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Do the perceptions of the usefulness of academic support services influence ethnically diverse students' help-seeking attitudes and behaviors?
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Do the perceptions of the usefulness of academic support services influence ethnically diverse students' help-seeking attitudes and behaviors?
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Content
DO THE PERCEPTIONS OF THE USEFULNESS OF ACADEMIC SUPPORT
SERVICES INFLUENCE ETHNICALLY DIVERSE STUDENTS’
HELP-SEEKING ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS?
by
Ayesha Madni
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
May 2008
Copyright 2008 Ayesha Madni
ii
DEDICATION
For my patient husband, Daniel Kolano, and our unborn baby;
my loving father and stepmother, Azad Madni and Carla Madni;
my loving mother, Beate Lennart;
and my wonderful siblings, Katarina Pavlovic, Aleksander Pavlovic,
Laila Madni, Ashna Madni, and Stefan Pavlovic.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank my chairperson, Dr. Myron Dembo, whose inspiration and guidance
is unparalleled; my dissertation committee members Dr. Sally Raskoff and Dr.
Ginger Clark for their continuous support and time; Dr. Helena Seli for always being
willing to lend a helping hand; my husband, family, and friends for their love and
understanding; and to all who participated and helped me complete this study, I
extend my gratitude.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedication ii
Acknowledgements iii
List of Tables vi
Abstract vii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1
Purpose of the Study 11
Importance of the Study 11
Research Questions 12
Definition of Terms 13
Organization of the Study 16
CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 18
Academic Help-Seeking 20
Why Students Avoid Seeking Help 23
Factors Influencing Academic Help-Seeking in the College Setting 27
Ethnic Differences and Help-Seeking 33
Factors Influencing Differential Help-Seeking Across Ethnic Groups 37
Factors Influencing Help-Seeking Among Asian American Individuals 38
Factors Influencing Help-Seeking Among Latino Individuals 39
Factors Influencing Help-Seeking Among African American Individuals 41
Factors Influencing Help-Seeking Across Ethnic Groups 44
Cultural Congruity and Perceptions of the Academic Environment 46
Self-Worth Theory and Self-Worth Protection 51
Stereotype Threat and Stigma Consciousness 53
Stereotype Threat, Self-Worth Protection, and Help Avoidance 58
General Summary and Conclusion 60
CHAPTER 3: METHODS 63
Research Questions 63
Research Design 64
Population and Sample 65
Instrumentation 67
Procedure and Data Collection 71
Data Analysis 72
v
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS 74
Quantitative Findings 74
Intercorrelations 74
Research Question 1 80
Research Question 2 83
Qualitative Findings 86
CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION 94
Insights and Implications 95
Insights Related to Help-Seeking and Support Services 95
Insights Related to Ethnic Differences 102
Insights Related to Self-Worth Theory 107
Limitations and Recommendations 110
REFERENCES 117
APPENDICES 126
A. Biographical Data 126
B. Cultural Congruity Scale 127
C. University Environment Scale 128
D. Self-Worth Protection Scale 129
E. Help-Seeking Attitudes and Behaviors Instrument 131
F. Informed Consent Form 133
G. Student Support Survey 138
vi
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Means, Standard Deviations, and Pearson Product Correlations for
Measured Variables 75
Table 2: Summary of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Variables Predicting
Help Seeking 85
vii
ABSTRACT
The purpose of the current study was to extend the research on help-seeking
by investigating factors associated with ethnic background that are likely to influence
students’ help-seeking from academic and student support services. Specifically, the
study examined the relationship between students’ perceptions of academic support
services (i.e., cultural congruity, academic environment), their ethnicity, and their
resulting help-seeking behaviors.
A sample of 201 community college students completed a 59-item survey
assessing their perceptions of the academic and student support services (i.e.,
perceptions of cultural congruity, perceptions of academic environment), their self-
worth protective tendencies, and their help-seeking from specified support services
provided at their community college. In addition, the participants completed three
open-ended items assessing their experiences with the support services.
The data demonstrated that there were ethnic differences in terms of students’
perceptions of the academic support services. Specifically, Caucasian students
reported higher cultural congruity than Other students (Russian, Armenian, and
Asian and other-non-White), and Latino students reported more positive perceptions
of the academic environment than Other students (Russian, Armenian, and Asian and
other non-White). However, no differences emerged between Caucasian and Latino
students, and Caucasian and African American students.
viii
While students’ perceptions of the academic support services (i.e., cultural
congruity and the academic environment) and their tendency to protect their self-
worth did not predict help-seeking, students’ knowledge of support services added
variance above and beyond students’ GPA in explaining students’ help-seeking
behaviors. However, students’ perceptions of the academic environment and their
help-seeking were positively correlated, and inverse relationships emerged between
students’ perceptions of cultural congruity and self-worth protection, and similarly,
between students’ perceptions of the academic environment and self-worth
protection. Therefore, future research should re-examine the relationships proposed
in the current study, in addition to further exploring the newfound relationships
between self-worth protection and cultural congruity and perceptions of the
academic environment.
1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
In the United States, disturbing gaps exist among different ethnic and
socioeconomic groups when it comes to academic performance and educational
participation and attainment (NCES, 2005). Specifically, it is well documented that
African American and Latino students are achieving lower academically than White
and Asian American students (Kao & Tienda, 1998; Ream, 2003; Roval, Gallinen,
Jr., Wighting, 2005; Van Laar, 2001). Researchers have long pondered and
investigated factors to explain this achievement gap; including inequities and
discrimination in academic policy and structures (Solorzano, Villalapando &
Osegura, 2005), stereotype threat (Cohen, 2005), low instructor expectations (Roval
et al., 2005) and unequal funding and lack of resources (Denbo, 2002).
This achievement gap is particularly pronounced within the urban community
college setting. This is one reason why it is important to investigate this problem at
the community college level. Community colleges have low tuition, open-door
policies, and several resources, programs, and services to help students in their
academic career (Bailey et al., 2004). These factors have contributed to an
educational environment with a large population of underprepared students;
however, these students have the opportunity to take advantage of ample and varied
academic support. Research specifically indicates that African American and Latino
students are not as academically prepared as students from other ethnic groups when
2
they initially attend community college (Roval, et al., 2005; Solorzano et al., 2005).
Moreover, this achievement gap continues to persist throughout their community
college career. As a result, these students suffer from other negative consequences
such as lower transfer rates to four-year universities and lower retention rates
(Solorzano et al., 2005; Roval et al., 2005).
According to the California Community College Chancellor’s Office (2005)
success rates; of the African American and Latino students who were eligible to
transfer, only 54.8 percent of African American and 61.7 percent of Latino students
transferred to four-year universities. White and Asian American students, on the
other hand, transferred at the rates of 70.85 and 72.11 percent, respectively.
Moreover, African American and Latino students were retained at the rates of 77.21
and 81.43 percent, respectively, while White and Asian American students had
retention rates of 85.11 and 83.30 percent, respectively (CCCCC, 2005). Clearly, a
key educational problem that needs to be addressed is how African American and
Latino students can enhance their academic performance and participation such that
they have an equal opportunity to achieve their career goals.
One of the main factors that can contribute to increasing the academic
performance and participation of ethnic minority students as well as other students
within the community college setting is their use of academic support services
(Collins & Sims, 2006). There are several different types of support services
available on a community college campus including psychological and academic
3
counseling. However, academic support services focus primarily on enhancing
students’ academic skill and competence, while also promoting student awareness
about academic support resources; such as math, reading and writing centers,
tutoring services, academic advising, assessment services, study groups, and various
other academic programs (Collins & Sims, 2006). The main purpose of these
services is to serve students’ needs, and especially the needs of those students who
are underprepared or who have difficulty adjusting to the academic environment
(Collins & Sims, 2006).
Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC), the urban community college context
investigated as part of the present research effort, offers students a wide variety of
academic support including but not limited to: a math, writing and reading center; a
learning center, which offers general tutoring and resources on a self-paced,
individualized basis; the Puente program, which offers counseling, mentoring and
special writing classes for Mexican-American/Latino students planning to transfer to
a four-year college or university; the TRIO program, which serves to increase the
retention and transfer of students who are first generation college students, have low
income, and/or are disabled; a transfer alliance program which offers highly
motivated students the opportunity to enhance their academic competence as they
prepare to transfer; and several other academic, personal and career counseling and
support services (LAVC Student Handbook, 2006).
4
The three main goals of most support programs are to: find ways to motivate
students to seek help when they are struggling and in need; inform students of
resources available at their respective institution; and promote students to be
independent and self-regulated (Collins & Sims, 2006). In fact, individuals working
within community college support services have a unique opportunity to facilitate
both student retention and success by assessing students’ self-regulation, and
subsequently providing them with the requisite skills and psychological
understanding to manage their academic lives (VanSile-Tamsen, 2002; Lapan,
Karadash, & Turner, 2002). Thus, by seeking help from appropriate academic
support services, students can learn various academic skills that can improve their
performance, while also reducing their stress and anxiety associated with educational
demands.
In fact, previous research investigating academic help-seeking has clearly
demonstrated the usefulness and effectiveness of academic support services to
students’ performance, learning outcomes and attitudes. For instance, Hendriksen,
Yang, Love and Hall (2005) sought to determine whether a specific community
college learning center was attaining its goals of improving student learning
outcomes: 1) to help students meet the demands of academic college level
coursework, 2) to help students succeed and graduate, and 3) to help students
develop self-awareness, self-direction, and self-confidence. These goals and student
learning outcomes were measured by the degree to which; 1) high-risk tutored
5
students passed their tutored course at the same rate as non-tutored students, 2) high-
risk tutored students re-enrolled at the same rate as non-tutored students, and 3) high-
risk students demonstrated independent application of learning strategies. Findings
revealed that the learning center was successful in attaining these goals, and
therefore also successful in positively influencing student learning outcomes.
