Ruth
Chung, and my committee members, Dr. Helena Seli, and Dr. Ginger Clark, for their
encouragement and constructive feedback throughout the writing process. I feel very fortunate to
have had the opportunity to get to know and work with all three of them. I very much appreciate
Dr. Chung’s insight, guidance, and encouragement along the way that helped me to become a
better researcher and writer. Thank you for believing in me. In addition, I am very grateful to Dr.
Yuying Tsong for her assistance with the statistical analyses. Her enthusiasm and friendliness
made the data analysis a pleasure to complete.
I wish also to thank the many people who have helped me with their expertise in the
process of writing my dissertation. A heartfelt thanks goes out to Dr. Maryann Wu, whose
patience, kindness, and professionalism are extraordinary. I would also like to thank Kate Astor
from Pierce College for her insightful comments on my dissertation proposal, and Crystal
Kollross, Director of Institutional Effectiveness at Pasadena City College, who made it possible
for me to collect data at PCC. Ms. Kollross’s support helped to ensure that I had enough data to
finish my dissertation.
I heartily thank my colleagues in the Communication Studies department at Pierce
College: Jennifer Rosenberg, Michelle Silver, Yeprem Davoodian, and Sally Kassamanian for
their encouragement and kindness, as well as my colleagues Sheryl Lomelli in History and Jason
Finley in Anthropology and Geographical Sciences, who allowed their students to take the
surveys. Thank you all for your friendship and support.
My most heartfelt gratitude goes to my family. My parents, Willy and Inge Ersig-
Pawlowsky, have always encouraged me to do my best, to believe in myself and not give up.
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 3

They have made numerous sacrifices so that I could follow my dreams; I am deeply grateful to
have such understanding, generous, and kind parents. I could not have completed my dissertation
without the love and support of my husband, Dr. Kenneth Marcus, and our son, David. Their
humor, lightheartedness, and patience kept me grounded. I thank them with all my heart.
Finally, I would like to thank my students who inspire and challenge my thinking every
day. I thank them for taking the time out of their busy schedules to complete the surveys. I will
never forget their contribution to my dissertation and to my teaching. May you all succeed.

HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 4

Table of Contents
Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... 6
CHAPTER I: Introduction ............................................................................................................ 7
Latinos and Academic Achievement ........................................................................................ 7
Academic Help Seeking and Achievement .............................................................................. 9
Background of the Problem .................................................................................................... 11
Theoretical Framework ......................................................................................................... 17
Importance of the Study ......................................................................................................... 19
Purpose of the Study............................................................................................................... 20
Organization of the Study....................................................................................................... 21
CHAPTER II: Literature Review ................................................................................................ 23
Acculturation ......................................................................................................................... 23
Issues of Measurement .................................................................................................... 25
Acculturation and Help Seeking in Counseling Contexts............................................... 27
Acculturation and Help Seeking in Academic Contexts ................................................. 29
Cultural Values and Help Seeking ................................................................................. 30
Summary ......................................................................................................................... 31
Sense of Belonging ................................................................................................................ 32
Sense of Belonging on Campus ..................................................................................... 33
Sense of Belonging in the Classroom ............................................................................. 35
Summary ......................................................................................................................... 37
Teacher Credibility ................................................................................................................. 38
Teacher Credibility and Help Seeking ........................................................................... 40
Summary ......................................................................................................................... 42
Academic Self-Efficacy ......................................................................................................... 43
Self-Efficacy and Help Seeking ...................................................................................... 45
Summary ......................................................................................................................... 46
Purpose of the Study and Research Questions ....................................................................... 48
CHAPTER III: Methodology ...................................................................................................... 49
Participants ............................................................................................................................. 49
Instruments ............................................................................................................................. 50
Procedure ................................................................................................................................ 54
Data Analysis ......................................................................................................................... 54
CHAPTER IV: Results ............................................................................................................... 55
Preliminary Analysis .............................................................................................................. 55
Analysis of Research Questions ............................................................................................. 57
CHAPTER V: Discussion ........................................................................................................... 62
Summary and Discussion of Main Findings .......................................................................... 62
Implications ............................................................................................................................ 70
Limitations of the Study ......................................................................................................... 73
Directions for Further Research ............................................................................................. 74
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 75
References ................................................................................................................................... 77
Appendix A: Informed Consent .................................................................................................. 95
Appendix B: Demographic Information ..................................................................................... 97
Appendix C: ARSMAII Acculturation Scale ............................................................................. 98
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 5

Appendix D: Sense of Belonging to the Institution Scale .......................................................... 99
Appendix E: Sense of Belonging to the Classroom Scale ........................................................ 100
Appendix F: Teacher Credibility Scale..................................................................................... 101
Appendix G: Academic Help Seeking Scale ............................................................................ 102
Appendix H: Academic Self-Efficacy Scale............................................................................. 103

HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 6

Abstract
The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the relationship between
psychosociocultural influences and academic help-seeking among Latino community college
students. Guided by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development, the association
of acculturation, sense of belonging, teacher credibility, and self-efficacy with various help
seeking outcomes was investigated. Participants included 517 Latino community college
students who completed an online survey that comprised demographic information and scales to
measure the psychosociocultural predictor and the outcome variables. Results of stepwise
multiple regression analyses indicated that affective, contextual variables were significant
predictors of instrumental help seeking. Specifically, sense of belonging to the classroom
explained 21% of the variance in instrumental help seeking, compared to the cognitive variable
of self-efficacy that accounted for 3% of the variance. Sense of belonging to campus and teacher
goodwill and trustworthiness also emerged as significant predictors of help seeking. In addition,
self-efficacy significantly influenced help seeking threat and help seeking avoidance. The
findings of this study suggest that supportive and accepting classroom and campus environments
are conducive to learning for Latino students. These insights may guide researchers as well as
administrators and faculty of community colleges in their understanding of learning and
motivation strategies as well as teaching practice that promote success for Latino community
college students.
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 7

CHAPTER I: Introduction
Latinos and Academic Achievement
According to the 2010 U.S. census, the Latino population grew by 43% between 2000
and 2010, and the 50.5 million Latinos living in the U.S. today comprise 17% of the overall
population (Ennis, Rios-Vargas, & Albert, 2011). This trend makes Latinos the fastest growing
minority group in the United States, and by 2020 it is estimated that Latinos will comprise 25%
of the overall population (Llagas & Snyder, 2003). Parallel to this development, a large increase
in Latino enrollment in higher education has been reported in the past five years (Fry, 2009;
2011). College-age Latinos “accounted for 15% of the overall enrollment of 12.2 million young
adults in two- or four-year colleges in 2010 – setting records both for their number and share for
young college students” (Fry, 2011, p. 3). Not only are young Latino students the group with the
highest growth in college enrollment, they also have outnumbered blacks on campus for the first
time, although black enrollment has nearly tripled in the past forty years from 13% in 1967 to
32% in 2008 (Fry, 2011).
Apart from increases in enrollment, a general positive trend in educational attainment has
been reported as well (KewalRamani, Gilbertson, Fox, & Provatsnik, 2007). From 1990 to 2005,
all racial/ethnic groups have experienced an increase in percentage of adults who have obtained a
bachelor’s degree. However, despite this trend, an achievement gap in higher education still
exists for Latinos (KewalRamani, et al., 2007). Latinos are the least well-educated segment of
the U.S. American population (Pew Hispanic Center Fact Sheet, 2002). In 2005, only 12% of
Latinos who were enrolled in higher education institutions had earned a bachelor’s degree
compared to 49% of Asians/Pacific Islanders, followed by whites (31%) and blacks (18%).
Moreover, in 2004 more postsecondary degrees were awarded to blacks than to Latinos, despite
the fact that Latinos made up a larger percentage of the total population (KewalRamani, et al.,
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 8

2007). In 2010, only 13% of Latinos age 25-29 had completed at least a bachelor’s degree (Fry,
2011). In addition, there are discrepancies in the type of postsecondary institutions Latinos attend
compared to their white counterparts. Latino high school graduates are more likely to attend
community colleges or four-year universities that are less selective than whites or other
minorities (Fry, 2005). In fact, 9% of all undergraduate students enrolled in institutions of higher
education are Latino, and more than 50% of Latino college enrollment is in community colleges
(Martinez & Fernandez, 2004).
This trend in poor completion rates at 4-year universities is mirrored at community
colleges. According to Moore and Shulock (2010) completion rates at community colleges in
general are very low, especially for Latinos. Latinos were 50% less likely to transfer compared to
white students, and only 22% of Latino students completed a degree, certificate, or transferred
compared to 39% of white and 35% of Asian/Pacific Islander students. Moreover, Latino degree-
seeking students dropped or failed 40% of their credits (Moore & Shulock, 2010).
In order to increase student retention and graduation rates, California Community
Colleges launched a student success initiative seeking to close the overall achievement gap,
especially for minority students. The Student Success Task Force of the California Community
Colleges issued eight recommendations which included incentivizing successful student
behaviors, re-vitalizing professional development or increasing college and career readiness
(Student Success Task Force Final Report, 2011). However, as Rueda, et al. (2010) contend,
efforts also need to be made in understanding the role of learning and motivation to address the
achievement gap for Latino students by stating that “[r]ather than exclusively focusing on
programs which rely on social and academic integration or financial aid, colleges should
continue investigating sociocultural, motivation, and learning aspects of academic achievement,
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 9

addressing issues of students’ different approaches to learning, and how these can be bolstered
both prior to and after students arrive on campus” (p. 155).
Academic Help Seeking and Achievement
Research on self-regulated learning has demonstrated that students who have learned to
actively promote their academic achievement using metacognitive, motivational, and behavioral
strategies perform and learn better than students who show less self-regulatory capabilities
(Pintrich & Zusho, 2002; Zimmerman & Pons, 1990). Academic help seeking is a self-regulatory
strategy that helps students to manage their social environment by determining if they need help
and who they want to approach for assistance (Dembo & Seli, 2010). Research across
educational settings has shown that academic help seeking is positively and significantly
associated with students’ learning and achievement such as achievement goal structure (e.g.
Butler, 2006; Karabenick, 2004; Middleton & Midgley, 1997; Ryan, Hicks, & Midgley, 1997),
perceptions of cognitive (e.g. Karabenick & Knapp, 1991) and social competence (e.g. Ryan &
Pintrich, 1997), self-efficacy and use of self-regulation strategies (e.g. Zimmerman & Martinez-
Pons, 1990) and GPA (e.g. Ryan & Shin, 2011).
Help seeking can be conceptualized as a “form of behavioral, or social self-regulation,
which is part of the ‘tool kit’ of cognitively, behaviorally, and emotionally engaged learners”
(Karabenick & Newman, 2009). Specifically, academic help seeking, also called adaptive help
seeking by Nelson-Le Gall (1985) and Newman (1998), has been defined as asking for help
when confused in order to work independently rather than asking for the correct response
(Newman, 2002; Ryan, Pintrich & Midgley, 2001). This approach helps students to cope with
ambiguity or difficulty with their school work, and thus encourages them to become independent
learners. Essentially, academic help seeking is an important motivational behavior in which a
student actively seeks assistance from a formal source (teacher, tutor) or informal source (peer,
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 10

family member), in order to reduce uncertainty and continue the learning process (Karabenick &
Dembo, 2011; Ryan & Shin, 2011).
Although help seeking is generally seen as an adaptive strategy that facilitates the
learning process, some students exhibit maladaptive help seeking behaviors. Research indicates
that there are three general tendencies in help seeking: appropriate, dependent, and avoidant
(Ryan, Patrick, & Shim, 2005). Appropriate help seeking refers to a student's tendency to ask for
help after they have already tried to complete the task on their own. These students tend to ask
for instrumental help; they are more mastery oriented and can refuse help if they do not need it,
and thus help seeking functions as a transition from other- to self-regulation (Nelson-Le Gall,
1985). On the other hand, dependent help seeking behavior is understood as a student asking for
help the moment they face difficulty, and so need to develop more independence in their studies
(Ryan et al., 2005). Typically, students who are dependent help seekers ask for executive help
from either peers or teachers, and look for direct answers and ready-made solutions to the
problems they are solving (Nelson-Le Gall, 1985). Lastly, some students exhibit avoidant help
seeking behavior in that they do not ask for help even though they may need it (Ryan et al.,
2005).
Existing research shows that the use of self-regulatory strategies significantly contributes
to students’ learning and achievement. Academic help seeking has been found to be a self-
regulatory strategy that is associated with learning and achievement across educational settings.
In response to Rueda et al.’s (2010) call for the inclusion of learning and motivation variables in
the research of academic achievement, this study investigates adaptive help seeking as a strategy
to address the existing achievement gap experienced by Latino community college students.

HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 11

Background of the Problem
Several studies have addressed the academic achievement gap among Latinos in higher
education, researching and explaining barriers Latino students face to college access and
persistence (e.g. Llagas & Snyder, 2003; Nora & Crisp, 2009; Swail, Cabrera, & Lee, 2004).
According to Cabrera and La Nasa (2000) access to higher education in the United States is not
equal and historically underrepresented students are less likely to prepare for, apply to, and
persist in college. The majority of Latinos in higher education are first generation college
students, have poorer academic preparation than their white peers, and come from low income
economic backgrounds (Nora & Crisp, 2009).
Differences between first generation students and their nonfirst-generation counterparts
have been the subject of numerous studies (e.g. Inman & Mayes, 1999; Prospero & Vohra-
Gupta, 2007; Terenzini, Springer, Yaeger, et al., 1996). First generation college students tend to
have lower SAT scores and GPA's, attend less rigorous high school programs than nonfirst-
generation students, are more likely to be a member of a minority group, are less likely to be
employed full-time, and are often found to be at risk. Moreover, first generation college students
are more likely to attend a less selective postsecondary institution such as a community college,
and are less likely to persist in both 2- and 4-year institutions (Prospero & Vohra-Gupta, 2007).
Another factor contributing to the achievement gap among Latinos in postsecondary
education is the poor academic preparation for the rigor of a college curriculum. Similar to
Prospero and Vohra-Gupta’s (2007) findings on first generation college students, Latino students
often attend high schools that are less rigorous and competitive than their white peers (Fry,
2004). Based on data drawn from the National Education Longitudinal Study of the 1988 8th
grade cohort, Swail et al. (2004) found that there was a significant overrepresentation of Latinos
in the group of students that emerged as "not qualified" for college. In addition, more not-
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 12

qualified Latino students enter postsecondary education than white students and they are
underrepresented in 4-year, and overrepresented in 2-year institutions. Further, Swail et al.'s
(2004) study revealed that the best prepared Latinos perform at a lower level in college
compared to their white fellow students. The lack of adequate academic preparation for the
challenges of postsecondary education is a strong predictor of academic success and is often tied
to family income.
Socioeconomic status is a contextual variable that has been widely used in the
educational literature, especially in its relation to academic achievement (Rueda et al., 2010). As
Coleman (1988) suggests, family income influences student achievement in two ways, by
providing resources at home and in a more indirect way, by providing the social capital needed
to advance and succeed in school. In the NELS 8th grade cohort, Latinos together with African
Americans were the least affluent group (Swail et al., 2004). Family income matters also in the
sense that more affluent families have a greater amount of choice in which neighborhood they
would like to live with higher average home prices, which often correlates with better schools
and more rigorous academic programs (Swail et al., 2004).
In sum, there are at least three barriers that Latino community college students face in
their effort to succeed in postsecondary education: First, the majority are first-generation
students so they have few role models and little access to institutional knowledge necessary to
navigate an often confusing and challenging college environment. Second, research has shown
that Latinos have less academic preparation due in part to low income background. And lastly
the socioeconomic background of Latino students is significantly lower than that of their white
counterparts which leads to less choice in schools and less college preparation. Although these
barriers are widely documented, we know very little about how learning and motivation aspects
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 13

such as help seeking or self-efficacy influences the academic success of Latino students in the
context of community colleges.
Ethnic differences in learning and motivation.
Although there is a rich body of literature on the influence of learning and motivation
constructs such as help seeking and self-efficacy on achievement among university students, few
studies have investigated these constructs in relation to achievement in minority student
populations, especially Latino community college students.
One of the studies that has examined ethnic differences in learning and motivation among
students at a selective 4-year university is Rueda et al.’s (2010) study on relations between a
variety of sociocultural background variables and motivational and learning factors. They
hypothesized two models of interrelations, predicting a path for Latino and White students, and
found similarities, but also some significant differences in the use of cognitive and motivational
strategies among the two groups. There were some significant differences between the two
groups. They found a positive relationship between opportunities to learn and self-efficacy
among Latino students whereas no effects emerged in the White student sample. Although prior
knowledge was a negative predictor of mastery orientation in both groups, the effect was
stronger for the White students compared to the Latino students.
Rueda et al.’s (2010) findings on the differences between the two ethnic groups highlight
the importance of investigating psychosociocultural factors such as acculturation, sense of
belonging, teacher credibility, and self-efficacy in learning and motivation to understand how
these factors impact learning strategies and motivation such as academic help-seeking among
minority student populations such as Latino community college students.
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 14