Similarly, Gribbons and Dixon (2001) examined the tutoring services at a
particular Southern California Community College. Research findings indicated that
students who received tutoring services outperformed students who did not
regardless of the amount of tutoring with respect to retention and success rates.
Findings further revealed that the differences in outcome measures could be
particularly attributed to motivational differences indicating that students who
receive tutoring are likely to experience enhanced motivation which in turn
influences their success, retention rates, and their learning outcomes. Perin (2004)
performed a qualitative case study of 15 community colleges across the country
specifically seeking to understand the ways in which learning assistance centers help
increase student academic preparedness. All of the school sites had at least one
learning center, offered tutoring, and had students from both college-credit and
developmental education courses taking advantage of the services offered. While a
determination of student learning outcomes was beyond the scope of the
investigation, findings indicated that students who paid more than six visits to the
learning center had higher GPAs than those students who paid fewer visits.
6
However, despite the apparent benefits of academic support services to
students’ academic achievement, research indicates that students who experience
coping and academic difficulties and consequently need help, tend to seek help the
least (Alexitch, 2002; Karabenick & Knapp, 1988; Ryan, Gheen, & Midgley, 1998).
Research on help-seeking within the classroom has identified three main reasons for
student failure to seek help: help-seeking is perceived as a dependent behavior which
conflicts with the need for autonomy (Ryan, Shim, & Patrick, 2005); help-seeking is
perceived as evidence of incompetence and, therefore, a threat to ability perceptions
(Butler, 1998); and the mistaken belief that help seeking will not be effective (i.e.,
there is no competent and willing helper who can provide assistance or seeking help
will take to long) (Ryan et al., 2005).
A plethora of studies have identified and investigated motivational and
classroom factors that predict help-seeking behaviors. With respect to classroom
factors, research findings indicate that when students perceive the classroom to have
a mastery goal structure (i.e., a focus on learning and improvement) as opposed to a
performance goal structure (i.e., a focus on competition and grades); they are more
likely to seek help (Karabenick, 2004; Ryan, Pintrich, & Midgley, 2001). With
respect to motivational factors, research findings indicate that students who have
high self-efficacy (i.e., confidence about ability to perform a specific task) tend to
seek the help they need in the face of failure, whereas students with low efficacy
tend to avoid seeking help due to the fact that they believe others will attribute their
7
failure to lack of ability (Ryan, et al., 1998). Moreover, Karabenick (2004) found
that students with a mastery goal orientation (i.e., focused on mastering material)
tend to seek more help than students with a performance goal orientation (i.e.,
focused on grades and outperforming others), because performance oriented students
tend to perceive help-seeking as threat to both their ability and independence.
Similarly, Alexitch (2002) found that students who were performing poorly
academically were less likely to approach their instructors, peers, and student
services for help when they perceived help-seeking as a threat to their self-worth.
Research on motivational factors further indicates that students who make
failure attributions (i.e., explanations for failure outcomes) to effort (internal,
controllable) or external factors, such as classroom conditions, tend to engage in
more adaptive behaviors, such as help-seeking, than students who make failure
attributions to ability (Ames & Lau, 1982; Grant & Dweck, 2001; Holschuh, Nist, &
Olejnik, 2001). In fact, a limited body of research investigating ethnic differences
and attributions has indicated that across the various ethnic groups, students tend to
make failure attributions to effort, while African American students also tend to
make external attributions (Bempechat, Nakkula, Wu, & Ginsburg, 1996; Mooney &
Thornton, 1999; Van Laar, 2001). However, despite these findings, research
indicates that the academic performance of African American and Latino students
tends to be lower than for students from other ethnic groups (i.e., White and Asian
8
American) (Roval, et al., 2005; Solorzano et al., 2005); suggesting that they might
not seek help as readily as other students.
As a result, it is likely that other factors beyond motivational and classroom
factors are mediating the help-seeking attitudes and behaviors of these students.
According to Dupey, Maples, and Oaks (2006) advising students depends to a large
extent on their cultural and ethnic background, particularly since many colleges in
the United States were established with White, middle or upper class students in
mind. As such, the educational environment might be less conducive for ethnically
diverse students. In fact, only a few studies examining academic help seeking have
considered how ethnic differences and factors associated with student ethnicity
might mediate student perceptions and, subsequently, influence students’ likelihood
of seeking help from academic support.
Fortunately, there is an extensive body of research on this relationship within
the realm of mental health services and professional psychological counseling. This
research has demonstrated that there are differences in help-seeking attitudes and
perceptions as a result of ethnic identity and background, and particularly that
Caucasian individuals tend to have more positive help-seeking attitudes and utilize
services more and in more adaptive ways than Asian American, Latino, and African
American individuals (Bin Sheu & Sedlacek, 2004; Davidson, Yakushka, & Sanford-
Martens, 2004; Kearney, Draper, & Baron, 2005; Kuo, Kwantes, Towson, &
Nanson, 2006; Leong, Wagner, & Tata, 1995; Morgan, Ness, & Robinson, 2003).
9
This body of research further indicates that Asian American, Latino, and African
American students tend to underutilize psychological counseling as a result of lack
of cultural congruity (i.e., degree of value similarity and cultural “fit” with the
university system) (Gloria, Hird, & Navarro, 2001; Miville & Constantine, 2006),
and negative perceptions of the college environment (Ayalon & Young, 2005;
Chiang, Hunter, & Yeh, 2004; Miville & Constantine, 2006).
Specifically, with respect to perceptions of the college environment, research
has indicated that ethnic minority students are less likely to seek professional
psychological help and have negative help-seeking attitudes when they perceive the
environment to be hostile and discriminatory, and specifically when the environment
has salient stigmas (i.e., stereotypes) associated with the ethnic group (Ayalon &
Young, 2005; Chiang, Hunter, & Yeh, 2004; Leong et al., 1995; Miville &
Constantine, 2006; Walton & Cohen, 2007). With respect to cultural congruity,
research indicates that when the worldview or the value orientation of the ethnic
group does not match the worldview or the value orientation of the “helper,” they
have more negative attitudes toward help-seeking, perceive more affective and value
orientation barriers to help-seeking, and are less likely to perceive the help to be
effective and useful (Ayalon & Young, 2005; Leong & Lau, 2001; Paris et al., 2005).
Similarly, acculturation level has also been found to be a salient predictor in
the help-seeking of Latino and Asian American students, such that both ethnic
groups are less likely to seek help the lower their degree of immersion into the
10
mainstream culture (Liao, Rounds, & Klein, 2005; Paris et al., 2005). More
specifically, both ethnic match and language match have been found to predict the
help-seeking behaviors of Latino individuals (Paris et al., 2005; Stanton-Salazar,
Chavez, & Tai, 2001), while ethnic match has been found to influence the help-
seeking of Asian American (Leong & Lau, 2001) and African American individuals
(Parham & Brown, 2003).
The relationship between students’ perceptions and their subsequent help-
seeking behavior becomes particularly more problematic when student perceptions
of the environment make salient their ethnic and cultural “differences” (Gloria et al.,
2001), and stereotypes about their ethnic group (Steele, 1997). In this case, students
might avoid seeking help in an attempt to disconfirm views and stereotypes about
their ethnic group, and to further protect their own sense of self-worth and self-image
(Alexitch, 2002; Gloria et al., 2001; Steele, 1997). According to Covington’s (1984)
self-worth model, students will engage in various strategies to protect their self-
worth when they perceive it to be threatened. In the case of ethnic students’
utilization of academic support services, help avoidance might in fact be one such
strategy. Therefore, it is particularly important to decipher how students from
various ethnic groups perceive academic support services, and whether their
perceptions of support services offered encourage or impede their help-seeking
behaviors.
11
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the current study is to examine the relationship between
students’ perceptions of academic support services, their ethnicity, and their resulting
help-seeking behaviors. Previous research has specifically indicated that the most
salient factors likely to influence the proposed relationship based on ethnic identity
and background are cultural congruity and perceptions of the school environment
(Ayalon & Young, 2005; Gloria et al., 2001; Miville & Constantine, 2006). As such,
the current investigation will utilize these constructs to examine whether students
from various ethnic groups have divergent perceptions of academic support services,
and whether these perceptions ultimately influence their help-seeking differentially.
Importance of the Study
This study will extend the research on help-seeking by investigating how
students’ ethnic background and their perceptions of academic support services
affect their help-seeking behaviors. As a result, the current effort can produce
recommendations for the type of support and help that should be provided from
various academic counseling services within the community college setting.
Moreover, examining the research questions proposed below will provide insight
into what pertinent interventions and changes need to take place and how academic
support services can adapt to and accommodate students from various ethnic groups
such that they are likely to elicit help. While there is a large body of research
addressing the help-seeking behaviors and perceptions of various ethnic groups with
12
respect to psychological and emotional help, this type of research is lacking with
respect to academic help-seeking. Therefore, the current investigation will address a
pertinent piece of this gap in knowledge. Specifically, the following research
questions are proposed to guide the current investigation.
Research Questions
1. Do students of various ethnic groups have divergent perceptions of
student/academic support services?
2. Is there a relationship between students’ perceptions of the academic
environment, their perceptions of cultural congruity, their ethnicity, their
tendency to protect their self-worth, and their help-seeking from academic
and student support services?
Figure 1 presents the relationship among variables proposed in the current
study. The afore-mentioned questions are important to examine, as the answers to
these questions can impact several aspects of academic support services within urban
community colleges. First, the answers to these questions can provide insight into
whether various ethnic groups have divergent perceptions of support services and
specifically whether these divergent perceptions result in different patterns of help-
seeking. This information can be further utilized as guidelines to influence various
student ethnic groups to seek help from academic support services, as well as a
means to provide targeted support that is sensitive to student needs and ethnic
differences. Lastly, the understanding gained with respect to various ethnic groups
13
Figure 1. Relationship Among Variables
can be further exploited in determining interventions or strategies useful in aiding
students in the transfer process and, ultimately, contribute to narrowing the persisting
achievement gap.
Definition of Terms
Perception of college environment: the university environment consists of certain
social and cultural conditions, including practices, policies, and behaviors that
constitute the working and learning environment. Students’ perceptions of this
environment constitute the degree to which students feel that the school
environment, including its social and cultural conditions, practices, and policies; is a
help-seeking
ethnicity
Predictor Variables (X) Outcome Variables (Y)
A. Direct Effects
B. Mediated Effects
perceptions
of services
help-seeking
perceptions
of services
RQ 1:
RQ 2:
self-worth
protection
Mediator Variables (Z)
RQ 2:
perceptions
of services
Predictor Variables (X)
Outcome Variables (Y)
ethnicity
help-seeking
ethnicity
Predictor Variables (X) Outcome Variables (Y)
A. Direct Effects
B. Mediated Effects
perceptions
of services
help-seeking
perceptions
of services
RQ 1:
RQ 2:
self-worth
protection
Mediator Variables (Z)
RQ 2:
perceptions
of services
Predictor Variables (X)
Outcome Variables (Y)
ethnicity
14
comforting and non-discriminatory place (Castillo et al., 2006; Miville &
Constantine, 2006). Student perceptions of the college environment are influenced
by factors such as the campus climate and student perceptions of barriers to their
academic performance (e.g., discrimination and stereotype threat) (Brown &
Dobbins, 2004; Reid & Radhakrishnan, 2003; Walton & Cohen, 2007)
Stereotype threat: refers to the condition of being at risk of confirming as self-
characteristic a negative stereotype about a group to which one belongs (Steele,
1997). Previous research has clearly established that students under stereotype threat
conditions perform significantly lower, display more negative academic behaviors,
and experience more anxiety and worry than students who are not part of the
stereotyped group (Cadinu, Maass, Lombardo, & Frigerio, 2004; Gonzales, 2002;
Mayer & Hanges, 2003; Osborne, 2001; Steele & Aronson, 2000)
Self-worth protection: refers to the conscious effort of students to disengage,
withdraw effort, and create impediments to their performance when they perceive
that their self-worth is threatened, so that their performance is not reflective of their
ability, but instead their lack of effort, thereby protecting their sense of self-worth
(Covington, 1998).
Ethnicity: in the current study ethnicity will be defined as a marker of culture that is
central to the formation of identity and culture. Since the conceptions of race and
ethnicity are continuously transforming and are used interchangeably within the
research, research addressing race and ethnicity will be utilized in the current
15
investigation (Cauce et al., 2002). Thus, to distinguish between ethnic groups the
following distinctions based on the U.S. Census will be used: White European
American/Caucasian, African American, Asian American/Pacific Islander, Native
American, and Latino/Hispanic.
Cultural congruity: the degree to which individuals feel that they have value
similarity and culturally “fit” into their surroundings (e.g., college campus) (Gloria et
al., 2001). Cultural congruity is influenced by students’ acculturation level, their
value orientation, and other barriers to their academic performance (e.g., language
barriers, ethnic match) (Ayalon & Young, 2005; Leong & Lau, 2001; Paris et al.,
2005).
Help-seeking: a social interactive self-regulatory strategy that can be manifested as
either maladaptive (i.e., executive help and help avoidance) or adaptive behaviors
(i.e., instrumental help) (Ryan et al., 1998). Instrumental help involves assistance
such as prompts, hints, clarifications and examples necessary for students to
complete tasks independently, whereas executive help assists students in solving
immediate problems by providing solutions and answers to problems (Sigmund,
2006). These types of help are synonymous with developmental and prescriptive
advising in that developmental advising encourages the development of
independence and decision-making skills in the student, and prescriptive advising
has an emphasis on outcome with advice being directive, unidirectional, concrete,
and short-term oriented (Alexitch, 2006).
16
Organization of the Study
Chapter 1 of this study presented a brief introduction and overview of the
issues and problems related to the persisting achievement gap between various
student ethnic groups. Students’ usage of academic support services was discussed
as a potential solution to contribute to closing this gap in achievement. The concept
of help-seeking was discussed as it relates to academic support services, and various
motivational and cultural factors that influence help-seeking were identified. It was
further established that gaps in research exist with respect to ethnic differences and
academic help-seeking, which culminated in the purpose of the study, the guiding
research questions to be answered, and the importance of the current investigation.
Finally, relevant terms that will be addressed throughout the literature review were
identified and defined.
Chapter 2 is a review of the relevant literature related to the present research
topic. The review includes the following main topics 1) academic help-seeking, 2)
ethnic differences and help-seeking, 3) students’ perceptions including stereotype
threat, and 4) self-worth protection. These topics will be reviewed in an integrative
fashion, supporting the notion that students’ ethnic background and culture mediates
their perceptions and subsequently their motivation and help-seeking behaviors.
Chapter 3 presents the methodology employed in the current investigation,
including the research design; sample and sampling procedures, instrumentation and
reliability and validity information, and the procedures for data collection and
17
statistical analysis. Chapter 4 presents the results of the current investigation,
followed by a discussion and analysis of the results in chapter 5, ultimately
culminating in conclusions and recommendations for future research and practice.
18
CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
Chapter 1 of this dissertation established that seeking help from academic
support services is clearly an adaptive and advantageous strategy that contributes to
students’ academic achievement. However, previous research has indicated that
ethnic minority students, specifically African American and Latino students, are not
only underperforming as compared to Caucasian and Asian American students, but
are also likely to seek less academic help than these students (Kao & Tienda, 1998;
Ream, 2003; Roval et al., 2005; Ryan et al., 2001; Van Laar, 2001). In an effort to
develop a more complex understanding of the help-seeking behaviors of ethnically
diverse student populations, the main purpose of the current literature review is to
gain insight into what factors are most likely to influence students to seek help from
academic support services. Therefore, the following review of literature will proceed
to first examine the nature and process of academic help-seeking; including why
students might avoid seeking help, followed by previous research findings on how
specific motivational factors such as goal orientation, classroom goal structure,
attributions, and self-efficacy are likely to influence student help-seeking.
The second section of this review will present literature on ethnic differences
and help-seeking drawing specifically on research from the areas of professional
psychological counseling and mental health services. It is imperative to explore this
body of research as part of the current literature review, as studies on academic help-
19
seeking are limited with respect to ethnic differences. However, the vast body of
research within professional psychological counseling includes ample research and
evidence of ethnic differences and help-seeking behaviors. Therefore, it is pertinent
to review this literature to inform and provide an understanding of the differences
that might exist among various ethnic groups in regards to their perceptions of the
help-seeking process and the factors that might influence it, and also to determine to
what extent this research on psychological help-seeking can be applied within the
educational setting.
The final section of this critique will focus specifically on constructs that
have been examined and found to influence students’ help-seeking and their
perceptions about help-seeking from counseling services across ethnic groups.
These constructs include students’ perceptions of the academic environment and
students’ perceptions of cultural congruity with the academic environment (Gloria et
al., 2001; Miville & Constantine, 2006). As research on these variables in relation to
help-seeking is limited, these constructs will also be explored as they relate to
students’ persistence behaviors. Subsequently, Covington’s (1984) self-worth theory
will be discussed as it explains how self-worth protection is the underlying motive in
help avoidance. The notion of stereotype threat/stigma consciousness will also be
discussed as it is a self-perception that is likely to become salient should students
perceive an environment to be negative or perceive themselves to be different or not
fit in within their surrounding environment (Major & O’Brien, 2005). The review
20
will culminate in an integration of help avoidance, self-worth protection, and
stereotype threat/stigma consciousness to provide a potential explanation for why
ethnic minority students, and specifically African American and Latino students
might avoid seeking academic help from academic support services.
Articles used in the development of this literature review were obtained by
conducting a comprehensive search of the PsycINFO and ERIC online research
databases. The keywords utilized in this search include various combinations of the
following terminology: ethnic differences, cultural differences, cultural factors,
cultural barriers, perceived barriers, help-seeking, achievement motivation, academic
advising, academic support, community college, stereotype threat, stigma, campus
climate, university environment, discrimination, cultural congruity, acculturation,
help avoidance, and self-worth.
Literature Review
Academic Help-Seeking
Within the academic setting, research has provided consistent support for the
importance of help-seeking to student performance (Ames & Lau, 1982; Karabenick
& Knapp, 1991; Herndon, Kaiser, & Creamer, 1996; Karabenick, 2003; Collins &
Simms, 2006). The importance of help-seeking stems specifically from the fact that
it is recognized as a social-interactive, self-regulatory behavior that positively
influences students’ overall academic achievement (Volet & Karabenick, 2006). In
fact, previous studies on academic help-seeking have demonstrated that help-seeking
21
from formal sources (i.e., academic support services and faculty) and informal
sources (i.e., peers and family) leads to positive student outcomes, such as positive
attitudes, increased self-efficacy and interest, and increased student learning
(Gribbons & Dixon, 2001; Hendriksen et al., 2005; Karabenick, 2003; Sigmund,
2006). Essentially, help-seeking is an act of effort, where the student is actively
using available resources to increase the probability of success in the future (Ames &
Lau, 1982). Moreover, research indicates that help-seeking is directly related to
cognitive, metacognitive and resource management learning strategies (Karabenick
& Knapp, 1991), and academic performance and independence (Herndon et al.,
1996; Karabenick, 2004)
The process of help-seeking involves multiple stages. These stages include;
the awareness of a need for help, the decision to seek help, the identification of
potential helper(s), implementation of strategies to elicit help, and finally, the
evaluation of the help-seeking episode (Ryan, Pintrich, & Midgley, 2001).