Factors influencing help seeking in the college setting. Although most studies on help
seeking were conducted in the context of the K-12 classroom (e.g. Butler, 1998; Ryan &
Pintrich, 1997; Ryan & Shin, 2011; van der Meij, 1988), a smaller body of literature has looked
at influences on help seeking in higher education (e.g. Ames & Lau, 1982; Karabenick, 2003;
2004; Knapp & Karabenick, 1988; 1991), and they have almost exclusively focused on white
students. In their study on the relation of attributions to achievement-related behavior, Ames and
Lau (1982) examined effects of attributions on college students' decisions to seek help and found
that their prior performances, the perceived cause of those performances, and the perceived
usefulness of the help source directly influenced their decisions. More specifically, they found
that the students who were most likely to seek help were low performers (had performed poorly
in the past), who had received positive information about the usefulness of help sessions, and
who made "help-relevant" attributions (p. 415). This means that for those students who believe in
having an adequate level of ability, success is based on their own effort, and that no external
factors played a role in their performance.
On a similar note, Knapp and Karabenick (1988) found a curvilinear relationship between
needing academic assistance and help seeking. The more students reported to need assistance,
the less they actually sought help. Expanding on their findings, Karabenick and Knapp (1991)
investigated the likelihood of college students seeking instrumental help when faced with the
prospect of poor performance. In a series of three studies they found that in the face of possible
failure students were more likely to seek instrumental help, and preferred help from a formal
source such as a professor rather than a peer.
More recently, Karabenick (2003) investigated the association between classroom goal
orientation, type of helping source, help seeking goals, motivation, and use of learning strategies
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 15

in large college classrooms. Results indicate that there are similar associations between help
seeking variables as found in K-12 settings. For example, students who were more threatened by
help seeking were more likely to avoid help seeking and to seek executive rather than
instrumental help if they decided to seek assistance. Moreover, the tendency to seek instrumental
help was related not only to a preference for formal help, but also to mastery goal orientation.
Extant research in both the K-12 and the higher education setting reveals that academic
help seeking is an adaptive strategy that facilitates the learning process and is thus positively
related to academic achievement. However, research also indicates that students who need help
with their assignments are less likely to ask for help compared to those students who do not need
help. What is less known in the literature is to what extent psychosociocultural variables such as
acculturation, sense of belonging, and teacher credibility influence students' help seeking
behavior. To further understand the interrelationship of these variables and academic help
seeking it is suggested in this study that acculturation, students’ sense of belonging, and their
perception of their teachers’ credibility occur and interact simultaneously and influence help
seeking simultaneously.
Acculturation.
In order to understand help seeking behaviors among Latino community college students,
it is important to investigate the potential influence of acculturation, because most Latino
students currently come from immigrant backgrounds. Acculturation is defined as “the process
of cultural change that occurs when individuals from different cultural backgrounds come into
prolonged, continuous, first-hand contact with each other” (Redfield, Linton, & Herskovits,
1936, p. 146). To date little is known on the relationship between acculturation and academic
help seeking, although studies on ethnic differences in help seeking in the context of counseling
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 16

indicated that the level of acculturation influences students’ help seeking behaviors. However,
the results from this body of literature are inconclusive. For example, some studies report that
students who are more acculturated are also more likely to seek psychological help (e.g. Gloria,
Castellanos, Segura-Herrera & Mayorga, 2010; Miville & Constantine 2006). Others have shown
that less acculturated Mexican American participants had a more positive attitude towards help
seeking than their more acculturated counterparts (Ramos-Sánchez, Atkinson, & Fraga, 1999).
Although this body of research references the influence of acculturation on psychological help
seeking, it points to acculturation as a possible influence on help seeking behaviors in students.
Sense of Belonging.
Defined by Maslow (1968) as a basic human need, belongingness is a fundamental
human motivation to initiate and maintain relationships with others within a framework of caring
for each other (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). In the context of educational research, sense of
belonging has been investigated on two distinct levels: the institutional and the classroom level.
Sense of belonging to the institution as conceptualized by Hurtado and Carter (1997) refers to a
student’s view of the degree to which he or she feels included in the college community. Sense
of belonging to the classroom refers to a students’ sense of acceptance by their peers and their
teacher (Freeman, Anderman, & Jensen, 2007). Research has shown that sense of belonging to
the classroom is positively associated with interest, value, and expectancies (Goodenow, 1993),
and intrinsic motivation, and self-efficacy (Freeman, et al., 2007). It is important to look at
belongingness when investigating help seeking as feeling safe and included may be a salient
condition for help seeking to occur.
Teacher Credibility.
Teacher characteristics such as perceived pedagogical care and support (Wentzel, 1997;
1998) or perceived teacher caring (Teven & McCroskey, 1996) have long been understood to
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 17

influence student learning and motivation behaviors positively. Teacher credibility as
conceptualized by McCroskey (1998) has received considerable scholarly attention recently and
refers to a student’s perception of the degree of believability of their teacher. McCroskey and
Teven (1999) extended the construct to include three dimensions: competence, trustworthiness,
and caring. Research has consistently shown that teacher credibility is positively associated with
learning and motivation constructs such as higher levels of motivation (Martin, Chesebro, &
Mottet, 1997) or increased affective learning (Pogue & AhYun, 2006).
Theoretical Framework
Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) bioecological model of human development provides a
theoretical framework that describes and explains learning such as help seeking as a result of the
constant interaction between the individual and their environment. One of the central tenets of
Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model of development (e.g. Bronfenbrenner, 1977; 1979) is the
notion that human development does not occur within a single context but rather within a
complex and dynamic ecological system. He identifies five environmental subsystems in which
an individual acts and interacts: the microsystems, the mesosystem, the exosystem, the
macrosystem, and the chronosystem. Bronfenbrenner (1979) likened the five systems to a set of
Russian dolls, one nested inside the other but in constant interaction with each other.
The innermost level comprises the microsystems, “a pattern of activities, social roles, and
interpersonal relations” that a developing individual experiences within immediate settings
(Bronfenbrenner, 1994, p. 39). For a student, this may be the immediate family, friends,
professors or counselors, and the activities they are engaged in within and outside of the college
context. Such relationships in the microsystem are reciprocal: for example, a professor affects
the students, and they in turn affect their professor. The second layer, the mesosystem, includes
the interactions and processes between the elements of the microsystems, such as the connection
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 18

between the workplace and school, parents and school, family members or professors interacting
with each other. The exosystem refers to interconnections and processes of social settings that an
individual such as a student does not directly belong to, yet influence their development
indirectly, such as the professor’s relations to the administration, or the parents’ job. The
macrosystem refers to the larger society, culture or co-culture, including laws, belief systems, or
customs. Lastly, the chronosystem includes change or consistency over time, not only of the
individual bit also of the environment, the family structure, or socioeconomic status.
The central idea to Bronfenbrenner’s (1977; 1979) model lies in the notion that an
individual’s development is embedded in and shaped by the dynamic interconnectedness of
relations within and between the different layers. Thus, human development is a result of the
constant interaction between the individual and their environment. Since the purpose of the
present study is to investigate the relationship between the psychosociocultural variables of
acculturation, sense of belonging, and teacher credibility and academic help seeking among
Latino college students, Bronfenbrenner’s theory appears to be most applicable when attempting
to describe and analyze Latino students' learning and interactions in a college environment. First,
learning as an integral part of human development does not take part in a single isolated context
such as the classroom, but is the result of complex interactions and relationships within various
contexts. This applies especially to community college students who often work several jobs and
have family duties apart from going to school, and often navigate two cultural systems. Second,
and more specifically, the psychosociocultural variables considered in this study comprise
various levels of the microsystem of a college campus. Both sense of belonging to campus and to
the classroom comprise microsystems for a community college student. In addition, their level of
acculturation may influence their interactions on campus and the classroom, and within the
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 19

classroom they have a perception of their professors’ credibility which may influence their
behavior positively or negatively in terms of success.
Third, help seeking implies cognitive, affective, and social components and requires
teachers, students and their peers to engage in social interaction, which takes place in different
microsystems such as the classroom, the professor’s office, the library, or the home. The
mesosystem created by the interaction of these microsystems influences a student’s learning and
success. Bronfenbrenner’s (1977; 1979) bioecological model of human development provides a
useful theoretical framework to investigate the effect of psychosociocultural variables on the
help seeking behavior of Latino community college students because it supports the notion of the
simultaneous influence of different factors on human development such as learning in a complex
variety of contexts.
Importance of the Study
The present study will extend research on academic help seeking in three ways. First,
little is known about the influence of psychosociocultural variables on academic help seeking,
specifically in the context of postsecondary education. Zusho, Karabenick, Bonney, and Sims
(2007) and Rueda et al. (2010) point to the fact that future research on academic help seeking
should include psychosociocultural and contextual variables to further our understanding of this
self-regulatory behavior. Thus, by investigating the influence specifically of acculturation, sense
of belonging, and teacher credibility, this study aims to address this problem and to provide
practical interventions for community college professors and administrators based on the results.
Second, although there is a substantial body of research on help seeking behaviors in
counseling context among different ethnic groups, we know little about academic help seeking
behaviors among Latino students. In general, we know very little about learning and motivation
among Latino community college students. Few studies have investigated if there are ethnic
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 20

differences in learning or motivation. Rueda et al. (2010) found some significant differences in
their study, yet more research is needed to substantiate such findings.
Third, there is little research that addresses learning and motivation constructs such as
help seeking and self-efficacy generally in the community college population, and specifically
among Latinos in this population. There seems to be a tacit understanding that research
conducted with student populations at 4-year universities can be generalized to community
college students. However, as research has consistently shown, community college students often
differ in their characteristics, college preparation, and life experiences from students at 4-year
institutions, thus the generalizability of research to a community college population is
questionable. As a result, this study can provide insight into different approaches to learning and
motivation among Latino community college students.
Examining the proposed research questions can produce recommendations specifically
for college professors and staff on how to encourage their students to seek help from various
sources and facilitate their learning to achieve success, and guide interventions for practice that
address the specific needs of this student population.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is primarily to investigate the relationship between
psychosociocultural variables and academic help seeking among Latino community college
students. Addressing the scarcity of research on psychosociocultural and contextual aspects of
learning and motivation among Latino community college students and the resulting lack of
data-driven interventions for practice, the present study will extend the research on help seeking.
Specifically, it investigates the association of acculturation, sense of belonging, teacher
credibility, and self-efficacy with help seeking, as help seeking is strongly associated with
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 21

academic achievement and thus with student success. The following research questions are
posed:
Research Question 1: What is the relationship of acculturation, sense of belonging,
teacher credibility, and self-efficacy to help seeking in Latino community college students? More
specifically, amongst acculturation, sense of belonging, teacher credibility, and self-efficacy,
which was the largest contributor to help seeking among Latino community college students?
Research Question 2: What is the relationship among acculturation, sense of belonging
and teacher credibility?
Organization of the Study
Chapter 1 provides an overview of the issues and problems regarding the persisting
achievement gap for Latino students in higher education and community colleges in particular.
While extant literature establishes mainly efforts on the institutional level to close this gap, this
study argues that investigating learning and motivation aspects of academic achievement,
specifically academic help seeking, is an additional way to address the achievement gap. Further,
it is contended that gaps in the literature exist regarding the influence of psychosociocultural
variables on help seeking behaviors among Latino students on the community college level.
Chapter 2 comprises an overview and critique of relevant literature pertaining to the
psychosociocultural variables used in this study. Three major topics are discussed: 1)
acculturation, 2) sense of belonging on both the institutional and classroom levels, and 3) teacher
credibility. In addition, a brief review of literature on academic self-efficacy as a possible
predictor variable is provided.
Chapter 3 presents the methodology used in this study including the overall design, the
population sample and the sampling procedures, the instruments used and their respective
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 22

reliability and validity, and the procedure to obtain the data, and lastly, the statistical analyses. In
Chapter 4 the results of the statistical analyses are presented, and Chapter 5 provides a discussion
of the results in the light of existing research, offers implications and limitations of the study, and
gives suggestions for future research.

HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 23

CHAPTER II: Literature Review
The following review focuses on the psychosociocultural influences on academic help
seeking, specifically acculturation, sense of belonging, and teacher credibility. First, a review of
literature is provided of the main tenets of acculturation, including Berry’s (1980) orthogonal
model of acculturation. For understanding the construct of sense of belonging, Tinto’s (1993)
concept of student integration and Hurtado and Carter’s (1997) model of sense of campus
belonging will be addressed in addition to Goodenow’s (1993) conceptualization of sense of
belonging on the classroom level. Relevant literature regarding teacher credibility as a
psychosociocultural factor in the classroom will be reviewed and McCroskey and Teven’s (1999)
construct of teacher credibility is introduced. Finally, the construct of self-efficacy is briefly
reviewed.
Acculturation
Acculturation has been studied for over sixty years and has been defined and redefined
numerous times. Generally, acculturation refers to change that occurs in the cultural patterns of
two different cultural groups when they come into continuous close, first-hand contact (Redfield,
Linton, & Herskovits, 1936). Although this definition speaks to changes occurring in both the
host and the native culture of individuals, most definitions and measures seek to capture the
changes that take place in individuals acculturating into a dominant culture (Cabassa, 2003).
Acculturation can occur on the macro- or cultural, and the micro- or psychological level (Cuéllar,
Nyberg, & Maldonado, 1997). On the macro-level acculturation refers to changes in adapting to
political organization and representation, economic base, demographic, and broad cultural
changes (Berry, Trimble, & Olmedo, 1986). Psychological acculturation refers to changes in
cognitive, affective, and behavioral domains (Cuéllar, Nyberg, Maldonado, & Roberts, 1997).
Berry et al. (1986) add that there are individual differences to which degree individuals
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 24

participate in the acculturative process, and acculturation does not affect all cultural and
psychological phenomena equally.
Early definitions of acculturation were concerned with changes mainly on the cultural
level (e.g. Redfield, et al., 1936; Social Science Research Council, 1954). Moreover,
acculturation was originally conceptualized as a unidimensional, zero-sum process, whereby the
maintenance of the culture of origin and the adoption of the host culture were seen as opposite
ends of a continuum. According to this model, the ultimate goal for immigrants is to assimilate to
and blend into the host culture (Schwartz, Unger, Zamboanga, & Szapocznik, 2010).
Unidimensional models of acculturation have at least two shortcomings. First, they fail to
capture the complexity of the acculturation process by implying a linear process of change
towards assimilation. Secondly, they fall short of representing the possibility of a bicultural
adaptation, meaning that an immigrant, for example, participates in two cultural systems
(Martinez, 1984).
Contemporary scholars conceptualize acculturation as a complex and multidirectional
process in which individuals negotiate identification with and participation in two cultural
systems (Troop, Erkut, Coll, Alarcón, & García, 1999; Padilla & Perez, 2003). Acculturating
individuals not only adapt to varying degrees, they “also emerge with their own interpretations of
appropriate values, customs, and practices as they negotiate between cultural contexts” (Troop et
al., 1999, p. 352). As a result, individuals may consciously choose to what degree they wish to
adapt to the host culture and at the same time to which degree they wish to retain their heritage
culture (Berry, 1980; 2003). This bidirectional conceptualization of acculturation calls for
multidimensional, orthogonal measurement tools that are able to capture individuals’ lived
experiences and participation in two cultures simultaneously.
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 25

Berry’s (1980; 2003) orthogonal model advances a notion of acculturation that includes
various forms of adaptation: assimilation, integration, separation, and marginalization. The four
forms of adaptation are located along two intersecting independent dimensions: receiving culture
acquisition and heritage culture retention. In this model, acculturation is assessed orthogonally.
Assimilation refers to an individual adopting host culture values, attitudes and behaviors, while
not maintaining an identity with their native culture. When individuals prefer low levels of
contact with the host culture and at the same time seek close contact and connection with
members of their native culture, separation occurs. The third type of acculturation,
marginalization, occurs when an individual chooses not to identify with either culture. They
give up their native culture and then may experience rejection or exclusion from the host culture.
Integration, the fourth type of acculturation, refers to individuals who have assumed a bicultural
identity that successfully synthesizes cultural values, attitudes and behaviors while maintaining a
strong cultural identity with both native and host cultures.
Issues of measurement. The variety of conceptualizations of acculturation bring with it a
variety of measures to assess individual differences in the degree of adaptation to the dominant
white culture. Most measures assess three major domains: behaviors, attitudes, and values,
whereas language use, preference, and proficiency, patterns of socialization, and individuals’
cultural identification seem to be the three most frequently assessed domains (Zane & Mak,
2006).
In 2001, Kim and Abreu evaluated five bilinear measures of Latino American
acculturation, including the Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans or the ARSMA
II (Cuéllar et al., 1995) and the Bidimensional Acculturation Scale for Hispanics (BAS) by
Marín and Gamba (1996). They indicate that these are sophisticated measures of Hispanic
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 26

acculturation because they allow for “an index of acculturation based on mathematical
computation of scores from both continua” (p. 414) thus allowing to determine an individual’s
status of acculturation such as marginalization or biculturalism.
The ARSMA II (Cuéllar et al., 1995) was developed in response to criticism of its
predecessor, the ARSMA (Cuéllar, Harris, & Jasso, 1980). The previous scale measured
acculturation of Mexican-Americans unidimensionally, representing Mexican culture at one end
of the acculturation spectrum, and U.S. American culture at the other. Most importantly, the two
poles were not independently measured. Addressing these shortcomings, Cuéllar et al. (1995)
developed ARSMA II which follows an orthogonal approach and also has some utility with
Latino groups other than Mexican-Americans. It comprises two scales: Scale 1 yields two modes
of accommodation: integration and assimilation, whereas Scale 2 measures the degree of cultural
marginality (marginalization or separation). Both scales can be administered separately and are
independent of each other. Moreover, the ARSMA II includes behavioral, affective, and
cognitive levels of acculturation, thus tapping into various aspects of the acculturative process.
The Bidemensional Acculturation Scale (BAS) by Marín and Gamba (1996) also
responds to measurement shortcomings in previous scales. The BAS comprises three subscales:
“Language Use” measures the frequency with which respondents use English or Spanish when
speaking and thinking. The second subscale was termed “Linguistic Proficiency,” tapped into the
level of respondents’ proficiency in speaking, reading, understanding, and writing in English and
Spanish respectively. Finally, the third subscale “Electronic Media” measures the frequency with
which respondents used electronic media such as radio, television, and listening to music. Both
measures, the ARSMA II and the BAS measure acculturation orthogonally, however, the
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 27

ARSMA II includes more domains relevant to the acculturative process such as emotions,
behaviors, and cognition.
Acculturation and help seeking in counseling contexts. Most literature that has
explored the relationship between acculturation and help seeking among Latinos has focused on
the mental health context and emerged from the concern that ethnic minorities underuse mental
health services. This body of literature produced mixed findings concerning the role of culture in
help seeking attitudes and behaviors (Ramos-Sánchez & Atkinson, 2009) among Latinos.
On the one hand, some studies found that acculturation has no effect on help seeking or
that lower levels of acculturation increased the likelihood of seeking psychological help when in
distress. Atkinson, Casas and Abreu (1992), for example, investigated the effects of Mexican-
American participants’ acculturation and two counselor variables (counselor ethnicity, counselor
cultural sensitivity) on perceived counselor credibility and cultural competence. There was no
significant relationship between the degree of acculturation and the ratings of perceived
counselor credibility or cultural competence, thus acculturation did not significantly predict help
seeking attitudes. Similarly, Ramos-Sánchez, Atkinson, and Fraga (1999) concluded that less
acculturated Mexican-Americans had more positive attitudes towards help seeking in that they
rated counselors more positively than more acculturated respondents. More recently, it was
found that more enculturated (i.e. immersed into their own cultural group) Mexican-Americans
not only indicated greater positive attitudes towards help seeking than more acculturated
Mexican-Americans, but generation status and gender influenced the willingness to seek help as
well (Ramos-Sánchez & Atkinson, 2009). The study showed that participants who have lower
generation status were more willing to see a counselor, and women were more likely to have
positive attitudes towards seeking help. Similarly, Paris et al. (2005) investigated the relationship
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 28

between acculturation and treatment satisfaction among Latino women receiving behavioral
health services at community health centers. The results of the study indicated an inverse
relationship between the level of acculturation and the level of satisfaction with the services
received. In addition, this research underscores that both language and ethnicity are predictive of
help seeking attitudes and behaviors. Overall, this body of research found that acculturation has
no effect on help seeking, and if it does influence help seeking, enculturation predicted positive
help seeking attitudes.
In contrast to research that shows acculturation having a negative or no impact on help
seeking, some studies found that acculturation positively predicts help seeking. Recently, Gloria,
Castellanos, Segura-Herrera and Mayorga (2010), for example, contended that cultural
orientation had a significant effect on help seeking attitudes among Mexican-Americans, but
only in relation to class standing and previous counseling experience. They found that upper-
division students who reported being more Anglo oriented held more positive help seeking
attitudes and that previous counseling experience was a negative predictor of help seeking.
Moreover, in investigating the influence of acculturation, enculturation, cultural
congruity and perceived social support among Mexican American undergraduates, Miville and
Constantine (2006) found that the higher their degree of immersion into the mainstream culture,
the more likely the participants were to seek help. In addition, they found that students who
perceived more cultural congruity (i.e. the degree to which students feel they culturally fit into
the college environment) were also more likely to have positive attitudes towards seeking
psychological help. They also reported that Mexican American students who perceived higher
levels of support from a significant other were more likely to have favorable attitudes towards
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 29

help seeking. However, it is unknown to what extent preferences for help seeking in the mental
health context translate to help seeking in the academic context.
Acculturation and help seeking in academic contexts. To date no empirical research
has explored the influence of acculturation on help seeking in the academic context at a
community college, which underscores the importance of examining this relationship. However,
the literature on help seeking as a function of acculturation in counseling contexts gives some
direction as to how this relationship may play out in the classroom setting. In both contexts
improvement is the primary goal; students who seek help do so because they recognize that they
are facing a problem and are motivated to enlist others to assist them in solving it. In an
academic context this means that they seek to deepen their understanding of an assignment or
content area and want to reduce their uncertainty. However, help seeking as a socially mediated
learning strategy takes place in a sociocultural context and as such is influenced by the cultural
values embedded in that context (Volet & Karabenick, 2006). This may be particularly salient in
diverse community college classrooms where students and their professors come from a variety
of cultural backgrounds and bring their cultural values and expectations to the classroom.
In a recent study on the influence of cultural variables and help seeking, Volet and
Karabenick (2006) investigated the role of ingroup and outgroup perceptions in help seeking in
multicultural university environments. Collecting data at two sites (the United States and
Australia) they examined pattern variation in seeking help from peers within the respective
environment and across social environments. Specifically, they sought to find out if there are
differences in seeking help from peers who are perceived as culturally similar or dissimilar to
themselves. They divided students into three subgroups: monocultural, mixed and other. They
found that across subgroups and locations, students were more likely to seek help from peers
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 30

they perceived as similar to them in terms of sociocultural background and life experiences.
Moreover, monocultural students who perceived their learning environment to encourage
intercultural exchange among students were more likely to seek help from students dissimilar to
them.
Cultural values and help seeking. Despite the fact that the body of literature on the
influence of acculturation on help seeking in the clinical context is inconclusive, Hofstede’s
(1980; 1986) research on cultural value dimensions and on how cultural differences influence
teaching and learning lend some support to the positive influence of acculturation on help
seeking in the classroom. In his seminal work on the systematic variation of values across
cultures, Hofstede (1980) isolated four cultural dimensions: individualism/collectivism, power
distance, uncertainty avoidance and femininity/masculinity. Later he proposed that these
dimensions also play out significantly in teaching and learning (Hofstede,1986). In the context of
the present study the first two dimensions are deemed relevant.
The individualism/collectivism as a broad value dimension emphasizes individual
identity over group identity, whereas individuals from collectivistic cultures, such as Mexican,
central and south American cultures, tend to emphasize a "we" identity over an "I" identity
(Ting-Toomey & Chung, 2005). Power distance refers to the extent to which individuals support
equality in the distribution of power in a society. Thus, small power distance societies such as the
US and many northern European countries, tend to value an equal distribution of power among
members of society, equal rights, and equitable rewards and punishments for performances.
Large power distance countries, such as Mexico and many central and south American countries,
tend to accept unequal power distribution in their societies, rights that are different based on a
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 31

hierarchy, and rewards and punishments that are based on rank, age, status, or title (Ting-
Toomey & Chung, 2005).
In terms of role expectations and help seeking in the classroom, acculturation to the US
values of individualism and small power distance may play out in this context. According to
Hofstede (1986), teacher/student interaction in individualistic/small power distance societies tend
to include the following among each other: the teacher expects students to initiate
communication, students may speak up spontaneously in class, students speak up in large
classrooms, and face consciousness is weak. In such a context, help seeking seems more likely to
occur. In collectivistic/large power distance societies, on the other hand, the teacher/student
interaction includes: students expect teachers to initiate communication, students only speak
when asked by the teacher, individuals will mainly speak up in small groups, and face
consciousness is strong. Thus, expected by Hofstede's theory, less acculturated Latino students
would tend to initiate less help seeking than those students who have acculturated to the culture
of an American classroom which is influenced by the dominant cultural values of individualism
and small power distance.
Summary. The review of literature on acculturation and help seeking revealed two
insights: first, the findings on the relationship between acculturation and help seeking among
Latinos in the mental health context are inconclusive, and second, there is some evidence that
culture influences students’ seeking help from peers to a significant degree.
Several studies conducted in the mental health context have found that individuals who
report low levels of acculturation are more likely to have positive attitudes towards help seeking
and more likely to seek help. In other words, the closer their attitudes, values, customs etc. are to
their culture of origin, the greater the likelihood of participants to seek help in the host culture
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 32

(Atkinson, Casas, & Abreu, 1992; Paris et al., 2005; Ramos-Sanchez, Atkinson & Fraga, 1999).
Conversely, another body of literature investigating the influence of acculturation on help
seeking found the contrary: the higher the level of acculturation, the more likely respondents
reported to seek help in the host culture.
To date there is no supporting evidence of the positive influence of acculturation in the
educational context. However, help seeking as a socially mediated learning strategy takes place
in a sociocultural context and is thus influenced by the cultural values of the help giver and help
seeker, as well as the context itself (Volet & Karabenick, 2006). Thus, despite the
inconclusiveness of the literature, some support for a positive influence of acculturation on help
seeking can be found in Hofstede’s (1980; 1986) research. Based on his theory it can be expected
that individuals that are more acculturated to an individualistic and small power distance values
salient in a US American classroom, will more likely be seeking help when experiencing
uncertainty.
Sense of Belonging
The need for inclusion has long been identified as a basic human need (Maslow, 1968)
and has been shown to have significant effects on emotional and cognitive outcomes (Baumeister
& Leary, 1995). In their extensive review on the need to belong, Baumeister and Leary (1995)
define the construct of belongingness as a fundamental human motivation in that “human beings
have a pervasive drive to form and maintain at least a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, and
significant interpersonal relationships. Satisfying this drive involves at least two criteria: First,
there is a need for frequent, affectively pleasant interactions with a few other people, and,
second, these interactions must take place in the context of a temporally stable and enduring
framework of affective concern for each other’s welfare” (p. 497).
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 33

Research has shown that if the need to belong is satisfied people report positive
emotional effects such as happiness, joy, and contentment. On the other hand, failure to satisfy
the need was shown to result in feelings of anxiety, jealousy, or depression (Baumeister & Leary,
1995). In terms of cognitive outcomes it was found that a sense of relatedness influenced
people’s perceptions of each other and made them think of each other in more complex ways.
More specifically, sense of belonging has been associated with several positive outcomes in
educational settings, such as more positive academic attitudes, higher levels of intrinsic
motivation, self-regulation or engagement (Furrer & Skinner, 2003; Ostermann, 2000; Anderman
& Anderman, 1999). In the literature on sense of belonging in higher education, two levels of the
construct are differentiated: sense of belonging on the campus, and on the classroom level.
Sense of belonging on campus. Sense of belonging to the campus was conceptualized by
Hurtado and Carter (1997), critiquing and expanding Tinto’s (1993) model of integration.
Students’ integration into college life is seen as a significant predictor of retention, meaning the
higher the students’ degree of integration into college life, the more they will commit to the
academic and social systems of the institution. Moreover, Tinto (1993) posits that a precursor to
successful integration is that students need to disassociate themselves from their former
communities such as families, their high school, and their area of residence, and argues that
persistence in college depends on the degree to which students are able to do this.
Hurtado and Carter (1997) raise at least two points of criticism. First, they argue that
Tinto’s notion of integration is not clearly conceptualized, and that a clear distinction needs to be
made between a psychological and a behavioral component of integration: Students’ sense of
integration (psychological measure) and their actual participation in campus activities and
campus life, which is more of a behavioral measure. Second, they posit that integration may
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 34

mean something different to a minority student population. Specifically, they critique the
assumption underlying the model that integration for minority students suggests a
unidimensional process, meaning that students of color integrate by assimilating to the larger
dominant culture. Thus Hurtado and Carter (1997) introduce the psychological concept of
membership or sense of belonging, which “captures the individual’s view of whether he or she
feels included in the college community” (p. 327).
On predominantly white campuses, sense of belonging becomes especially important for
students of color. Hurtado and Carter (1997), for example, researched sense of belonging among
Latino students at a 4-year university. Testing a hypothesized path model of students’ sense of
belonging, they found that frequent discussions of course content with other students outside of
class, membership in a sorority or fraternity, and membership in social-community organizations
were positively and significantly associated with Latino students’ sense of belonging.
Interestingly, GPA was not a significant predictor of students’ perceived sense of belonging,
suggesting that opportunities for social interaction with faculty and peers have a greater impact
on fostering feelings of belonging. Moreover, Hurtado and Ponjuan (2005) found that Latino
students who took classes in diversity, who engaged in formal and informal activities on campus,
and lived on campus or with their family felt a higher sense of belonging. However, a perceived
racially hostile climate undermined Latino students’ sense of campus belonging. Johnson,
Soldner, Leonard et al. (2007), for example, investigated the effects of such variables as college
environment, selectivity, and perception of racial climate among first-year students’ sense of
belonging, and found that college environment was the strongest predictor of sense of belonging
for all racial groups. What remains less known is if sense of belonging to the institution has an
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 35

impact on community college students’ motivation or learning, such as self-efficacy and help
seeking.
Sense of belonging in the classroom. Many educational researchers have found that
relatedness or sense of belonging to the classroom positively influences student motivation and
learning (e.g. Goodenow, 1993; Anderman & Anderman, 1999; Ostermann, 2000). Investigating
classroom belonging in the context of help seeking is important, because help seeking includes a
social component, namely approaching a teacher or peer and asking for help, and this mostly
happens in the classroom or around classroom assignments. Thus, feeling a part of the classroom
may play a role in students’ help seeking behavior.
Most studies on sense of belonging in the classroom have been conducted in the K-12
context. In her seminal article on classroom belonging among early adolescent students,
Goodenow (1993) investigated the relationships between sense of belonging and three
motivational outcomes, expectancies for success in a specific domain, and interest and value
attached to an academic subject among adolescents. It was hypothesized that sense of belonging,
expectancies, and value would be positively associated with effort and achievement. The data
was collected from sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders from a New England suburban school,
and the sample was overwhelmingly white (93%). The results indicate that indeed, a subjective
sense of belonging and support were significantly correlated with expectancies, interest, and
value, and that sense of belonging explained more than a third of the variance in students’
expectations for success. Moreover, the strongest predictor for academic effort and grades was
expectancy of success, but sense of belonging and support were also strongly associated with
these two outcomes. It is important to note that the impact of subjective sense of belonging on
motivation declined from sixth- to eighth-grade, indicating that older students may rely less on
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 36

support from teachers and peers as they strengthen their academic self-concepts over time and
rely more heavily on past experiences. However, it remains unclear if these relationships play out
in a different context, such as an urban community college and among a Latino population.
Very little research exists on sense of belonging in the classroom in the context of higher
education and among a non-white population. Freeman, et al. (2007) conducted one of the few
studies on sense of belonging on both the campus and the classroom levels. This study had two
purposes: to investigate the influence of first-year college students’ sense of class belonging on
motivation, and secondly, to explore contextual variables that may influence students’ sense of
belonging in the classroom. Specifically, they hypothesized that the sense of belonging in a
specific college class would positively impact students’ academic task values, their intrinsic
motivation, and their academic self-efficacy in that class. Moreover, Freeman et al. (2007)
investigated the extent to which teacher characteristics influence students’ sense of class
belonging, and predicted a positive relationship between these two variables. Lastly, they
explored the relationship between both levels of sense of belonging. The results revealed that
sense of classroom belonging is a significant predictor of adaptive motivational beliefs, reporting
significant effects on task value, intrinsic motivation, and self-efficacy. Moreover, all three
teacher characteristics (openness, warmth, and practice) positively and significantly influenced
students’ sense of class belonging and accounted for nearly 50% of the variance in the dependent
variable. Lastly, sense of classroom belonging was significantly associated with students’
university belonging and accounted for 13% of the variance in the sense of belonging to the
university. However, when student social acceptance both by fellow students and university
personnel was entered into the analysis, the effect decreased and was no longer statistically
significant. Overall, the results of this study did not support the notion that sense of belonging to
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 37

a single class contributes to students’ overall sense of belonging to the campus, but lent support
to students’ perception of being socially accepted as an important predictor of their sense of
belonging to the institution. As Freeman et al.’s (2007) sample was predominantly white and
comprised freshmen at a 4-year university, it remains unclear if the results can be generalized to
a Latino community college population. Moreover, there is no literature to date that has
examined the relationship between sense of belonging on either level, to campus or to the
classroom, with academic help seeking.
Summary. Belongingness is a fundamental human need that, when it is satisfied, leads to
positive cognitive and emotional outcomes. Both the macro- and micro-level of sense of
belonging have shown to be important contributors to these outcomes. Sense of belonging on the
campus level has mainly been researched as an outcome variable; only a few studies have
investigated the influence of college sense of belonging on academic outcomes. However,
Freeman et al. (2007) found a connection between both levels of sense of belonging, reporting
that classroom belonging positively predicts sense of belonging to the institution.
Research in the K-12 and the higher education context has shown consistently that sense
of belonging to the institution increases student retention and that sense of belonging to the
classroom is a positive predictor of adaptive motivational outcomes such as task value, intrinsic
motivation, interest, and self-efficacy (e.g. Freeman et al., 2007). Although little is known about
the relationship between the two levels of sense of belonging and learning and motivation
variables, based on this review it can be expected that sense of belonging to the institution and
the classroom positively influence students’ academic help seeking.

HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 38

Teacher Credibility
Few people would deny that teachers play an important role in their students’ learning
and motivation. Teachers’ instructional practices, teacher-student relationships or teacher
expectations have been found to influence student motivation and achievement significantly
(Schunk, Pintrich, & Meece, 2008). Recently, teacher characteristics such as perceived
pedagogical care and teacher support (Wentzel, 1997; 1998), perceived teacher caring (Teven &
McCroskey, 1996), teacher credibility (Myers, 2001; Gray, Anderman, & McConnell, 2011), or
teacher affective support (Sakiz, 2010) have been found to influence a variety of educational
outcomes positively and significantly.
The construct of teacher credibility has received considerable scholarly attention in the
past decade, yielding a growing body of literature on associations with other teacher behaviors
and student outcomes (Finn, Schrodt, Witt, et al., 2009). Teacher credibility has recently been
conceptualized as a form of source credibility which refers to “the attitude of a receiver that
references the degree to which a source is seen to be believable” (McCroskey, 1998, p. 80). Thus
teacher credibility is understood as students’ attitudes towards the degree of believability of their
teacher. Originally derived from Aristotle’s concept of ethos which comprises character,
intelligence, and goodwill (Cooper 1932), McCroskey and Teven (1999) have conceptualized
teacher credibility as including three dimensions: competence, trustworthiness, and caring.
According to Zhang (2009), the current state of research suggests that “teacher credibility may
be one of the most important teacher attributes in the instructional process” (p. 327). Moreover,
Finn et al. (2009) found that the effect size across the studies they examined in their meta-
analysis was substantial and that teacher credibility accounted for 20% of the variance across
educational outcomes.
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 39

In their meta-analysis of extant literature on teacher credibility Finn et al., (2009)
identified three types of studies on teacher credibility: (1) studies investigating teacher behaviors
that enhance teacher credibility, (2) studies that explore student outcomes associated with teacher
credibility, and (3), more recently, studies that are concerned with teacher credibility as a
mediating variable.
Studies that have investigated student outcomes as a function of teacher credibility found
that students reported higher levels of motivation (Martin, Chesebro, & Mottet, 1997), increased
affective learning (Pogue & AhYun, 2006), increased communication between instructors and
students in and outside of the classroom (Myers, 2005), and greater cognitive learning (Teven &
McCroskey, 1997). Myers (2001), for example, examined the relationship between teacher
credibility and verbal aggressiveness and found that all three dimensions of teacher credibility
(competence, character, and trustworthiness) were negatively related to aggressive messages.
Teachers who were perceived as credible were also seen as being less verbally aggressive.
Similarly, exploring the dimension of teacher caring only, Teven and McCroskey (1997) found
that students who perceived their teachers as caring also evaluated them more positively, rated
the content of the course more positively, and reported to have learned more than in courses in
which they perceived the teacher as less credible.
Recently, Zhang (2009) examined cultural differences in the perception of teacher
credibility. Comparing a U.S., German, Chinese, and Japanese sample, he found that the three
dimensions of teacher credibility (competence, caring, and trustworthiness) were consistent
across cultures, indicating that credibility was perceived similarly. In addition, Wheeless, Witt,
Maresh, et al. (2011) examined the role of teacher credibility as a mediator between teacher
classroom communication behaviors and students’ intentions to remain in college across ethnic
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 40

groups (Caucasian, Latino, and African American). They found no between group differences in
students’ perceptions of their teachers’ communication and their persistence in college, meaning
that students regardless of their ethnic and racial background perceived their teachers’
communication similarly. This suggests that teachers can influence their student’s intentions to
persist regardless of their students’ ethnicity.
Teacher Credibility and help seeking. In their review of extant literature on contextual
factors influencing help seeking, Zusho et al. (2007) maintain that little research has been
conducted on college classrooms and that more research is needed to understand the influence
of contextual factors such as teacher support in a college classroom context. Teacher credibility
is such a contextual variable that it could inform college students’ help seeking attitudes and
behaviors.
As help seeking includes both social and cognitive aspects, it is not surprising that
scholars have explored the role sociocultural or contextual variables affecting help seeking in
classrooms such as teacher competence (Van der Meij, 1988), teacher’s social-emotional role
(Ryan, Gheen, &Midgley, 1998), perceived teacher support of questioning (Karabenick, &
Sharma, 1994), teacher caring (Zusho, et al., 2007), and perceived instructor affective support
(Sakiz, 2012), to name a few. In general, positive teacher attributes positively influence
students’ help seeking intentions and behaviors. Some of the constructs previously researched in
connection with help seeking relate to two dimensions of teacher credibility, competence and
caring. So far, no research has examined all three dimensions together, including trustworthiness.
Among third and fifth graders, Van der Meij (1988) found that students were more likely
to seek help from a teacher they perceived as competent. Specifically, they reported two aspects
of competence: knowledge of the subject matter and the ability to instruct others. In their study
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 41

on sixth grade math students, Ryan et al., (1998) examined to what degree the teacher’s social
emotional role influenced students avoiding help seeking. Teachers rated themselves on a 5-item
scale in terms of how they perceived their role in the emotional well-being of their students.
Results showed that teachers’ concern about their students’ emotional and social well-being
resulted in students avoiding help seeking to a lesser extent, especially if they had low self-
efficacy.
There are a few studies that investigate teacher variables in college classrooms with
respect to help seeking. For example, Karabenick and Sharma (1994) looked at asking questions
during class as a form of academic help seeking. Specifically, they investigated the relationship
between students’ degree of self-regulation and motivation and their perception of teacher
support (Study 1) and tested the prediction that students who perceived their teachers to be
highly supportive are more likely to ask questions during class (Study 2). Their results indicated
that students who were more motivated, used self-regulation strategies, and had an achievement
goal orientation were more likely to perceive their teacher as supportive of classroom
questioning.
More recently, Sakiz (2012) examined the relationships of instructor affective support,
academic emotions, behavioral engagement and academic help seeking. Perceived instructor
affective support is a multidimensional construct including caring, respect, concern for and
interest in students, valuing, recognition, fair treatment, high expectations, encouragement,
listening, smiling, kindness, and humor (Sakiz, 2012).
Several of these indicators relate to the construct of teacher credibility, although the latter
includes competence in addition to affective dimensions. With regard to help seeking, several
predictions were made: perceived instructor affective support would be positively and
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 42

significantly associated with help seeking, and that academic hopelessness would be negatively
associated with help seeking. Moreover, indirect relationships between perceived instructor
affective support and help seeking (through academic emotions and behavioral engagement)
were predicted. It was found that there was a positive association between perceived instructor
affective support and academic enjoyment with help seeking indicating that positive emotions
are beneficial for student engagement in learning. An important finding of this study is the
insight that positive teacher characteristics such as perceived instructor affective support lead to
increased student engagement such as in academic help seeking (Sakiz, 2012).
Summary. This review of literature demonstrated that contextual factors such as teacher
caring, teacher instructional practices, or teacher credibility influence student learning and
motivational outcomes positively and significantly. The construct of teacher credibility in
particular has received wide scholarly attention and has shown to be a strong predictor of
increased affective learning (Pogue & AhYun, 2006), or greater cognitive learning (Teven &
McCroskey, 1997). Since most of these studies largely addressed a white student population,
very little is known about how teacher credibility is perceived by students from different
cultures. The studies reviewed report that teacher credibility is perceived similarly across
cultures which supports the use of this construct surveying a Latino student population.
Further, this review has established that teacher characteristics positively influence help
seeking in particular, although more research has been conducted in the K-12 context. Within
higher education, Sakiz (2012), for example, found that students who perceive their teachers as
supporting them affectively, are more engaged and more likely to seek help, and Karabenick and
Sharma (1994) found that students who perceived their teachers as supportive were more likely
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 43

to ask questions in class. Based on this review it can be expected that teacher credibility will
positively influence students' help seeking behaviors.
Academic Self-Efficacy
Researchers and educators alike have long recognized that students’ beliefs about
themselves can influence their motivation and engagement, their use of learning strategies, and
their performance (Zimmerman, 2000). Self-efficacy is one of the most important motivational
constructs promoting student engagement and motivation (Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2003).
Bandura (1997) defines self-efficacy as “beliefs in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the
courses of action required to produce given attainments” (p. 3). Furthermore, a student’s level of
self-efficacy is believed to influence their choice of activity (they often choose the more
challenging task), the amount of effort that is exerted working on a task, and perseverance in
performing the task. According to Bandura (1977; 1997), self-efficacy is derived from four
different sources of information: performance accomplishments, vicarious experiences, verbal
persuasion, and physiological states. Students’ own performances provide the most reliable
gauge of self-efficacy compared to the effects of the other three sources (Schunk & Pajares,
2002), but students can also get valuable efficacy information by comparing themselves to others
who are similar to themselves (Schunk & Ertmer, 2000).
It is important to distinguish self-efficacy from other motivation constructs that are
theoretically and conceptually related but can be differentiated psychometrically, such as self-
concept, self-esteem, and outcome expectancies (e.g. Bandura, 1997; Zimmerman, 2000;
Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2003). Self-concept and self-efficacy are two distinct constructs that
share both similarities and differences (Choi, 2005). Self-concept is usually defined as a “global
perception of oneself and one’s self-esteem reactions to that perception” (Zimmerman, 2000, p.
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 44