According to researchers, the most critical junction of the help-seeking process is the
decision to seek help, because this is the step where students take into consideration
their need to seek help, the cost of seeking help, their reasons and motivation for
seeking help, and the availability and nature of resources and helpers, and based on
the analysis of these factors implement their help-seeking strategy or not (Aleven,
Stahl, Schworm, Fischer, & Wallace, 2003; Ryan et al., 2001).
22
Depending on students’ motivation and reasons for seeking help, their help-
seeking can also manifest in either adaptive or maladaptive behaviors. Essentially,
research indicates that students can have either appropriate, avoidant or dependent
help-seeking tendencies (Ryan et al., 2005). Appropriate help-seeking involves
students’ seeking help that contributes to their skill development, avoidant help-
seeking involves students’ tendency to not ask for help even when they know they
need it, and dependent help-seeking involves asking for help that will solve an
immediate problem (Ryan et al., 2005). Students who have appropriate help-seeking
tendencies tend to ask for instrumental help (i.e., assistance in the form of prompts,
hints, clarifications and examples that helps students complete tasks independently),
whereas, students with dependent help-seeking tendencies tend to desire executive
help (i.e., assists students in solving immediate problems by providing solutions and
answers) (Sigmund, 2006). `
Research findings further indicate that students who engage in instrumental
help-seeking become more competent and independent learners and, as a result, more
self-regulated and metacognitively aware, which further influences their help-
seeking awareness (Karabenick, 2004; Sigmund, 2006). Moreover, instrumental
help-seeking also maintains students’ interest in and persistence on tasks (Collins &
Sims, 2006). In contrast, students who engage in executive help-seeking limit their
future independence and competence, because they are not challenged to learn or
23
come up with solutions or problem-solving approaches on their own (Collins &
Sims, 2006).
Based on the foregoing, it is apparent that help-seeking in general, and
instrumental help-seeking in particular is an adaptive self-regulatory strategy that
results in positive student outcomes, such as increased learning through the
implementation of appropriate metacognitive and learning strategies resulting in
increased academic performance and independence. However, despite the benefits
of help-seeking, many students do not seek help when they need it. As a result,
researchers have sought to determine what factors predict students’ help avoidance.
The following section reviews salient research related to why students do not seek
help.
Why Students Avoid Seeking Help
Several students, particularly underprepared and at-risk students, tend not to
seek help when they need it, putting themselves at a significant learning
disadvantage (Ryan, et al., 2001). Karabenick and Knapp (1988) examined the need
for academic assistance and students’ help-seeking in a university setting and found
that there is a curvilinear relationship between help-seeking and need for academic
assistance. Specifically, help-seeking frequency increases as student need decreases
from low to moderate, and then decreases for students with high need for assistance.
Simply put, students who need help the most are less likely to seek help, whereas
students who have a low to moderate need for assistance tend to seek the most help.
24
The process of help-seeking is clearly a proactive behavior; however,
successfully seeking help comes with a cost. While seeking help may be necessary
to improve students’ likelihood of future success resulting in enhanced self-worth, it
may also threaten self-worth because seeking help confirms lack of competence and
demonstrates inferiority and dependence on others (Ames & Lau, 1982; Butler,
1998; Ryan, et al., 2005; Sharma & Aradhana, 2000). Moreover, help-seeking is a
social interaction and as such students’ perceptions of their ability to relate to others
also influences their feelings about how they will be perceived when they ask for
help (Ryan & Pintrich, 1997). As such, the decision to seek help is subject to a cost-
benefit analysis. Essentially, when the cost of help-seeking is perceived to be higher
than the benefit of help-seeking, students are likely to avoid seeking help (Volet &
Karabenick, 2006). This behavior becomes particularly salient in the case of
disadvantaged and underprepared students, because the need for help is most
threatening to these low-achieving students (Ryan, et al., 2001).
Sharma and Aradhana (2000) sought to determine the role that perceived
threat to self-worth plays in the help-seeking process by examining the difference in
the amount of help-seeking under conditions of anonymity and identifiability and
internal and external need attribution. In the identifiability condition, participants
were required to provide personal information about themselves, such as name and
address, whereas in the anonymity condition participants were not required to
provide any type of personal information. Moreover, in the external locus of need
25
condition, participants were made to believe through instruction that the task they
were engaging in was difficult. On the other hand, in the internal locus of need
condition, participants were made to believe that the task was easy. Findings
demonstrated that more help was sought in the anonymous than the identifiability
condition, and when the need attribution was external as opposed to internal, thereby,
confirming the hypothesis that individuals prefer to seek help when they are allowed
the safety of anonymity because it is perceived as less threatening to their self-worth
(Sharma & Aradhana, 2000).
In addition to the psychosocial reasons for help-avoidance identified above,
students might also have various practical and expedient concerns that keep them
from seeking help. First, it might not be practical or feasible to ask for help in a
given situation due to explicit rules or norms against help-seeking (Ryan et al.,
2001). For instance, a particular instructor might encourage questions at the end of a
particular discussion or topic, or students might be encouraged to work
independently on a project and only ask questions as a last resort. As such, students
might avoid asking for help to prevent from getting in trouble. As stated earlier,
students might also refrain from seeking help because they believe that asking for
help will not be useful or effective, either due to the fact that they perceive there to
be no competent or willing helper who can assist them, or because they believe that
the help-seeking session will be too time-consuming (Butler, 1998; Ryan et al.,
2001).
26
Ryan and Pintrich (1997) specifically sought to determine the association of
perceptions of benefits and threats on the help-seeking behavior of adolescents in
math classrooms. The findings demonstrated that students who were insecure or
unsure of themselves, both cognitively and socially, were more likely to feel
threatened when asking their peers for help and also more likely to avoid seeking
help altogether. Moreover, students who felt that there were benefits to help-seeking
were more likely to seek adaptive help and less likely to avoid seeking help. In
addition, students who were mastery-oriented and concerned with developing their
competence were more likely to view help seeking as a useful strategy. However,
students who were performance-oriented and concerned with demonstrating ability
or gaining rewards were more likely to view help seeking as a threat due to the
perception that it evokes negative judgments and reactions from others (Ryan &
Pintrich, 1997).
The above section reviewed research on help avoidance and illustrated that
students who need help the most tend to seek help the least for both psychosocial and
practical reasons. First, students tend to avoid seeking help due to the fact that help-
seeking is a display of inferiority, dependence, and incompetence, and as such a
threat to self-worth. Moreover, students have a tendency toward help avoidance
when they believe that help-seeking will not be useful, and when they do not
perceive there to be any competent and willing helpers available. As a result,
researchers have sought to determine what factors might influence students’ help-
27
seeking behaviors to provide insight into what educators might do to influence help
avoiders to seek help. The following section specifically reviews recent research on
factors that influence academic help-seeking within the college classroom and
setting.
Factors Influencing Academic Help-Seeking in the College Setting
Most studies on academic help-seeking have primarily focused on younger
learners in K-12 settings (e.g., Butler, 1998; Newman, 1990, 1998; Newman &
Goldin, 1990; Ryan, et al., 1998; Ryan & Pintrich, 1997; Ryan, et al., 2005),
however, a smaller body of research has addressed various factors that predict
academic help-seeking behaviors within the college setting. While most of these
studies have focused primarily on motivational and classroom factors, and clearly
established the importance of motivation in the help-seeking process, these studies
have not taken into account student ethnicity and other factors related to ethnicity
that might differentially affect help-seeking behaviors or student perceptions of help-
seeking situations and contexts. Moreover, several of these studies have investigated
university classrooms as the main help-seeking context, but are limited with respect
to other potentially important contexts, such as academic support services and urban
community college settings.
Ames and Lau (1982) specifically examined university students’ decisions to
seek help as a function of attributions for prior level of performance and the
availability of information about potential usefulness of help sessions. The
28
investigators assessed the attendance rate of students utilizing the help sessions prior
to a major exam, and found that the students most likely to seek help were those
students who had performed poorly in the past, who attributed their performance to
factors that could be remediated by academic help, and who had received positive
information about the usefulness of help sessions. On the other hand, students who
did not attend help sessions tended to make help-irrelevant, external attributions, and
used those attributions as an excuse for poor performance.
Similarly, Karabenick and Knapp (1991) investigated help-seeking and
achievement behavior in university students, and found that students’ prospect of
poor performance was directly related to their likelihood of engaging in instrumental
help-seeking activities; particularly from formal sources (e.g., support services).
Results further indicated that students with high self-esteem were more likely to seek
help when it was needed than students with low self-esteem. Moreover, findings
revealed that students who are in need of academic assistance tend to use less
learning strategies, whereas students who tend to seek more help, and in particular
instrumental help, tend to employ more cognitive, metacognitive and resource
management learning strategies (Karabenick & Knapp, 1991).