84). Self-concept expresses a more general sense of one’s competence (I am good at Math),
whereas self-efficacy beliefs refer to more specific and situational evaluations of one’s
capabilities. Moreover, self-concept is multidimensional, having both cognitive and affective
components, compared to self-efficacy, which is primarily a “cognitive appraisal of one’s
capabilities to perform a prospective performance” (Choi, 2005, p. 198). According to self
efficacy theory, more specific judgments of one’s capabilities are more likely to be related to
engagement and learning than more general appraisals of self (Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2003).
Self-esteem “involves individuals’ emotional reactions to their actual accomplishments
such as feeling good or bad about themselves because they can or cannot read a book or ride a
bicycle” (Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2003). Self-efficacy and self-esteem are related when self-
efficacious students who persist, exert effort and choose challenging tasks succeed, they evaluate
themselves positively and build their self-esteem and subsequent self-efficacy alike (Choi, 2005).
Lastly, outcome expectancies are “beliefs about the anticipated consequences of actions”
(Schunk & Pajares, 2002, p. 16) and are closely linked to the perceived value of a task.
Self-efficacy is a very strong predictor of motivation, engagement and academic
performance (Zimmerman, 2000). In a meta-analysis of 36 studies on the relationship between
self-efficacy and academic achievement and persistence, Multon, Brown and Lent (1991) found
that self-efficacy is a positive and significant predictor of performance across a variety of
research designs and assessment methods. Their analysis of relevant studies between 1977 and
1988 revealed that self-efficacy beliefs account for 14% of the variance in students’ academic
performance and 12% of the variance in their academic persistence.
Recent studies on the effects of self-efficacy on academic success reveal the importance
of this variable in the context of higher education. Choi (2005) investigated the predictive power
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 45

of self-efficacy and self-concept among college students, measuring the constructs on different
levels of specificity. For example, self-efficacy was measured on a global level (general self-
efficacy), on an intermediate level (academic self-efficacy) and on a specific level (self-efficacy
specific to a course). She found that the closer the level of specificity of the construct, the
stronger was the relationship between the two constructs. More specifically, both constructs were
strong predictors of academic success when measured on a more specific level. Thus, general
self-efficacy was not significantly related to term grades, whereas specific self-efficacy was
(Choi, 2005), supporting Bandura’s (1997) contention that global self-efficacy, which is
decontextualized, is a less powerful predictor of achievement.
Similarly, Vuong, Brown-Welty and Tracz (2010) investigated the relationship between
self-efficacy and academic success among first generation students in their sophomore year.
They measured self-efficacy on a relatively general level using college self-efficacy as their
predictor variable, which is operationalized as students’ degree of confidence in performing a
variety of academic tasks to bring about desired outcomes, such as passing an examination.
Specifically, college self-efficacy was measured on three dimensions, self-efficacy in
coursework, in social interactions with counselors, faculty, and peers, and self-efficacy in
relationships with roommates. Their results indicate that self-efficacy in coursework was a
significant predictor of GPA and persistence for first generation students. All means of academic
success measures were higher for second generation-and-beyond students. Interestingly, the
relationship between self-efficacy for social relationships and academic success was not
significant.
Self-efficacy and help seeking. Research has consistently shown a strong association
between self-efficacy and help seeking. Help seeking as a behavioral self-regulatory learning
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 46

strategy (Karabenick, & Newman, 2009) means that students seek help from their teachers or
peers to learn or understand the material better.
Generally, self-efficacy has been shown consistently to influence students’ willingness to
exert effort, choose challenging tasks, and persist (Bandura, 1997). Research has demonstrated a
positive association between self-efficacy and adaptive or instrumental help seeking (Ryan &
Pintrich, 1998). In fact, “students’ academic self-efficacy predicts help seeking above and
beyond measures of actual achievement to understand and target the appropriate causes of help
seeking behavior” (Ryan & Shin, 2011, p. 248). There is ample evidence across classroom levels
that students with high levels of self-efficacy are more likely to seek help from teachers and/or
peers than students with low self-efficacy (e.g. Karabenick & Knapp, 1991; Newman, 1990;
Ryan & Pintrich, 1997; Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons, 1990). On the contrary, low self-efficacy
and low achieving students tend to have negative attitudes towards help seeking, thinking that
they are unable or dumb (Ryan & Shin, 2011).
Summary
This chapter provided a review and critique of extant literature concerning the major
theoretical constructs in this study. In Chapter I it was established that the achievement gap for
Latino community college students persists despite gains made in the last few years, and
following Rueda et al. (2010) is was suggested that sociocultural, learning and motivation
aspects of academic achievement need to be investigated to address this achievement gap, such
as academic help seeking. Thus, the goal of the preceding review of literature was to discuss
relevant sociocultural factors that may positively influence help seeking among Latino
community college students.
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 47

This review of literature affirms three important aspects: First, in absence of studies
conducted in the educational context, relevant literature on acculturation and help seeking in the
clinical context was discussed and critiqued. The review revealed two insights: findings on the
influence of acculturation on help seeking are inconclusive, and there is some evidence that
cultural values may influence help seeking in an educational context. Very little research in this
field, however, has been conducted looking at a community college population. Second, a body
of literature investigating the construct of sense of belonging was reviewed, considering both
sense of belonging to the institution and to the classroom. It became apparent that sense of
belonging is a significant predictor of various motivational and learning outcomes. However, we
do not know the effect of sense of belonging on academic help seeking and further, we do not
know how the two levels related to each other and to academic help seeking among a Latino
community college population.
Third, literature on teacher credibility was reviewed, and this section showed that teacher
characteristics such as credibility are significant predictors of student achievement. Generally,
research findings revealed that students' perceptions of positive teacher characteristics positively
influence student motivation and learning, such as affective learning and increased motivation.
However, to date no research has explored these effects in an ethnic minority student population
at a 2-year institution. Some evidence indicates that teacher credibility is perceived similarly
across cultures, so it can be expected that Latino students would perceive their teachers'
credibility in a similar way as their fellow students from other ethnicities. Lastly, literature on
self-efficacy was briefly reviewed, and this critique showed that self-efficacy emerges as a
significant predictor of help seeking and student achievement.
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 48

Taken together, this literature review demonstrated that the level of acculturation,
students' sense of belonging to the institution and specifically to the classroom, and the
perception of their teachers credibility will influence their help seeking behaviors. Thus, students
who have largely acculturated to the mainstream U.S. American culture, who feel they belong to
the campus community and their classroom, and who perceive their teacher as competent, caring,
and trustworthy will more likely seek help.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study was to conduct an empirical investigation of the relationship
between the psychosociocultural factors acculturation, sense of belonging, teacher credibility,
and self-efficacy with academic help seeking among Latino community college students.
Research Question 1: What is the relationship of acculturation, sense of belonging, teacher
credibility, and self-efficacy to help seeking in Latino community college students? More
specifically, amongst acculturation, sense of belonging, teacher credibility, and self-efficacy,
which was the largest contributor to help seeking among Latino community college students?
Research Question 2: What is the relationship among acculturation, sense of belonging and
teacher credibility?

HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 49

CHAPTER III: Methodology
This study investigates the relationship between acculturation, sense of belonging,
teacher credibility, self-efficacy and help seeking in Latino community college students. The
following chapter describes the methodology used in this study. First, demographic
characteristics of the participants will be discussed. Second, the instruments used to measure the
constructs will be examined in terms of their psychometric properties. Finally, procedure to
collect the data and the planned statistical analyses will be explained.
Participants
Latino undergraduate students were recruited at two urban community colleges in
southern California during a one month period in the fall semester of 2013. Seven hundred sixty-
five surveys were excluded because they did not meet the selection criteria (i.e., they did not
self-identify as Latino). A total of 517 students volunteered to participate in this study. Of the
participants, 185 (35.9 %) were of freshman status (i.e., having one year or less of education
after high school), 138 (26.7 %) were of sophomore status (i.e., having at least two years of
education after high school), 92 (17.85%) had at least three years of postsecondary education,
and 101 (19.6%) had at least four years of postsecondary education. The average age of the
students was 23.08 years (SD =.31), ranging from 17 to 56 years of age. Approximately 70% (N
= 366, 71.1%) of the participants were female and 28.9% (N = 149) were male. Over half of the
participants were first-generation college students (N = 354, 68.6%), and most of the students
were born in the United States (N = 423, 83.6%). The survey was made available to students in
October, approximately in the middle of the fall semester to ensure that students have had
enough exposure to their professors and peers.

HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 50

Instruments
Students were informed that their participation was entirely voluntary. As shown in
Appendix A, students were provided with an informed consent form and were told that they can
discontinue the study at any time and withdraw their consent.
The survey was divided into six sections with their corresponding instruments: (1) the
Student Information Section, (2) acculturation scores were obtained from the Acculturation
Rating Scale for Mexican Americans-II by Cuéllar, Arnold and Maldonado (1995), (3) sense of
belonging was measured using two scales, one developed by Hurtado and Carter (1997)
measuring university-level sense of belonging, and one designed and tested by Freeman et al.
(2007) measuring classroom-level sense of belonging, (4) teacher credibility was measured using
the Ethos/source credibility scale by McCroskey and Teven (1999), (5) help seeking was
measured using a measure developed by Karabenick (2004), (6) and finally, self-efficacy was
measured using the self-efficacy subscale of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire
(MSLQ) developed by Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, and McKeachie (1991).
Student information section. A 9- item, multiple choice questionnaire was designed to
obtain demographic data from the participants such as age, ethnic identification, ethnicity,
academic history, place of birth, first-generation-college student status, and GPA.
Acculturation. The English version of the Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican
Americans-II was used to measure acculturation. The ARSMA-II is a 48-item multidimensional
and orthogonal scale that taps into individuals’ bidirectional changes in behavior that are central
to two cultures, the dominant Anglo culture and the Mexican culture. The scale integrates several
domains of the acculturation process, such as language use and proficiency, social contacts,
media, and ethnic identity. Specifically, the scale comprises two separate scales: Scale 1 has 30
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 51

items measuring the two acculturation modes of integration and assimilation, whereas Scale 2
(Marginality Scale) comprises 18 items and measures separation and marginalization.
Scale 1 has two subscales, the Mexican Orientation scale (MOS) and the Anglo
Orientation scale (AOS). The scale uses a Likert-type response scale ranging from (1) not at all
to (5) extremely often or almost always. Some sample items include “I enjoy speaking Spanish,”
“I associate with Anglos,” or “My family cooks Mexican food.” Both subscales have reported
good reliability scores: .83 for the AOS and .88 for the MOS (Cuellar et al. 1996). Scale 2 is
composed of three subscales measuring respondents’ difficulty accepting their own as well as
other cultures (Cuellar et al. 1996). The three subscales are: ANGMAR (Anglo Marginality),
MEXMAR (Mexican Marginality), and MAMARG (Mexican American Marginality). Scale 2
also uses a 5-point Likert-type response scale ranging from (1) not at all to (5) extremely often or
almost always. Sample items include “I have difficulty accepting some ideas held by Anglos” or
“I have difficulty accepting certain practices and customs commonly found in Mexican
Americans.” The overall Marginality scale has good internal consistency with a coefficient alpha
of .87 (Cuellar et al. 1996). However, the Mexican marginality subscale had poor internal
consistency (coefficient alpha .68). For this study only Scale 1 was used. Since this study aimed
to consider many different Hispanic groups, all scale items containing the term “Mexican” were
changed using the term “Latino.”
This scale was chosen for two reasons: It is one of the most frequently used measures for
acculturation of a Latino population, having been used in recent studies (e.g. Unger, 2007;
Thoman & Suris, 2004). Second, ARSMA II taps into various domains of acculturation such as
values, language use and proficiency, social contacts etc., compared to the BAS, which relies
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 52

heavily on language. Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients for AOS and MOS in this study
were .75 and .90 respectively.
Sense of belonging. In order to measure sense of belonging, two scales were used. First,
to measure university-level sense of belonging, Hurtado and Carter’s (1997) 3-item scale was
used. This scale asks students to rate the extent to which they perceive they belong to the campus
community (e.g. I feel that I am a member of the campus community) on an 11-point Likert
scale, ranging from “strongly disagree” = 0 to “strongly agree” = 11. Hurtado and Carter (1997)
report an alpha coefficient of .94. This measure is the only established instrument to assess sense
of belonging to the institution.
To measure sense of belonging at the classroom level, Freeman et al.’s (2007) 18-item
Class Belonging Scale was used. This scale was used because it was designed specifically for a
college population. Other measures, such as Goodenow’s (1993) Psychological Sense of School
Membership Scale (PSSM) was designed using middle school students as respondents. The Class
Belonging Scale by Freeman et al. (2007) includes domains such as perceived acceptance and
respect by teachers and peers, perceived teacher faith in student’s ability, and student’s pride in
belonging to the class. It included items such as “ I feel like a real part of this class,” or “I feel
proud to belong to this class” and has an alpha coefficient of .90. Only Freeman et al. (2007)
have employed this scale, so no further data on reliability is available. In this study, Cronbach’s
alpha reliability coefficients for sense of belonging to the campus community and the classroom
level were .97 and .77 respectively.
Teacher credibility. The measure of Ethos/Credibility by McCroskey and Teven (1999)
is an 18-item semantic differential scale that asks students to rate their perceptions of the
credibility of a source, such as a teacher. The scale has three subscales measuring competence,
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 53

goodwill (or caring), and trustworthiness, and included dichotomies such as “cares about me –
doesn’t care about me” or “honest – dishonest.” Previously, the alpha reliability for the subscales
was high: competence was .85, trustworthiness .92, and goodwill .92. When all three subscales
were scored as a single measure of ethos/credibility, the alpha reliability was. 94 (e.g.
McCroskey & Teven, 1999). In this study, Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients were .82 for
competence, .82 for goodwill, and .89 for trustworthiness.
Help seeking. Help seeking attitudes and behaviors were measured using items from a
scale developed by Karabenick (2004) to measure type of help seeking (instrumental versus
executive), source of help seeking (formal versus informal), help seeking threat and help seeking
avoidance. A 5-point response scale was used, anchored in (1) not at all true for me to (5) very
true for me. The alpha coefficients for the scale items were: instrumental help seeking .62,
executive help seeking .78, formal help seeking .66, help seeking threat .81, and help seeking
avoidance .77. No alpha coefficient for the full scale was reported. This scale is the only one
available to measure help seeking behaviors and attitudes in a college population. In this study,
Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients were .81 for instrumental help seeking, .65 for executive
help seeking (this is a little low), .65 for formal help seeking (this is also low), .88 for help
seeking threat, and .82 for help seeking avoidance.
Self-efficacy. The Self-efficacy subscale of the Motivated Strategies for Learning
Questionnaire (MSLQ) asks students to rate their perception of their ability to accomplish a task
and their confidence in their skills to complete that task. It is an 8-item Likert-type scale ranging
from (5) strongly agree to (1) strongly disagree. The alpha coefficient of this subscale was
reported at .93 (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991). The MSLQ is one of the most
frequently used measures to assess self-regulated learning. Recently, the scale’s reliability and
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 54

validity was evaluated in the context of health profession education (Cook, Thompson, &
Thomas, 2011). Results showed that internal reliability of the MSLQ was consistently high with
a Cronbach α of .93 and for each domain (α = .67). In this study, the Cronbach alpha reliability
coefficient was .95.
Procedure
The primary researcher obtained IRB approval from two community colleges in the
greater Los Angeles area. All students enrolled in the fall semester of 2013 at one of the
community colleges were contacted via email by the Director of Institutional Effectiveness. At
the second community college, a snowball method was chosen. The principal negotiator
contacted faculty through the department chairs by email asking for participation in the study. A
description of the survey, a note on confidentiality and a link to the survey were provided at both
data collection sites. The survey was distributed using Qualtrics, an online data collection
platform. To maintain confidentiality, all identifying information was kept separate from the
survey responses and only the principal investigator had access to the data. As an incentive to
complete the survey, participants were provided with the opportunity to enter a raffle to win one
of three gift certificates. On average it took students 15 minutes to complete the survey.
Data Analysis
Research Question 1: What is the relationship of acculturation, sense of belonging,
teacher credibility, and self-efficacy to help seeking in Latino community college students? More
specifically, amongst acculturation, sense of belonging, teacher credibility, and self-efficacy,
which was the largest contributor to help seeking among Latino community college students?
For Research Question 1, a stepwise regression analysis was deemed appropriate.
Research Question 2: What is the relationship among acculturation, sense of belonging
and teacher credibility? For Research Question 2, a simple correlation analysis is suggested.
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 55

CHAPTER IV: Results
The following chapter provides an overview of the results of this study including the
intercorrelations of measured variables, and results from the multiple regression and correlation
analyses for the two research questions.
Preliminary Analysis
An overview of basic descriptive information and patterns of relationships among key
demographic and research variables are provided in Table 1. Sex was significantly correlated
with Latino community college students’ enculturation (Mexican cultural orientation, r = .18, p <
.001), self-efficacy (r = -.11, p = .014), and instrumental help seeking behaviors (r = .15, p =
.001), indicating that female Latina community college students in this study reported a higher
level of adherence to Latino culture, more utilization of instrumental help seeking, but lower
self-efficacy. Age was significantly associated with both cultural orientations (but in different
directions, as expected), sense of belonging to the campus community, and formal help seeking.
Those Latino community college students who are older reported having a higher Anglo cultural
orientation (r = .10, p = .029), but lower Mexican/Latino cultural orientation (r = -.11, p = .021),
a higher sense of belonging to the campus community (r = .09, p = .045), and more formal help
seeking behaviors (r = .12, p = .028). Participants’ GPA had a positive association with Anglo
orientation (r = .11, p = .041), self-efficacy (r = .17, p = .002), formal help seeking (r = .18, p =
.001), but an inverse relationship with executive help seeking (r = -.13, p = .012), and help
seeking avoidance behaviors (r = -.13, p = .018). For first generation college students in this
study, they reported lower GPA (r = .15, p = .001) and higher Latino cultural orientation (r = .27,
p < .001). There were no differences, however, in any of the help seeking behaviors or self-
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 56

Table 1:
Means, Standard Deviations, and Pearson Product Correlations of Measured Variables
Variables M SD 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

1. Sex .01 .08 -.04 .04 .18** -.08 -.04 -.02 .03 -.01 -.11* .15** -.03 -.02 -.05 -.08
2. Age 23.08 6.79 -- .06 .05 .10* -.11* .09* .09 -.02 -.01 -.04 -.03 .06 -.06 .09 -.01 -.06
3. FG .68 .46 -- -.11* .023 .27** .01 -.01 .03 .01 .06 -.06 -.02 .02 -.04 -.01 -.01
4. GPA 2.97 .59 -- .11* -.04 .05 .05 .09 .06 .08 .17* .04 -.13* .18* -.08 -.13*
ARSMA II
5.AOS 3.95 .48 -- .09* .09* .13* .05 .12* .09* .09 .15** -.05 .02 -.09* -.12*
6. MOS 3.37 .79 -- .19** .12** .09* .05 .11* -.01 .10* .09 -.04 .02 .04
7. SBCamp 6.22 3.05 -- .38** .14** .12** .17** .19** .32** .054 -.02 -.08 -.13**
8. SBClass 3.21 .53 -- .24** .32** .298** .42** .46** .08 .08 -.16** -.24**
TEACHCRED
9. Comp 5.45 .81 -- .46** .66** .33** .21** -.079 .23** -.19** -.20**
10. Goodw 4.36 .78 -- .58** .29** .22** -.15** .14** -.15** -.19**
11. Trustw 5.44 .86 -- .32** .27** -.15** .23** -.19** -.23**
12. SE 3.97 .90 -- .35** -.09* .20** -.35** -.38**
HS
13. Instr 4.06 1.07 -- .01 -.01 -.44** -.54**
14. Exec 1.87 1.07 -- -.03 .22** .27**
15. Form 3.51 1.04 -- -.06 -.01
16. Threat 1.85 1.09 -- .67**
17. Avoid 1.83 1.02 --
Notes: 1. Sex (1=female, 2=male); 2. Age; 3. First generation college student; 4. GPA; 5. Anglo Orientation; 6. Mexcian/Latino Orientation; 7. Sense of Belonging to Campus; 8.
Sense of Belonging to Class; 9. Teacher Competence; 10. Teacher Goodwill; 11. Teacher Trustworthiness; 12. Self-efficacy; 13. Instrumental help seeking; 14. Executive help
seeking; 15. Formal help seeking; 16. Help seeking threat; 17. Help seeking avoidance. * p<.05 ** p<.01

HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 57

efficacy between first generation and non-first generation students (i.e., at least one of the parent
has at least some college education).
Analysis of Research Questions
Research question 1: Amongst acculturation, sense of belonging, teacher credibility, and
self efficacy, which was the largest contributor to help seeking among Latino community college
students?
Six stepwise multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine which
psychosociocultural factors contributed the most in specific academic help seeking behaviors in
Latino community college students, with help seeking as the criterion variables (instrumental,
executive, formal, informal, threat, avoidance). Bonferroni adjustments were applied to set the p
value as .008 (.05/6) to adjust for inflated Type I errors. Results for each of the help seeking
behavior are included in Tables 1-6 and discussed below.
Instrumental help seeking. Results of the stepwise statistical analysis with Bonferroni
adjustment revealed three significant predictors (p < .008) for instrumental help seeking,
including sense of belonging at the classroom level ( β = .46, t = 11.44, p < .001), self-efficacy (β
= .19, t = 4.42, p < .001), and sense of belonging to the campus community ( β = .16, t = 3.79, p <
.001), with teacher trustworthiness being very close to adjusted significant level ( β = .11, t =
2.54, p = .011). This suggests that having a sense of belonging to the classroom was the largest
contributor to Latino/a community college students’ instrumental help seeking behaviors, which
explained approximately 21% of the variances, F change (1, 499) = 130.93, p < .001. The next
largest significant contributor, students’ self-efficacy, explained an additional 3% of the
variances in their instrumental help seeking behaviors, F change (1, 498) = 19.50, p < .001,
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 58

followed by sense of belonging to the campus community, which explained an additional 2.1%
of the variances in their instrumental behaviors, F change (1, 497) = 14.36, p < .001.
It is worth noting that even though teacher trustworthiness did not meet the adjusted
significance level of .008, it explained an additional 1% of the variances in instrumental help
seeking behaviors at the .011 level, F change (1, 496) = 6.46, p = .011, above and beyond the
effects of those three contributors.
Table 2
Summary of Stepwise Multiple Regression Analysis for Acculturation, Sense of Belonging to
Campus, Sense of Belonging to Classroom, Teacher Credibility, Self-Efficacy, and Instrumental
Help seeking (N=517)
Variable R
2
R
2
Change F F Change

p
Sense of Belonging to Classroom .208 .208 130.93 130.93 .46 .001
Self-Efficacy .238 .030 77.645 19.50 .19 .001
Sense of Belonging to Campus .259 .021 57.938 14.36 .16 .001
Teacher Trustworthiness .269 .010 45.546 6.46 .11 .011*
*Did not meet the Bonferroni Adjustment of p<.008
Executive help seeking. Results of the stepwise statistical analysis with Bonferroni
adjustment revealed two significant predictors (p < .008) for executive help seeking, including
teacher goodwill (  = -.15, t = -3.49, p < .001), and sense of belonging to the classroom (  = .15,
t = 3.12, p < .001), with self-efficacy being close to adjusted significant level (  = -.12, t = -
2.36, p = .019). This suggests that perceiving the professor as caring was the strongest predictor
of executive help seeking among Latino/a community college students, which explained
approximately 2.4 % of the variances, F change (1. 499) = 12.15, p < .001. The next largest
significant predictor, sense of belonging to the classroom, explained an additional 2% of the
variances in students’ executive help seeking behaviors, F change (1, 498) = 10.22, p < .001.
It is interesting to note that self-efficacy explained an additional 1.1 % of the variance in
executive help seeking, F change (1, 497) = 5.554, p = .019, although it did not meet the
adjusted significance level of .008.
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 59

Table 3
Summary of Stepwise Multiple Regression Analysis for Acculturation, Sense of Belonging to
Campus, Sense of Belonging to Classroom, Teacher Credibility, Self-Efficacy, and Executive
Help Seeking (N=517)
Variable R
2
R
2
Change F F Change

p
Teacher Goodwill .24 .024 12.154 12.15 -.15 .001
Sense of Belonging to Classroom .043 .020 11.3 10.22 .15 .001
Self-Efficacy .054 .011 9.453 5.554 -.12 .019*
*Did not meet the Bonferroni Adjustment of p<.008
Formal help seeking. Results of the stepwise statistical analysis with Bonferroni
adjustment revealed two significant predictors (p < .008) for formal help seeking including
teacher competence (  = .23, t = 5.36, p < .001) and self-efficacy ( = .14, t = 2.3, p = .003). This
suggests that the perception of that professor’s competence is the strongest predictor of formal
help seeking among Latino/Latina community college students explaining approximately 5.4%
of the variance, F change (1, 499) = 28.7, p < 001. Self-efficacy also emerged as a predictor of
formal help seeking and explains an additional 1.7% of the variance, F change (1, 498) = 8.88, p
= .003.
Table 4
Summary of Stepwise Multiple Regression Analysis for Acculturation, Sense of Belonging to
Campus, Sense of Belonging to Classroom, Teacher Credibility, Self-Efficacy, and Formal Help
Seeking (N=517)
Variable R
2
R
2
Change F F Change

p
Teacher Competence .054 .054 28.699 28.7 .23 .001
Self-Efficacy .071 .017 19.015 8.88 .14 .003

Help seeking threat. Results of the stepwise statistical analysis with Bonferroni
adjustment (p < .008) for help seeking threat revealed one significant predictor, which is self-
efficacy (  = -.35, t = 8.47, p < .001). This indicates that perceived self-efficacy is the strongest
predictor of help seeking threat among Latino community college students explaining about 13%
of the variance, F change (1, 499) = 71.72, p < .001. It is noteworthy that even though teacher
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 60

trustworthiness did not meet the adjusted significance level of .008, it explained approximately
an additional 1% of the variance, F change (1, 498) = 4.4, p = .037.
Table 5
Summary of Stepwise Multiple Regression Analysis for Acculturation, Sense of Belonging to
Campus, Sense of Belonging to Classroom, Teacher Credibility, Self-Efficacy, and Help Seeking
Threat (N=517)
Variable R
2
R
2
Change F F Change

p
Self-Efficacy .126 .13 71.718 71.72 -.35 .001
Teacher Trustworthiness .133 .01 38.298 4.4 -.09 .037*
*Did not meet the Bonferroni Adjustment of p<.008
Help seeking avoidance. Results of the stepwise statistical analysis with Bonferroni
adjustment revealed two significant predictors (p < .008) for help seeking avoidance, including
self efficacy (  = -.34, t = -7.92, p < .001) and teacher trustworthiness (  -.12, t = -2.72, p =
.007). This suggests that self efficacy is the strongest predictor of help seeking avoidance among
Latino community college students explaining about 14.5% of the variance, F change (1, 499) =
84.69, p < .001. Teacher trustworthiness was another significant predictor of help seeking
avoidance, explaining an additional 1.2% of the variance, F change (1, 498) = 7.37, p = .007).
Table 6
Summary of Stepwise Multiple Regression Analysis for Acculturation, Sense of Belonging to
Campus, Sense of Belonging to Classroom, Teacher Credibility, Self-Efficacy, and Help Seeking
Avoidance (N=517)
Variable R
2
R
2
Change F F Change

p
Self-Efficacy .145 .145 84.693 84.69 -.34 .001
Teacher Trustworthiness .133 .158 46.572 7.37 -.12 .007

Research question two: To address research question two regarding the relationship
among acculturation, sense of belonging, and teacher credibility, correlational analyses among
the four variables were conducted. The mean, standard deviations, and correlations of all the
measured variables are presented in Table 1. Anglo orientation significantly correlated with
sense of belonging to campus, sense of belonging to the classroom, teacher goodwill, and teacher
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 61

trustworthiness. This indicates that Latino community college students who reported higher
levels of acculturation (Anglo orientation), also reported a higher degree of sense of belonging to
both the campus (r = .09, p = .042) and the classroom (r = .134, p = .002), as well as higher
levels of perception of teacher goodwill (r = .115, p = .009) and trustworthiness (r = .087, p =
.048). Mexican cultural orientation significantly correlated with sense of belonging to campus (r
= .187, p < .001), and sense of belonging to the classroom (r = .116, p = .008), as well as with
perceived teacher competence (r = .093, p = .036) and perceived teacher trustworthiness (r =
.107, p = .016). This indicates that students who reported higher levels of enculturation also
reported higher levels of sense of belonging to the campus and to the classroom and perceiving
their professors as more competent and trustworthy.
Sense of belonging to campus significantly correlated with all three indicators of
perceived teacher credibility, teacher competence (r = .139, p = .002), teacher goodwill (r =. 116,
p = .009), and teacher trustworthiness (r = .173, p < .001). This indicates that Latino community
college students who reported higher levels of sense of belonging to campus also reported
perceiving their instructors as competent, caring, and trustworthy. Similarly, sense of belonging
to the classroom significantly correlated with the perceived teacher competence (r = .243, p <
.001), teacher goodwill (r = .322, p < .001, and teacher trustworthiness (r = .298, p < .001). This
indicates that students who feel they belong to the classroom also perceive their professors and
competent, caring, and trustworthy.

HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 62

CHAPTER V: Discussion
The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of psychosociocultural factors as
possible predictors of academic help seeking among Latino community college students, and
thus to extend extant research on help seeking in order to formulate interventions for practice.
More specifically, it sought to investigate the relationship of acculturation, sense of belonging,
teacher credibility, and self-efficacy with help seeking, as help seeking is strongly associated
with academic achievement and thus with student success. In addition, the relationship among
the independent variables was explored.
Results of this study indicate that psychosociocultural, contextual variables, when
considered with self-efficacy together, are significant predictors of help seeking among Latino
community college students. Specifically, sense of belonging, and teacher credibility were shown
to be noteworthy predictors of help seeking among the study’s population. Sense of belonging to
the classroom and to the campus, as well as teacher trustworthiness and goodwill in particular,
emerged as important variables influencing students in seeking help. The following sections of
this chapter provide a summary and discussion of the results, as well as theoretical and applied
implications. Directions for future research will also be discussed.
Summary and Discussion of the Main Findings
Relationships between acculturation, sense of belonging, teacher credibility, and
self-efficacy with help seeking. The results of the present study indicate that
psychosociocultural variables such as sense of belonging and teacher credibility significantly
influence Latino students’ help seeking when self-efficacy is also considered. These findings
continue to validate and they extend research on the importance of considering
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 63

psychosociocultural variables and on the predictive power of self-efficacy when studying
academic help seeking in a college context.
A general compelling finding of this study is that affective psychosociocultural variables
emerged as significant predictors of help seeking, overriding the cognitive variable of self-
efficacy for instrumental help seeking. Specifically, sense of belonging to the classroom emerged
as the strongest influence, which lends support to the notion that there may be contextual,
affective components beyond the belief in one’s abilities that are important to appreciate when
studying help seeking among Latino community college students. This notion is further
supported in that sense of belonging to campus and teacher trustworthiness also emerged as
significant but less important contributors to students’ seeking help. These findings are of
particular interest since the college classroom context has been largely overlooked in empirical
work based on the assumptions that interpersonal interactions in college classrooms were
deemed less important than in the K-12 context and secondly, that there are only few such
interactions in lecture halls. Together with research conducted by Zusho et al. (2007), the results
of the present study challenge this understanding of a postsecondary classroom, especially at the
community college level.
One of the most important findings of this study is that sense of belonging to the
classroom emerged as the strongest predictor of instrumental help seeking and also of executive
help seeking, although to a lesser extent. These findings continue to confirm research conducted
with younger populations (e.g. Goodenow, 1993b; Solomon et al., 1997; Faircloth & Hamm,
2005) and university students (Freeman et al., 2007) that suggests that students who feel part of
the classroom and respected by the teacher and their peers also report higher motivational beliefs
and learning. More specifically, the results of this study support the notion that sense of
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 64

belonging may be a particularly important influence for Latino students. For example,
Goodenow and Grady (1993) found that sense of belonging was highly associated with
motivational beliefs such as expectancy for success among Hispanic middle school students. The
strong association between sense of belonging to the classroom and instrumental help seeking
and to a lesser extent also with executive help seeking in the present study may reflect an
important cultural aspect: since Latino cultures are mostly collectivistic, Latino students may
thus be more likely to embrace communal and affiliative values rather than individualistic and
competitive ones, which in turn may motivate them to seek help (Abi-Nader, 1990).
In addition to classroom belonging, it is further noteworthy that sense of belonging to
campus emerged as a significant influence on instrumental help seeking. This finding continues
to support theoretical and empirical research suggesting that feeling a part of and accepted in a
school or on a university campus positively influences students’ retention, persistence and their
academic performance (e.g. Battistich, et al. 1995; Edman & Brazil, 2007; Freeman et al., 2007;
Hausmann, Schofield, & Wood, 2007; Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Tinto, 1993). This may be
particularly salient for Latino students since they often comprise a minority on campuses with
predominantly white structures and practices (Hurtado & Ponjuan, 2005), which may pose a
challenge to develop a sense of acceptance. This finding also positively points to the fact that
campus climate, faculty-students relations, and student engagement are factors that also matter at
community colleges because they contribute to a sense of belonging. In being mainly commuter
colleges, they often experience greater difficulties in reaching students and maintaining a rich
and consistent student life that could contribute to a sense of campus belonging among its
student population.
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 65

Teacher goodwill emerged as a third variable influencing executive help seeking among
Latino community college students, however, contrary to expectations there was in inverse
relationship. Results show that the more caring a teacher is perceived, the less likely students are
to seek help from them by asking for the answer. A substantial body of literature exists
purporting that teacher support and care are positively associated with motivational and learning
outcomes such as help seeking (.g. Wentzel, 1997; 1998; Newman, 1990; Nelson-Le Gall &
Gumerman, 1984; Ryan, Gheen, & Midgley, 1998; Zusho et al., 2007). However, this result
could be explained in the light of possible face concerns between a Latino student and his or her
professor. Face refers to the favorable social impression that a person wants others to have of
them (Lustig & Koester, 2006). People generally have the need to maintain face in their social
interactions with others, and specifically have a need for admiration, meaning a need for displays
of respect from others (Brown, 1987). Threat to face can be associated with relational affiliation;
in relationships with larger social distance and thus less social familiarity like in a teacher-
student relationship there is greater potential for threat to face (Lustig & Koester, 2006).
Therefore, when students perceive their teacher as caring and understanding, and perceive less
social familiarity with them compared to family members for example, then they rather not ask
their professor for direct answers and ready-made solutions to the problems they are solving,
because they may lose face in terms of respect from them.
A fourth affective psychosociocultural variable that emerged significantly influencing
help seeking is teacher trustworthiness. Interestingly, the results indicate that the more Latino
community college students perceive their teachers as trustworthy, the less threatened they are to
seek help and the less they avoid seeking help. Although there is no empirical research to support
these relationships, trustworthiness has been recognized as a salient characteristic of effective
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 66

teachers (Potter, 2002). Trustworthiness as the degree to which a professor is perceived as honest
(McCroskey, 1998), ethical, and genuine (McCroskey & Teven, 1999) is also connected to
knowledge. Students perceive their teachers as trustworthy in assuming they have academic and
professional credentials (Hare, 2007). It could further be theorized that trustworthiness may
reverberate with the Latino cultural value of confianza. Confianza can be conceptualized as a
”feeling of mutual trust that permeates relationships, based on reciprocal practices establishing
individual obligations” (Harlin & Souta-Manning, 2009, p. 184). Furthermore, confianza must
be developed reciprocally for relationships such as the one between teacher and students to work.
Therefore the results of the present study suggest that when they trust their teachers to be
knowledgeable and when they are able to establish a relationship of trust with their professors,
Latino community college students are less threatened to seek help and less help seeking
avoidant. Instead, they are more likely to seek instrumental help, although the relationship
between teacher trustworthiness and instrumental help seeking was only marginally significant.
On a similar note, the results of the present study suggest that another indicator of teacher
credibility, namely teacher competence, explains students’ seeking help from a formal source.
This continues to confirm previous research positing that students are more likely to ask
questions of the teachers if they perceive them to have adequate knowledge of the subject matter
(e.g. van der Meij, 1988; Nelson-Le Gall & Gumerman, 1984). In addition, Latino community
college students have been found to choose faculty they perceive as experts in their field, and
interactions with these faculty made them feel comfortable to seek help when needed (Zell,
2009).
Although the affective variables of sense of belonging and teacher credibility emerged as
the strongest predictors, the present study reiterates the importance of including self-efficacy
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 67

when studying help seeking among Latino community college students. Indeed, self-efficacy was
a salient predictor of all help seeking outcomes except executive help seeking, which highlights
the notion that the belief in one’s abilities to do well is positively related to seeking instrumental
help from a formal source as well as inversely related to help seeking threat and avoidance. Thus
Latino community college students who felt efficacious were likely to engage in strategic
adaptive behavior and did not experience a threat to self that led to avoiding getting help on
assignments. These results confirm previous studies that have also demonstrated a direct impact
of self-efficacy on adaptive help seeking not only in the K-12 context (e.g. Zimmerman &
Martinez-Pons, 1990; Ryan & Shin, 2011; Newman 1990; 1998) but also among university
students, in that students who reported higher levels of self efficacy were also more likely to seek
instrumental help (Karabenick, 2003) and thus manifest characteristics of self-regulated learners.
Moreover, students who reported to be more efficacious were less likely to avoid help seeking
(e.g. Ryan, Gheen, & Midgley, 1998) and perceived less threat to self (e.g. Ryan & Pintrich,
1998) The consistency of the present results with those in K-12 as well as university populations
suggests to a degree that adaptive help seeking behaviors in terms of instrumental help and help
seeking threat and avoidance show similarities across age and contexts and may also include
Latino community college students.
Relationships among acculturation, sense of belonging, and teacher credibility. The
present study also sought to investigate the relationship between the predictor variables of
acculturation, sense of belonging, and teacher credibility.
Several plausible explanations could be given to explain the positive associations of the
predictor variables. First, both acculturation and enculturation positively correlated with sense of
belonging to campus, to the classroom, and with teacher trustworthiness. Acculturation also
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 68

correlated with teacher goodwill, and enculturation with teacher competence. Thus students who
encompassed change in attitudes, values, and behaviors toward Anglo culture and students who
maintained Latino cultural norms were more likely to feel that they belong to the campus and the
classroom and were more likely to perceive their teachers as trustworthy. These results lend
support to the bidirectional model of acculturation, which suggests that acculturation involves
two major processes: simultaneously adapting to norms of the host culture while maintaining
norms of the heritage culture (Cabassa, 2003; Castillo, Lopez-Arenas, & Saldivar, 2010). In the
present study both acculturation and enculturation contribute to students’ feelings of belonging
and their teacher perceptions, thus supporting the bi-dimensionality of acculturation.
However, students who reported higher levels of acculturation to Anglo culture perceived
their teachers also to be caring, whereas students who had higher Latino cultural orientation
perceived their teachers to be more competent. Although there is no empirical research to
support these findings, it can be theorized that there are cultural differences in the perception of
teachers in their role as an authority. Hofstede (1984) defined power distance as the degree to
which power, prestige, and wealth are unequally distributed in a culture, and he found that Latino
cultures rank high in power distance. In addition, teachers are not only highly respected in the
Latino community (Bartolome, 2004), but also merit the respect of their students, and the teacher
is seen as a source of “wisdom” or knowledge (Hofstede, 1986). In contrast, in small power
distance cultures such as the mainstream U.S. culture, knowledge could be obtained from any
source and the effectiveness of learning is engendered by two-way communication between
teacher and student, who are often seen as equals outside of the classroom. Therefore, teacher
competence may be more salient for students with higher Latino cultural orientation, whereas
teacher caring may appear more important to students with higher Anglo cultural orientation.
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 69

Second, both sense of belonging to the campus and to the classroom were significantly
correlated with all three indicators of teacher credibility, teacher caring, competence, and
trustworthiness. Students who had a higher sense of belonging also perceived their professors as
more credible. Since people’s need to belong in general is so powerful, they are driven to
develop social attachments and aim to initiate and maintain interpersonal relationships even
under difficult circumstances (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). The teacher and student relationship
is central in an educational experience, and teachers are significant agents in making students
feel part of the classroom and the school in general if they foster caring and supportive
relationships with students (Ostermann, 2000). Moreover, it has been found that student-faculty
interactions are particularly important to minority students such as Latino students, and that such
interactions and their perceived quality are significantly related to GPA (Anaya & Cole, 2001;
Cole, 2010). In addition, teachers serve as conduits between students and the institution, and as
institutional agents they have the capacity to transmit directly or negotiate the transmission of
institutional resources and opportunities for students (Stanton-Salazar, 1997). Teachers’
willingness and capability to engender supportive and caring relationships with their students
contribute to the growth of their students’ social network, helping them to navigate a complex
educational system. Such networks in turn serve as conduits to important institutional resources
and engender a feeling of embeddedness or belonging (Stanton-Salazar, Chavez, & Tai, 2001).
Thus teacher characteristics such as caring, competence, and trustworthiness foster supportive
teacher-student relationships which in turn enable students to feel that they belong to the campus
community and their respective classrooms.

HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 70

Implications
The results of this study provide several theoretical and practical implications for
understanding factors contributing to learning and motivation of Latino community college
students and their success. First, the results of the present study provide support for
Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological model of human development, which suggests that human
development does not occur within a single context but rather within a complex and dynamic
ecological system and is a result of the constant interaction between the individual and their
environment. Indeed, the microsystems of classroom, campus and teacher credibility showed to
be highly intercorrelated, thus demonstrating that their interaction comprised a mesosystem for
Latino community college students, which positively influenced their help seeking attitudes and
behaviors. This underscores a main tenet of Bronfenbrenner’s theory, namely that the
simultaneous and complex interaction of various systems influences factors of human
development such as learning and motivation.
Until recently, research on affect influencing help seeking in college classrooms has been
neglected based on the assumptions that the interpersonal context at the college level is less
important than it is for younger learners and that generally little interaction occurs between
students and professors (Zusho et al., 2007). That affective variables taken together emerged as
the strongest predictors on help seeking in this study not only challenges this notion but also
tentatively indicates that affective influences may be particularly salient for Latino community
college students. This was the first study to consider the influence of contextual variables on help
seeking among Latino community college students, and the present results reveal several
implications for practice.
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 71

First, both sense of belonging to campus and to the classroom are crucial for student
success. Sense of belonging to the classroom emerged as the most powerful predictor of help
seeking in this study, a finding that is well supported in the literature across age groups and
contexts (e.g. Arana et al., 2011; Wentzel, 1997; Wentzel et al., 2010; Zusho et al., 2007). When
students sense that they are accepted and supported by their peers and professors alike, that they
establish meaningful relationships with faculty and peers, and that they are part of a supportive
climate, they are more likely to engage in self-regulated learning such as asking for help.
Practical implications resulting from these insights comprise creating affective learning
environments that foster collaboration rather than competition. Research has shown that Latino
students are most successful in classrooms that incorporated social features such as collaborative
learning, mutuality in interpersonal exchanges, and connectedness (Losey, 1995; 1997). Thus
professors teaching at community colleges may want to pay attention to employing teaching
strategies that involve responsiveness to students’ interests and life experiences, open and
friendly interpersonal communication, the promotion of mutual respect, and treating students’
responses as valuable and legitimate contributions in discussions among others (Hall & Walsh,
2002; Patrick, Anderman, & Ryan, 2002). By creating a warm and supportive classroom
environment, professors can significantly contribute to their students’ success.
Literature on educational outcomes for college students confirms overwhelmingly that
having a sense of being part of the college campus and its culture contributes to students’
persistence (e.g. Johnson et al. 2007; Hausmann et al., 2007; Hoffman, et al., 2003) and learning
motivational outcomes (Freeman et. al, 2007). Community colleges, as opposed to 4-year
universities, face unique challenges in designing interventions to increase the sense of belonging
among their students. For example, it has been reported that Latino students had greater sense of
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 72

belonging who lived on campus (Hurtado & Ponjuan, 2005), discussed coursework with other
students outside of class, participated in student organizations, and frequently talked with
professors outside of class (Hurtado & Carter, 1997), which may be more challenging for many
community college students the majority of which are part-time students and have several
responsibilities beside schoolwork. In addition community colleges could increase sense of
belonging to the institution by instituting a college hour, during which faculty, staff, and students
can meet informally.
Both the promotion of sense of belonging to campus and to the classroom involve
effective teachers and teaching strategies. The results of this study showed that sense of
belonging not only predicts help seeking but also significantly correlates with the three
dimensions of teacher credibility, goodwill, competence, and trustworthiness. These findings
continue to show the importance of considering the role and characteristics of teachers when
studying learning and motivation (Newman, 2000) and have practical implications for
community college instruction, especially for Latino students.
Previous research findings underscore the importance of teachers engaging in appropriate
behaviors to increase their students’ perceptions of their credibility. It has been shown that
teacher behaviors such as unfair testing, apathy towards students, delivering boring lectures, or a
lack of knowledge in the subject matter have a negative influence on teacher credibility (Teven,
2007). Moreover, Wheeless et al. (2011) have found that nonverbal immediacy (such as
proximity, appropriate touch, and open posture), enthusiasm, and homophily have contributed
significantly to students’ perceptions of their teacher’s credibility, which in turn increased the
likelihood of student persistence. Latino cultures as high-contact cultures (Hall, 1986) especially
value nonverbal immediacy, interpersonal closeness and prefer collaborative to competitive
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 73