More recent studies have also examined students’ academic help-seeking in
higher education. Karabenick (2003) investigated students’ help-seeking threat, their
intentions to seek help, their help-seeking goals, their preferred help resources, their
class-related motivation, and finally, their use of learning strategies. The findings
29
were consistent with previous research in K-12 and college settings in that students
who were more threatened by help seeking reported that they were more likely to
avoid seeking help and use executive help-seeking as opposed to instrumental help-
seeking. Moreover, students with an avoidant tendency toward help-seeking
reported no difference in their likelihood to seek or avoid formal (i.e., teachers)
versus informal (i.e., peers) sources of help. However, students’ instrumental help-
seeking was directly related to a preference in source of help, mastery orientation,
and learning strategies, such that students who tended to seek instrumental help were
mastery-oriented, more likely to seek help from teachers as opposed to peers, and
used the most efficacious learning strategies. Performance-oriented students, on the
other hand, were threatened by and avoided seeking help to minimize effort
(Karabenick, 2003).
Similarly, Karabenick (2004) sought to determine to what extent students’
perceptions of the classroom achievement goal structure predicts their help-seeking
behaviors above students’ own personal achievement goal orientations. Results
indicated that perceived classroom achievement goal structure predicted students’
help-seeking patterns, such that students’ perceived mastery goal structure (i.e., a
focus on learning and improvement) was positively related to help-seeking approach
tendencies, and students’ perceptions of performance approach and avoid goal
structures were positively related to avoidant help-seeking tendencies.
30
While most research addressing help-seeking within higher education has
focused primarily on help-seeking within the classroom setting, only a few recent
studies have addressed the context of academic support services with only one recent
study focusing on students’ academic help-seeking within the urban community
college setting. However, these studies are primarily concerned with students’
preferences for advising style, and as such research in higher education contexts is
also clearly limited with respect to academic help-seeking as it relates to students’
perceptions of academic support services.
Both Herndon et al. (1996) and Alexitch (2002) investigated students’
preferences with respect to prescriptive (i.e., directive and unidirectional advice
emphasizing outcomes) and developmental (i.e., process and skill oriented advice
fostering independence and decision-making skills) advising style. Alextich (2002)
particularly examined whether students’ educational orientation, their gender,
academic performance, and help-seeking attitudes and tendencies directly or
indirectly predicted students’ preferences for advising from university faculty.
Results indicated that students with a mastery orientation had a greater tendency to
seek help from professors, academic services, and peers, while performance-oriented
students had a greater tendency to engage in nonadaptive help-seeking and perceive
help-seeking as a threat to self-worth. Moreover, the help-seeking variables
moderately mediated the relationship between educational orientation and preferred
advising style, such that students who indicated a tendency to seek help from course
31
instructors, campus services, and peers were more likely to prefer a developmental
style than a prescriptive style of advising and were also more likely to perform better
academically. On the other hand, students with a performance orientation preferred
a more prescriptive style of advising and performed poorer academically (Alexitch,
2002).
Unlike Alexitch (2002), Herndon et al. (1996) focused specifically on the
context of urban community colleges. The researchers examined the differences
between Black and White students’ preferences regarding advising style by first
having them identify how much prescriptive and developmental advising they had
received, and subsequently having them indicate their preference for the two types of
advising styles. Findings revealed that overall students received more prescriptive
than developmental advising. In addition, part-time students received more
prescriptive advising than full-time students. Moreover, White students in transfer
majors received significantly more advising than Black students enrolled in transfer
majors and White students enrolled in nontransfer majors. White females also
received more advising than Black females. According to the researchers the
discrepant results between White and Black students were explained by Black
students’ hesitance to seek help (Herndon et al., 1996).
Summary
In summary, this critique, first and foremost, provided an understanding of
the help-seeking process and the various types and sources of help. Second, research
32
on help avoidance was reviewed to illuminate the motivational processes that take
place within the help-seeking process. Third, research on motivational and
classroom factors that influence college students’ help-seeking was reviewed.
Finally, findings from literature on help-seeking within the college setting were
presented. This critique established that while research addressing help-seeking in
the college setting has clearly demonstrated the importance of motivational and
classroom factors to the help-seeking process, this body of literature lacks studies
that take ethnicity into consideration as a factor that might produce divergent help-
seeking tendencies and divergent student perceptions of help-seeking situations and
contexts. Moreover, it is apparent that while several studies have investigated help-
seeking within K-12 and the university context, studies addressing similar
relationships within the community college setting are conspicuously absent. Lastly,
research that considers academic support services as an important help-seeking
context is also limited.
In an effort to determine the complex differences in ethnicity and help-
seeking, and also to extrapolate the most salient factors that are likely to influence
students’ perceptions regarding help-seeking situations and contexts across ethnic
groups, the following sections will primarily draw on research from the field of
professional psychological counseling and mental health services, as there is ample
literature on ethnic differences and help-seeking within this field. The following
sections will first explore research on ethnic differences and help-seeking in the
33
context of personal and psychological counseling, followed by factors that have been
found to influence help-seeking perceptions and tendencies within and across ethnic
groups.
Ethnic Differences and Help-Seeking
While research on academic help-seeking lacks studies taking into account
students’ ethnicity and other factors that may mediate the relationship between ethnic
differences and help-seeking, there is a large body of research within the area of
psychological counseling and mental health services addressing ethnic differences
and help-seeking that can inform research on academic help-seeking, specifically
with respect to academic support services. These studies have obtained consistent
results for the fact that there are differences in help-seeking attitudes, tendencies, and
behaviors as a result of ethnicity and relevant factors associated with various ethnic
groups (Bin Sheu & Sedlacek, 2004; Chiang et al., 2004; Davidson, et al., 2004;
Kearney et al., 2005; Kuo et al., 2006; Leong et al., 1995; Leong & Lau, 2001).
This research has specifically confirmed a consistent concern regarding
under- or overutilization of psychological help and premature termination of help
sessions among ethnically diverse individuals (Leong et al., 1995; Leong & Lau,
2001). In particular, these findings demonstrate that ethnic minority individuals tend
to underutilize psychological counseling services as a result of negative attitudes and
more specifically that they do not tend to persist in utilizing formal counseling after
34
their initial meetings (Bin Sheu & Sedlacek, 2004; Davidson et al., 2004; Kearney et
al., 2005; Leong et al., 1995).
African American individuals also tend to utilize these formal services in
nonadaptive ways. In other words, African American individuals have been found to
overutilize counseling services, but not for the purposes intended (Bin Sheu &
Sedlacek, 2004; Leong et al., 1995). In fact, research indicates that African
American students have positive attitudes toward attending psychological counseling
for impersonal issues, and practical and administrative matters (e.g., medication,
questions about help sources in the community, and other counseling-related
resources) (Bin Sheu & Sedlacek, 2004; Leong et al., 1995). As such, African
American individuals might overutilize psychological help services for referral
purposes as a group overall, however, they do not tend to be repeat help-seekers
utilizing psychological counseling services for the purposes intended.
Bin Sheu and Sedlacek (2004) conducted an exploratory investigation
supporting these claims. Specifically, they examined the help-seeking attitudes and
coping strategies among ethnically diverse college students. The research findings
demonstrated that African American individuals were more willing to seek help from
formal sources for school-related concerns than White and Asian American
individuals. Moreover, they were not likely to seek help for emotional issues,
supporting the notion that African American individuals are more likely to use
35
counseling services for impersonal and practical concerns as opposed to personal
concerns.
Similarly, Asian American individuals also had more positive attitudes
toward seeking help for school-related concerns than White individuals. White
students, on the other hand, were more willing to seek formal help for personal
issues than both African American and Asian students. However, the current
investigation did not employ pre-established, validated and reliable scales, and as
such the psychometric qualities of the help-seeking attitudes are questionable. In
addition, seeking help for school-related concerns as opposed to emotional and
personal concerns might have been viewed as the lesser of two evils for ethnically
diverse students. Research on Asian American individuals has confirmed this
assumption. One of the reasons identified for Asian American individuals’ lack of
psychological help-seeking is the feelings of shame and stigma they associate with
mental illness (Leong & Lau, 2001; Leong et al., 1995). Lastly, the help-seeking of
Latino individuals was neglected in this study.
Kearney et al. (2005), however, included Latino students in their
investigation of the likelihood and benefits of utilizing counseling services among
ethnically diverse individuals. Specifically, the investigation consisted of a sample
of 1,166 students from 40 universities nationwide. The primary purpose of the
investigation was to examine the help-seeking behaviors of ethnic minorities and
whether or not the help sought and received was actually useful. Despite consistent
36
findings for the usefulness of the counseling sessions, the findings revealed that
Caucasian students attended significantly more sessions than all other ethnic groups.
Similarly, Davidson et al. (2004) examined the mental health services
utilization among non-international racial and ethnic minority students (i.e., African
American, Asian American, Native American, and Latino) utilizing an archival
approach. Specifically, the researchers reviewed previous counseling center files for
students who self-identified as a racial or ethnic minority. Despite an active outreach
service targeting racial and ethnic minority students, only 3 percent of the
approximate 5000 students that utilized the counseling services over a 5 year period
were ethnic minority students. Moreover, of the ethnic minority students that did
utilize the counseling services within that timeframe, 40 percent of them only
attended one single help session (Davidson et al., 2004).
Based on the foregoing, it is apparent that ethnic minority students utilize
psychological counseling services significantly less than Caucasian students. It is
also apparent that ethnic minority students have more negative attitudes toward
seeking psychological help than Caucasian students. Previous research findings
further demonstrate that there are consistent and differential help-seeking tendencies
and behaviors across ethnic groups. As a result of these consistent differences,
researchers have sought to determine what specific factors most strongly predict the
help-seeking patterns of various ethnic groups.
37
Factors Influencing Differential Help-Seeking Across Ethnic Groups
To date, research findings have linked the ethnic divergence in help-seeking
patterns to various contextual and culture-specific factors dealing with students’
perceptions of academic environments, acculturation, worldview and value
similarity, and students’ level of cultural congruity with the academic environment,
the student body, and faculty (Ayalon & Young, 2005; Brown & Dobbins, 2004;
Chiang et al., 2004; Gloria et al., 2001; Kim, Gladys, Ng, & Ahn, 2005; Kim &
Omizo, 2003; Miville & Constantine, 2006; Paris et al., 2005; Wallace &
Constantine, 2005). The following section will first review literature addressing
factors that influence the help-seeking behaviors and attitudes of specific ethnic
groups, followed by research on cross-ethnic factors and help-seeking.
A majority of the research on ethnic differences and help-seeking particularly
with Asian American and Latino populations has focused on the construct of
acculturation. Acculturation is a group or individual process which involves the
adaptation of a group to a host culture (Paris et al., 2005). The importance of
acculturation to research on ethnic differences and help-seeking stems from the fact
that acculturative processes shape critical aspects of psychological functioning, and
influences core beliefs, choice, language, attitudes, and expectations of behaviors
(Miville & Constantine, 2006). Consequently, an individual’s level of acculturation
and his or her level of cultural congruity with the majority culture are likely to
influence his or her willingness to seek help, and help-seeking behaviors and
38
attitudes. In fact, research focusing on Asian American and Latino individuals has
confirmed this hypothesis.
Factors influencing help-seeking among Asian American individuals. Kim
and Omizo (2003) specifically examined the help-seeking behaviors of Asian
American students by investigating the relationships among their adherence to Asian
cultural values, their attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help, and
their willingness to see a counselor. Findings revealed an inverse relationship
between students’ adherence to Asian cultural values and their attitudes and
willingness to seek help. In other words, Asian American students who were less
acculturated into the dominant culture were less willing to see a counselor and more
likely to have negative attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help.
Similarly, Kim, Gladys, Ng, and Ahn (2005) examined Asian Americans
expectations for counseling success and their perceptions of counseling effectiveness
as a function of worldview match and client adherence to Asian and European
American cultural values. Findings revealed that having a shared worldview (i.e.,
similar values and norms) among clients and counselors led to positive session
outcomes, productive working relationships, and helped clients feel understood by
their counselors. On the other hand, a mismatched worldview hindered the
development of productive counseling relationships, which further lead to
unsuccessful counseling sessions and client termination of help sessions (Kim et al.,
2005). These findings support previous findings on Asian American help-seeking,
39
which have demonstrated that the differing value orientations of Asian American
individuals (i.e., collectivistic) and the Western mental health system (i.e.,
individualistic) may serve as a cultural barrier to effective help sessions, as Asian
American individuals might not seek help or accept the help that they receive due to
differing value orientations (Leong & Lau, 2001; Leong et al., 1995). Combined, the
above findings further corroborate the notion that the extent to which students feel
culturally congruous with their helper plays a significant part in their help-seeking
behaviors and attitudes. Research examining the help-seeking behaviors of Latino
individuals has also demonstrated similar results.
Factors influencing help-seeking among Latino individuals. Paris et al.
(2005), for instance, examined the help-seeking and satisfaction of Latinas with
mental health services as a function of ethnic identity and acculturation. Research
findings indicated an inverse relationship between acculturation level and
satisfaction with services, such that the higher the acculturation level of help-givers
into the mainstream culture, the less satisfied the help-seekers. In other words, the
less help-seekers perceived to be culturally congruous with the help-givers, the more
dissatisfied they were with the services offered and obtained.
Similarly, Miville and Constantine (2006) sought to determine the extent to
which levels of acculturation (i.e., immersion into dominant society), enculturation
(i.e., immersion into their own ethnic or cultural group), perceived social support
(i.e., support from family, friends, and significant others), and cultural congruity
40
predict the help-seeking behaviors and attitudes of Mexican American college
students. Data analyses revealed several findings. Both acculturation into the
dominant U.S society and cultural congruity were positively predictive of help-
seeking behaviors and attitudes, indicating that students who are less immersed and
do not perceive to culturally fit in with their help-seekers and their surrounding
environment are less likely to hold positive attitudes toward seeking help and less
likely to seek help in general (Miville & Constantine, 2006).
In contrast, level of enculturation was not significantly related to either help-
seeking attitudes or behaviors, which indicates that while immersion into the
dominant culture and perceived value similarity influences help-seeking attitudes and
behaviors, ethnic loyalty may not. Moreover, perceived social support was also a
strong predictor of both help-seeking attitudes and behaviors, indicating that
Mexican American students who perceive less support from their family and friends
are more likely to hold positive attitudes about help-seeking and more likely to seek
psychological help than those students who do not perceive social support from
family and friends (Miville & Constantine, 2006).
In light of the foregoing, it is apparent that research investigating factors
associated with various ethnic groups and help-seeking has clearly established that
the degree to which Asian American and Latino individuals are acculturated into the
dominant society and their perceptions of cultural and value similarity (i.e., cultural
congruity) play a significant part in the help-seeking attitudes and behaviors of these
41
individuals. The construct of acculturation does not, however, apply in the same
manner to African American individuals, as it relates to recent immigrants (i.e.,
Latino and Asian American) (Roysircar, 2003). However, other constructs similar to
acculturation apply to the help-seeking behaviors of African American students, such
as worldview and value similarity.
Factors influencing help-seeking among African American individuals. In
examining the help-seeking attitudes, behaviors, and sources of Black and Latino
college students, Chiang et al. (2004) specifically hypothesized that Black and Latino
students would be more likely to utilize informal coping sources and have more
favorable attitudes toward informal coping sources as opposed to professional
counseling due to the value similarity with informal sources (i.e., emphasis placed on
family, social support, and interdependence). Research findings confirmed their
hypotheses indicating that the extent to which Black and Latino students have value
similarity with their sources of help determines their help-seeking and coping
behaviors, their attitudes toward seeking help, and their preference for help sources
(Chiang, et al., 2004). Overall, results indicated that Black and Latino students’
emphasis on interdependence influenced their negative attitudes toward using
professional counselors, and positively influenced their attitudes toward informal
support networks (i.e., family and friends) (Chiang, et al., 2004).
Similarly, Ayalon and Young (2005) examined the variations in the help-
seeking behaviors and preference for help sources among Black and White
42
community college students and the particular mediating role of cognitive-affective
variables (i.e., internal control and psychological symptom attributions). Consistent
with previous research on ethnic differences and help-seeking, this study revealed
that Black students utilized psychological and social services significantly less
frequently than White students, however, Black students were more likely than
White students to frequently use religious services. These findings are consistent
with Leong et al. (1995) and Parham and Brown (2003) who argue that an important
component of African American individuals’ worldview is their religious orientation,
as African American individuals tend to make external symptom attributions (i.e.,
God as the locus of control) (Ayalon & Young, 2005; Leong et al., 1995; Parham &
Brown, 2003).
As a result, African American individuals are likely to distrust psychological
services as opposed to religious services, because White therapists tend to make
internal symptom attributions, and therefore neglect the spirituality of African
American individuals and external oppressive factors (Ayalon & Young, 2005;
Parham & Brown, 2003). These findings are consistent with Leong et al. (1995) and
Bin Sheu and Sedlacek (2004) who argue that the nonadaptive help-seeking patterns
of African American individuals are likely due to their distrust of mainstream social
institutions and White help-givers as a result of their history as victims of racism and
stigmatization, and due to perceptions of divergent worldviews; in particular
religious orientations. In other words, African American individuals are likely to
43
seek less psychological help and more religious help due to worldview mismatch
with psychological help-givers and threat of stigmas about their ethnic group.
Results from the Ayalon and Young (2005) study further indicated that none of the
cognitive-affective variables investigated explained the group differences identified.
As such, the researchers concluded that future efforts identifying and probing
cognitive-affective variables that are responsible for the group differences in help-
seeking are needed (Ayalon & Young, 2005).
Wallace and Constantine (2005) in fact sought to determine how various
cognitive and affective variables influence the help-seeking patterns of African
American individuals by examining how Africentric cultural values (i.e., the extent
to which an individual adheres to a worldview emphasizing communalism, unity,
harmony, spirituality, and authenticity), perceived counseling stigma, and self-
concealment (i.e., the tendency to withhold personal, sensitive information that is
perceived as negative or upsetting) affect the help-seeking attitudes of African
American college students. Research findings indicated that for both African
American men and women higher degrees of Africentric cultural values were
associated with greater perceived stigma about counseling and greater self-
concealment (Wallace & Constantine, 2005). These findings further corroborate the
notion that the degree to which ethnic minority students perceive cultural and value
similarity with the help-givers and the help-seeking environment influences their
44
actual help-seeking attitudes and behaviors, such that congruous perceptions
influence positive help-seeking and dissimilar perceptions the contrary.
Summary
The studies investigating ethnic differences and help-seeking have obtained
consistent results for the fact that there are differences in the help-seeking behaviors
and attitudes of individuals from various ethnic groups due to various culture-
specific factors. This body of research has clearly established that level of
immersion into the dominant society, worldview match, and perceptions of cultural
and value similarity play a significant part in the help-seeking attitudes and
behaviors of Latino, Asian American and African American individuals. However,
only one recent study has investigated factors that influence help-seeking attitudes
and behaviors across ethnic groups.
Factors Influencing Help-Seeking Across Ethnic Groups
Gloria et al. (2001) specifically sought to explore the relationship between
cultural congruity (i.e., the extent to which individuals feel that they fit in with the
predominant culture and values in the environment), perceptions of the university
environment (i.e., social and cultural conditions within the university environment)
and help-seeking attitudes by sociorace (i.e., White and racial and ethnic minority)
and gender. Overall, findings revealed that White students reported significantly
higher cultural congruity, more positive perceptions of the university environment,
and more positive help-seeking attitudes than racial and ethnic minority students.
45
Moreover, males had more negative perceptions of the university environment,
reported more negative help-seeking attitudes and had lower perceptions of cultural
congruity than females (Gloria et al., 2001). These research findings clearly indicate
that group differences in help-seeking attitudes and behaviors among racially and
ethnically diverse individuals are a result of divergent perceptions, and specifically
differing perceptions of the academic environment and the extent to which various
ethnic groups perceive to fit in within that environment.
Summary
In summary, the preceding critique established that there are consistent
differences in help-seeking attitudes across ethnic groups. Moreover, it is apparent
that these differences are influenced by culture-specific factors and perceptions. In
other words, the decision about how and whether or not to seek help from formal
psychological sources varies by culture and context. Specifically, how students
perceive the academic surroundings and the extent to which they feel that they fit in
within these surroundings contribute to their help-seeking behaviors and attitudes.
However, only the constructs of perception of the school environment and cultural
congruity have been found to influence help-seeking attitudes and behaviors across
all ethnic groups.
Moreover, similar to the research on academic help-seeking most of these
studies have focused on the university setting as opposed to the urban community
college setting, and very few of these studies have investigated students’ help-
46
seeking from academic support services. Lastly, while cross-ethnic research
investigating the constructs of cultural congruity, perceptions of the school
environment, and help-seeking is clearly limited in scope and numbers, several
studies have investigated cultural congruity and perceptions of the academic
environment across various ethnic groups and in regards to various other similar
academic behaviors. Therefore the following section will include a discussion of
how students’ perceptions of cultural congruity and the academic environment
influence other academic behaviors that are similar in nature to help-seeking.
Cultural Congruity and Perceptions of the Academic Environment
The studies investigating cultural congruity and perceptions of the academic
environment across ethnic groups have demonstrated consistent significant results
for the influence of cultural congruity and perceptions of the college environment on
various salient academic behaviors, such as psychological functioning and
persistence. This body of research has specifically demonstrated that ethnic minority
students experience considerable stress as a result of lack of cultural congruence,
perceptions of an unwelcoming environment, and discrimination within their
educational context, and, conversely that perceptions of cultural congruency, a
welcoming environment, and acceptance within the educational context contribute to
positive academic behaviors and outcomes (Castillo et al., 2006; Gloria, Castellanos,
& Orozco, 2005; Gloria, Kurpius, Hamilton, & Willson, 1999).
47
Gloria et al. (2005), for instance, sought to contribute to the research on
Latinas in higher education by examining how their perceptions of educational
barriers in the academic environment and their perceptions of cultural fit within the
academic environment influenced their coping responses and well-being in college.
Findings revealed that cultural congruity and the coping response of taking a
planned, positive action were the strongest predictors of psychological well-being
accounting for 31% of the variance. These findings clearly support the fact that
students’ perceptions of cultural congruity and their determination to put in active
effort toward succeeding in their academic career positively predict their
psychological functioning and well-being within the academic environment. It is
likely to assume that students who perceive a sense of well-being within their
academic environment will also be likely to engage in positive coping behaviors,
such as help-seeking.
In contrast, Castillo et al. (2006) examined whether Latino students’
perceptions of the university environment mediated the relationship between their
ethnic identity and their persistence attitudes. Research findings supported the
hypothesized mediating role of the university environment. Specifically, higher
Latino ethnic identity was related to perceiving a more negative university
environment which in turn was associated with feeling less committed to finishing
school. A particular salient component of these findings in light of the current
research purpose, was that no significant relationship was found between ethnic
48
identity and persistence attitudes, when students’ perceptions of the university
environment was removed (Castillo et al., (2006). This finding indicates that it is in
fact students’ perceptions of the academic environment that influences their
persistence attitudes, and therefore it is also likely that students’ perceptions will
similarly influence their help-seeking.
Research has also investigated how the persistence and nonpersistence of
students from various ethnic groups are influenced by their perceptions of the
university environment, their degree of cultural congruity, and their self-beliefs.
Specifically, Gloria, Castellanos, Lopez, and Rosales (2005), Gloria et al. (1999),
and Gloria and Ho (2003) investigated the persistence decisions of Latino/a, African
American, and Asian American undergraduates respectively. All three studies
sought to determine students’ persistence and nonpersistence decisions using the
same three constructs: university comfort, social support, and self-beliefs. Findings
from all studies revealed that the constructs of university comfort, social support, and
self-beliefs were significantly interrelated and predictive of academic persistence
decisions with social support and university comfort being the strongest predictors.
Similar to the findings by Castillo et al. (2006), students’ perceptions mediated their
persistence attitudes and behaviors in that the degree to which students had positive
perceptions of the academic environment and the degree to which they perceived
support from their family, friends and significant others, were the main influences in
students’ decisions to persist academically.
49
Combined, these findings clearly demonstrate that taking the context into
consideration when investigating the educational experiences of ethnic minority
students is crucial, and students’ perceptions of the academic environment and
cultural congruity in particular. Moreover, it is apparent that students’ perceptions of
the academic environment and cultural congruity strongly predict certain academic
behaviors, such as psychological well-being and in particular persistence behaviors.
While only one study has demonstrated a similar relationship with students’ help-
seeking, it is likely that a similar association as with students’ persistence attitudes
and behaviors exists between students’ perceptions of the academic environment,
cultural congruity and help-seeking as both persistence and help-seeking are
considered proactive, motivational behaviors (Pintrich & Schunk, 2004).
Previous cross-ethnic studies have also demonstrated further consistent
differences in students’ perceptions of the academic environment. Specifically,
Ancis, Sedlacek and Mohr (2000) assessed the perceptions and experiences of
undergraduate students regarding the campus cultural climate. Research findings
revealed significant differences between racial and ethnic groups, with African
American students reporting significantly more racial-ethnic conflict on campus,
greater pressure to conform to stereotypes, and less equitable treatment by faculty,
staff, and teaching assistants. Asian American and Latino/a students also reported
experiences of stereotyping and prejudice in the form of limited respect and unfair
treatment by faculty, teaching assistants, and students; and pressure to conform to
50
stereotypes. However, Latino/a students perceived and experienced the least of these
tensions as compared to all other ethnic minority groups. In contrast, White students
perceived limited racial-ethnic tensions and a university climate characterized by
respect for diversity (Ancis et al., 2000).
Similarly, Reid and Radhakrishnan (2003) examined students’ perceptions of
racial and academic climate as possible mediators of racial differences in students’
perceptions of the university’s general campus climate. Consistent with the findings
of Ancis et al. (2000), results revealed that ethnic minority students, and in particular
African American students, perceived more negative general campus, racial, and
academic climates than White students. Contrary to predictions, results further
indicated that racial differences in perceptions of general campus climate were
mediated more by students’ perceptions of the academic climate as opposed to the
racial climate (Reid & Radhakrishnan, 2003). Consistent with Castillo et al. (2006),
students’ perceptions of the academic climate served as a better indicator of students’
university experience than their ethnicity.
Summary
The preceding discussion clearly demonstrated that when students have
negative perceptions of the academic environment, such that it is hostile,
discriminatory and unaccommodating, and when students’ have the perception that
they do not fit in or are different from others in the environment, they are likely to
withdraw academically. This definitely suggests that students are also likely to avoid
51
seeking help should they have similar perceptions regarding the academic support
services within their community college environment. In fact, it is likely that
students who have negative perceptions of the academic environment and similarly
perceive to be culturally incongruous with that environment, are likely to have
similar perceptions of the academic support services within that environment. One
of the common theories of motivation that can explain the underlying dynamics of
why students might academically withdraw and avoid seeking help as a result of
negative and culturally incongruent perceptions with the academic environment is
Covington’s (1984) self-worth theory.
Self-Worth Theory and Self-Worth Protection
Self-worth theory assumes that humans have a universal need and desire for
self-acceptance resulting in a positive self-image and sense of self-worth (Covington,
1984, 1992). Since accomplishments are valued in our society, a person’s self-
acceptance and sense of worth comes to depend on his or her ability to achieve
competitively, and as a result humans equate their self-worth with their achievements
(Covington, 1984). Within the academic setting, students therefore equate their
ability to achieve academically with their self-worth. Students essentially perceive
their ability as playing a pivotal role in their successes and failures, and as a result,
ability becomes a central part in students’ self-definition with high ability resulting
in high self-worth. In fact, in some cases students’ motivation to protect their self-
worth becomes more important than actually performing well (Covington, 1998).
52
Consequently, students might engage in strategies to protect their sense of self-
worth, which might cause or exacerbate the situations or outcomes that they are
trying to avoid (i.e., failure, substantial underachievement, maintenance of low self-
estimates of ability) (Thompson, 1996).
Previous research has in fact demonstrated several ways that students might
protect their self-worth. Among them are strategies such as completely disengaging
from academic activities, withdrawing effort, prevarication, low goal-setting, and
impeding one’s performance by procrastinating or self-handicapping (i.e., creating
impediments to one’s performance by for instance making oneself sick before an
exam) (Covington, 1998; Thompson, 1994, 1996). In this sense, students protect
their self-worth by ensuring that their performance is not a reflection of their ability,
but of their lack of effort. As demonstrated earlier in this review, students also
utilize help avoidance as a self-worth protective or failure-avoiding strategy (Ryan et
al., 2005; Sharma & Aradhana, 2000). Thus, it is likely that if students perceive
seeking help from academic support services as a threat to their self-worth, because
they perceive the act of seeking help as an admittance of low ability, they might be
likely to avoid seeking help.
However, Covington (1998) admits that the research that has contributed to
the formulation of self-worth theory and self-worth protective strategies is based on
middle-class White students, and despite the fact that ethnic minority students do not
perform as well as their White counterparts, they do in fact tend to have a higher
53
sense of well-being, ability, and self-esteem, as they do not tend derive their sense of
self-worth from the same sources as White middle-class students. According to
Covington (1998) ethnic minority students have been found to derive their sense of
self-worth from other sources such as peer acceptance and their cooperation with
others. However, as previous research has demonstrated ethnic minority students
still have a tendency to not seek as much help from formal sources as Caucasian
students. This problem can potentially be explained by the introduction of stereotype
threat or stigma consciousness. Stereotype threat is a self-perception that is likely to
become salient if students perceive an increased sense of ethnic and cultural
“difference” (Gloria et al., 2001; Steele, 1997) and when they perceive the
environment and campus climate negatively, influencing subsequent adverse
academic behaviors. The following section provides an in-depth discussion of
stereotype threat and stigma consciousness.
Stereotype Threat and Stigma Consciousness
Stereotype threat refers to the condition of being at risk of confirming as self-
characteristic a negative stereotype about a group to which one belongs (Steele &
Aronson, 2000). In general form, stereotype threat is a situational threat that can
affect the members of any group for whom a negative stereotype exists (e.g., older
adults, various ethnic groups, skateboarders etc.) Within the academic setting
stereotype threat has been proposed to explain the underperformance of ethnic
minority students (i.e., Latino and African American) in academic domains and of
54
women in mathematics (Osborne, 2001). Specifically, stereotype threat is a social-
psychological threat that arises when an individual is doing something or is in a
situation where a negative stereotype about his or her group applies (i.e., Latino,
African American and female students taking a math placement test). Being in this
predicament consequently threatens the individual with being negatively stereotyped,
with being judged or treated stereotypically, or with the prospect of conforming to
the stereotype (Steele, 1997). Thus, the key to stereotype threat effects is the self-
relevance of the stereotype.
Several experiments targeting stereotype threat have shown that when
participants are primed with labels or stereotypic traits, such as in having to identify
ethnic background, they behave in stereotype-consistent manners (Cadinu, Maass,
Lombardo, & Frigerio, 2004; Gonzales, 2002; Mayer & Hanges, 2003; Steele &
Aronson, 2000. Essentially, when an individual experiences a stereotype threat
situation, his or her anxiety related with confirming the stereotype increases. This
heightened level of anxiety actually interferes with the performance of the individual
resulting in stereotype-consistent behaviors, outcomes, and stereotype confirmation
(Osborne, 2001). For instance, Mayer and Hanges (2003) found that African
American students experienced more of the stereotype threat effect when told that
the test that they were taking measured intelligence.
Similarly, Steele and Aronson (2000) varied the stereotype vulnerability of
Black participants taking a difficult verbal test by varying the degree to which their
55
performance was diagnostic of ability. Again, reflecting the stereotype threat effect,
Black students underperformed in relation to White students in the ability-diagnostic
condition, but not in the diagnostic condition. Moreover, Cadinu et al. (2004) found
that participants’ performance decreased when the task was perceived as a potential
test of the in-group’s negative stereotype. In this case, lacking logical mathematical
intelligence in the case of women and lacking social intelligence in the case of men.
Gonzales (2002) also examined the stereotype threat effect with women, and in
particular Latino women. Findings revealed both gender-based and ethnicity-based
stereotype-threat effects on Latino participants’ mathematical and spatial
performance, with ethnicity having the primary vulnerability effect.
Another construct similar to stereotype threat that has been investigated in
more recent years is the notion of stigma consciousness. According to Pinel (1999)
stigma consciousness resembles the notion of stereotype threat; however, the
constructs differ in that stigma consciousness reflects an expectation that one will be
stereotyped, irrespective of one’s actual behavior. With respect to the current
research purpose, students’ level of stigma consciousness might therefore be likely to
effect their likelihood of seeking help in that if they perceive high stigma
consciousness they will be less likely to seek help as they will expect to be
stereotyped. Elaborating on this point, Wallace and Constantine (2006) argue that it
is possible for African American students that previous negative experiences or
interactions with White individuals might justify some cultural mistrust toward
56
White counselors in the context of considering or receiving counseling services,
particularly if these students perceived such prior cross-ethnic interactions to be
culturally insensitive, prejudicial, or discriminatory in nature (Wallace &
Constantine, 2005).
Further supporting the notion of stigma consciousness, Brown and Dobbins
(2004) sought to investigate the stigma-relevant perceptions ethnically diverse
students (i.e., African American, European American, and Latino/a) have of
university instructors. Findings revealed that ethnic minority students generally had
positive expectations of teachers, however, their expectations declined when
imagining class with a European American instructor who would evaluate their work
frequently as opposed to never. Findings further revealed that all students had more
positive perceptions of culturally tolerant versus culturally intolerant instructors,
while ethnic minority students perceived that intolerant instructors would grade them
more unfairly than European American students (Brown & Dobbins, 2004).
Supporting the findings from the Brown and Dobbins (2004) study, Major
and O’Brien (2005) argue that stereotype threat and stigma consciousness can be
automatically activated by situational cues. For instance, perceivers’ negative
stereotypes and expectations can lead them to behave toward stigmatized targets in
ways that directly affect the targets’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (Major &
O’Brien, 2005). As such, it is likely that if ethnic minority students have had such
previous personal or vicarious negative experiences with help-givers, and/or perceive
57
the help-givers or the academic support services to comprise individuals who from
their experience are likely to hold negative stereotypes about their group, they might
be likely to not seek help from those individuals or services as they expect to be
stigmatized.
Summary
The preceding section reviewed literature relating to the notion of stereotype
threat. Previous research indicates that stereotype threat can be automatically
activated, and specifically that it does not have to be primed for its effect to be
substantial. Therefore, it is likely that if ethnic minority students’ perceive the
academic environment negatively (i.e., hostile, discriminatory, not culturally-
sensitive) and perceive low cultural congruity within that environment (i.e., perceive
not to fit in with the culture or values of the academic environment), they might also
be likely to perceive a heightened sense of stigma consciousness about seeking help
from the services within that academic environment. In other words, they might
expect to be stereotyped, and as a result they might avoid seeking help. As
illustrated above, one particular theory that explains the underlying mechanisms of
avoidance behaviors, such as help avoidance, is self-worth theory. Thus, the
following section proceeds to integrate stereotype threat, self-worth protection, and
help avoidance to explain the particular case of ethnic minority students’ academic
help avoidance.
58
Integrating Stereotype Threat, Self-Worth Protection, and Help Avoidance
According to Major and O’Brien (2006) the motive to protect self-worth
becomes particularly salient in situations where individuals perceive a high degree of
stigma consciousness, because the stigmatized individuals have a need to disconfirm
stereotypes about their group. Moreover, Phinney, Dennis and Osorio (2006)
surveyed ethnically diverse university students about their reasons for attending
college and found that the two most important factors identified by ethnic minority
and low income students were to help family and prove worth, and specifically that
they could succeed academically. These factors clearly distinguished the three
minority groups from White/European American students. According to Phinney et
al. (2006) the ethnic differences observed in the motivation to prove one’s self-worth
is likely a result of the negative messages and expectations that ethnic minority
students have heard and experienced (i.e., you should not aspire to college). As
such, ethnic minority students have a desire to protect their self-worth should it be
threatened, which is definitely the case with stereotype threat. As a result,
stigmatized individuals might attempt to cope with the situation by disengaging or
withdrawing their efforts (Major & O’Brien, 2006). Thus, it is likely that students
who perceive that they will be stereotyped in a help-seeking situation will be likely
to disengage by not seeking help.
Research has clearly established that negative stereotypes exist about the
academic ability of Latino and African American students, and similarly that these
59
students experience stereotype threat in situations where their ability is made salient
(Gonzales, 2002; Mayer & Hanges, 2003; Steele & Aronson, 2000). As such, it is
likely that if these students perceive high stigma consciousness (i.e., expect to be
stereotyped) in a specific situation, such as seeking help from academic support
services, they will perceive a threat to their self-worth, and consequently aim their
efforts toward disconfirming the stereotype and simultaneously protecting their self-
worth and self-image. In this case, the most efficient way to achieve this goal is to
withdraw their efforts by avoiding to seek help, because the very act of seeking help
would confirm the stereotype about their ethnic group.
Summary
The foregoing discussion, first established the importance of self-worth
theory and self-worth protection in the help-seeking process, and subsequently
argued that the motive to protect self-worth becomes salient to ethnic minority
students, and particularly Latino and African American students, through the
expectation that they will be negatively stereotyped should they seek help (i.e.,
stereotype threat and stigma consciousness). In other words, when these students
have negative perceptions of the academic environment while also perceiving to be
culturally incongruous with the environment, they are more likely to have the
expectation that they will be stereotyped (i.e., increased stigma consciousness) by
individuals who are culturally congruent with the environment. This increased sense
of stigma consciousness will result in a need to disconfirm the stereotype and protect
60
self-worth by avoiding to seek help. More specifically, if students have negative
perceptions of the academic environment and low cultural congruity with the
academic environment, they are also likely to have similar perceptions of the
academic support services within that environment resulting in an expectation that
they will be stereotyped should they seek help. As a result, these students will likely
avoid seeking help in an attempt to disconfirm the stereotype about their group and
simultaneously protect their sense of self-worth.
General Summary and Conclusion
The impetus for the current review of literature was the persisting ethnic
minority achievement gap. In chapter 1 seeking help from academic support services
was proposed as a potential solution that can contribute to closing part of this
achievement gap. Therefore, the primary purpose of the preceding literature review
was to determine what factors most strongly predict ethnically diverse students’
perceptions of academic support services, and their subsequent help-seeking
behaviors. The