learning environments (Brown, 2008; Cejda & Hoover, 2010-2011), which underscores the
importance of this teaching strategy. Thus, professional development programs should integrate
culturally sensitive training so that teachers can become more effective agents in their students’
success.
Limitations of the Study
Several limitations of this study have to be taken into consideration, including study
design, generalizability, and instrumentation. First, since self-report surveys were used, results of
this study relied on the respondents’ subjective perceptions of their acculturation, sense of
belonging, the credibility of their teachers, and their help seeking attitudes and behaviors. Self-
report surveys are theoretically prone to the issue of social desirability and thus may not reflect
the actual experienced attitudes and behaviors of the respondents. Students may have felt
uncomfortable providing an honest response about their level of acculturation and/or their
perceptions of their schools and teachers and may have preferred responses that they believed
were socially desirable despite the assurance of confidentiality of the data. In addition, the results
of this study are based on correlational analyses, thus causality cannot be claimed.
A second limitation to this study lies in the issue of self-selection bias. Students were
approached to participate in this study by email at two community college campuses. Those who
decided to participate may not comprise a representative sample of the population. The fact that
the survey was proctored in English may have kept respondents with potentially lower levels of
English proficiency from participating. In addition, there were significantly more female than
male participants, 70% and 28% respectively. Since fewer men self-selected for this study, the
results may not paint an entirely accurate picture of the educational needs of Latino students as a
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 74

whole, although some correlational differences between the sexes did emerge in the preliminary
analysis.
Third, the generalizability of the results of the present study should be approached with
caution. Data was collected at two urban community colleges in southern California with not
only diverse student populations but also large Latino populations. Thus it may not be
appropriate to generalize to community college populations in more rural areas or to community
colleges in other areas or states with less campus diversity.
Lastly, a fifth limitation was the instrumentation used in this study. Although the help
seeking scale used was specifically designed for college populations, the scale reliabilities for
two of the subscales were low (.65 for both executive and formal help seeking). In addition, the
scale did not provide a separate subscale for informal help seeking, but rather a single item that
was recoded to be treated as formal help seeking. Especially in researching a student population
that traditionally embraces collectivistic values and may experience high power distance toward
college professors, a reliable measure of help seeking from family and peers would have added
more nuanced results in terms of help seeking source.
Directions for Future Research
The moderate amount of variance accounted for in the analyses of the present study
suggests that there may be other variables that influence help seeking among Latino community
college students. Future studies could consider additional affective contextual variables such as
parent and peer support, but also test additional cognitive contextual variables such as
mastery/performance goal orientation in the classroom, which have been found to influence help
seeking among general populations in both elementary and postsecondary contexts.
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 75

Although acculturation statistically did not emerge as a significant predictor of help
seeking, cultural values may play a role in motivating students to approach faculty and peers to
deal with the ambiguity of an assignment. Future studies that include value measures on the
macro-level such as collectivism and power distance, or on the micro-level such as personalismo
or respeto could provide a more nuanced insight into possible cultural influences in the
classroom.
The present, exploratory study has exclusively looked at a cross-section of Latino
students, thus the current results only tentatively point to possible cultural differences in learning
and motivation among community college students. Empirical studies comparing the influence of
acculturation, sense of belonging to campus and to the classroom, teacher credibility, and help
seeking on help seeking across ethnic groups could provide a more detailed picture of these
relationships. In addition, future research could investigate these relationships using an
experimental design which would increase the validity of the findings.
Finally, an exclusively quantitative approach was used in this study. Qualitative methods
such as interviews or focus groups could provide a more in depth account of how students seek
help, whom they seek out or avoid and why, and what their experiences are seeking help from
various sources on campus. Moreover, students’ accounts of their perceptions of classroom and
campus climates and why they believe they belong to the community or not, would complement
the self-report data. Future research could also include more student record data such as GPA,
socio-economic status generation-status to reduce the reliance on survey measures.
Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to address the paucity of research on learning and
motivation among Latino community college students. Specifically, this study set out to explore
the relationship of psychosociocultural variables on academic help seeking among Latino
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 76

community college students. The results revealed that the affective psychosociocultural variables
taken together explained adaptive help seeking overriding the cognitive variable of self-efficacy.
Sense of belonging and teacher credibility in particular emerged as predictive influences of
Latino students’ help seeking.
Although a large body of research exists on help seeking behavior as an adaptive learning
strategy among a general and mostly elementary student population, very little is known about
what influences community college students’ and specifically Latinos students’ learning and
motivation and if there are ethnic differences among college students’ approach to learning. The
present study provided both researchers and practitioners a unique opportunity to gain insight
into the influence of psychosociocultural variables on help seeking among Latino students, and
tentatively pointed to possible ethnic differences in what motivates students to seek help.
Although Latinos comprise one of the largest ethnic groups enrolled in community
college, they have amongst the lowest completion rates (Moore & Shulock, 2010). Therefore, it
is crucial to understand their unique needs, strengths, and challenges in learning to close the
achievement gap that still exits. As Rueda et al. (2010) point out, colleges need to continue to
investigate sociocultural, motivational, and learning aspects of academic achievement in order to
be able to address different approaches to learning and to create supportive environments
conducive to student success.
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 77

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Appendix A
University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education
INFORMATION SHEET FOR EXEMPT NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH
Sociocultural Predictors of Help-Seeking among Community College Students
You are asked to participate in a research study conducted by Christine Ersig, M. A., and Ruth
H. Chung, Ph.D., from the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California.
The results will contribute to the completion of Christine Ersig's doctoral dissertation. You were
selected as a possible participant in this study because you are a community college student.
Research studies include only people who voluntarily choose to take part. This document
explains information about this study. You should ask questions about anything that is unclear to
you.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this study is to gather information about what influences you when you seek help
in your college classes. The questions you will be asked are about how you feel you belong to
the classroom and your campus, how comfortable you feel with your professors, and your belief
in your ability to succeed as a student. If you volunteer to participate in this study, you will be
asked to complete the following online questionnaire that will take about twenty minutes to
complete. If you are unable to complete the questionnaire in one setting, you may save your
progress and return to the website at a later time.
PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION
By participating in this survey, you are eligible to enter a raffle to win one of three $50 general
gift cards. In order to participate in the raffle, you will need to provide your name and e-mail
address at the end of the survey, which will be stored separately from your survey responses.
You will be notified at the e-mail address you provide us, if you are chosen as a raffle winner. If
you do not respond to the email within one week, another "winner" will be chosen.

CONFIDENTIALITY
Any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can be identified with you
will remain confidential. Information obtained in the survey will only be reported in an
aggregated form without any potentially identifiable descriptions connected to individuals. The
members of the research team and the University of Southern California’s Human Subjects
Protection Program (HSPP) may access the data. The HSPP reviews and monitors research
studies to protect the rights and welfare of research subjects.
INVESTIGATOR CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact Ruth Chung,
Ph.D. at rchung@usc.edu, Christine Ersig, M.A. at ersigmc@piercecollege.edu or
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 96

ersigmar@usc.edu, or call or visit (818) 710-4283, at Pierce College, FO 2805, Woodland Hills,
CA 91371.
IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
University Park Institutional Review Board (UPIRB), 3720 South Flower Street #301, Los
Angeles, CA 90089-0702, (213) 821-5272 or upirb@usc.edu

HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 97

Appendix B
Demographic Information

1. Age ____
2. Sex _____Male _____ Female
3. How many years of education do you have after high school? _____ years
4. What is your racial/ethnic background? Please circle.
⁯Latino ⁯Non-Hispanic White ⁯African American
⁯Asian/Pacific Islander ⁯Middle Eastern ⁯Other _______________
Hispanic
5. In what country were you born? ______________________
6. How long have you lived in the US? ____________ years
7. What generation are you?
____ 1st generation (if you are NOT born in the U.S.)
____ 2nd generation (if you are born in the U.S. but at least 1 parent is not)
____ 3rd generation (if at least one grandparent is born in the U.S.)
____ 4th generation (if at least one great-grandparent is born in the U.S.)
____ above 4
th
generation
8. What is your current GPA? ______

HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 98

Appendix C
ARSMA II Acculturation Scale
Cuéllar, Arnold, and Maldonado (1995)
Instructions: Circle a number between 1-5 next to each item that best applies.
Not at all Very little or Modestly Much or Extremely often or not
very often very often almost always
1 2 3 4 5
1. I speak Spanish.
2. I speak English.
3. I enjoy speaking Spanish.
4. I associate with Anglos.
5. I associate with Mexicans/Mexican Americans.
6. I enjoy listening to Spanish language music.
7. I enjoy listening to English language music
8. I enjoy Spanish language TV.
9. I enjoy English language TV.
10. I enjoy English language movies.
11. I enjoy Spanish language movies.
12. I enjoy reading (e.g. books in Spanish).
13. I enjoy reading (e.g. books in English).
14. I write (e.g. letters in Spanish).
15. I write (e.g. letters in English).
16. My thinking is done in the English language.
17. My thinking is done in the Spanish language.
18. My contact with Mexico has been
19. My contact with the USA has been
20. My father identifies or identified himself as “Mexicano”
21. My mother identifies or identified herself as “Mexicana.”
22. My friends, while I was growing up, were of Mexican origin.
23. My friends, while I was growing up, were of Anglo origin.
24. My family cooks Mexican foods.
25. My friends now are from Anglo origin.
26. My friends now are of Mexican origin.
27. I like to identify myself as an Anglo American.
28. I like to identify myself as a Mexican American.
29. I like to identify myself as a Mexican.
30. I like to identify myself as an American.
*The terms “Mexican” and “Mexicano” were substituted by “Latino,” and Mexico by “home
country”; “Mexican foods” was termed “traditional foods.”
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 99

Appendix D
Sense of Belonging to the Institution
Hurtado and Carter (1997)

Instructions: Use the scale below to answer the following questions. Please indicate the number
that best represents your view on each item.
Strongly disagree Strongly agree
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1. I see myself as part of the campus community.
2. I feel that I am a member of the campus community.
3. I feel a sense of belonging to the campus community.

HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 100

Appendix E
Sense of Belonging to the Classroom
Freeman, Andersen and Jensen (2007)

Instructions: Use the scale below to answer the following questions. Please indicate the number
that best represents your view on this item.

Strongly disagree Strongly agree
1 2 3 4 5

1. I feel like a real part of this class.
2. People in this class notice when I’m good at something.
3. Other students in this class take my opinions seriously.
4. My professor in this class is interested in me.
5. I am included in lots of activities in this class.
6. I can really be myself in this class.
7. People here know I can do good work.
8. Other students here like me the way I am.
9. The professor respects me.
10. I feel proud of belonging to this class.
11. The professor in this class is not interested in people like me.
12. Sometimes I feel as if I don’t belong in this class.
13. I wish I were in a different class.
14. I feel very different from most other students in this class.
15. It is hard for people like me to be accepted in this class.
16. People in this class are friendly to me.
17. I am treated with as much respect as other students.
18. There is at least one person in this class I can talk to if I have a problem.

HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 101

Appendix F
Teacher Credibility
McCroskey and Teven (1999)

Instructions: Please indicate your notion of your professor in this class by circling the appropriate
number between the pairs of adjectives below. The closer the number is to an adjective, the more
certain you are of your evaluation.

Competence

Intelligent 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Unintelligent
Untrained 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Trained
Inexpert 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Expert
Informed 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Uninformed
Incompetent 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Competent
Bright 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Stupid

Goodwill

Cares about me 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Doesn’t care about me
Has my interests at heart 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Doesn’t have my interests at
heart
Self centered 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Not self centered
Concerned with me 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Unconcerned with me
Insensitive 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Sensitive
Not understanding 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Understanding

Trustworthiness

Honest 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Dishonest
Untrustworthy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Trustworthy
Honorable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Dishonorable
Moral 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Immoral
Unethical 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Ethical
Phoney 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Genuine

HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 102

Appendix G

Academic Help Seeking
Karabenick (2003)

Instructions: Use the scale below to answer the following questions. Please indicate the number
that best represents your view on each item.

Not at all true Completely true
1 2 3 4 5

Instrumental Help Seeking

1. If I were having trouble understanding the material in this class I would ask someone
who could help me understand the general ideas.
2. Getting help would be one of the first things I would do if I were having trouble in this
class.

Executive Help Seeking

3. The purpose of asking somebody for help in this class would be to succeed without
having to work as hard.
4. Getting help in this class would be a way of avoiding doing some of the work.

Help Seeking Threat

5. I would feel like a failure if I needed help in this class.
6. I would not want anyone to find out that I needed help in this class.
7. Getting help in this class would be an admission that I am just not smart enough to do the
work on my own.

Help Seeking Avoidance

8. If I didn’t understand something in this class I would guess rather than ask someone for
assistance.
9. Even if the work was too hard to do on my own, I wouldn’t ask for help.
10. I would rather do worse on an assignment I couldn’t finish than ask for help.

Formal versus Informal Help Seeking

11. If I were to seek help in this class I would ask the teacher rather than another student.
12. I would prefer asking another student for help in this class rather than the instructor.
(reverse)
13. In this class, the teacher would be better to get help from than would a student.
HELP SEEKING AMONG LATINO STUDENTS 103

Appendix H

Academic Self-Efficacy
Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, and McKeachie (1991)

Instructions: Use the scale below to answer the following questions. Please indicate the number
that best represents your view on this item.

Strongly disagree Strongly agree
1 2 3 4 5

1. I believe that I will receive an excellent grade in this class.
2. I am certain I can understand the most difficult material presented in the readings of this
course.
3. I am confident that I can understand the basic concepts taught in this course.
4. I am confident that I understand the most complex material presented by the instructor in
this course.
5. I am confident that I can do an excellent job on the assignments and tests in this course.
6. I expect to do well in this class.
7. I am certain I can master the skills being taught in this class.
8. Considering the difficulty of this course, the teacher, and my skills, I think I will do well
in this class.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Ersig-Marcus, Christine (author)

Core Title Psychosociocultural predictors of help seeking among Latino community college students

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education

Publication Date 10/17/2014

Defense Date 08/19/2014

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag help seeking,Latino community college students,OAI-PMH Harvest,self-efficacy,sense of belonging,teacher credibility

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Chung, Ruth (committee chair), Clark, Ginger (committee member), Seli, Helena (committee member)

Creator Email cersig@sbcglobal.net,ersigmar@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-506695

Unique identifier UC11298461

Identifier etd-ErsigMarcu-3019.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-506695 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-ErsigMarcu-3019.pdf

Dmrecord 506695

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Ersig-Marcus, Christine

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA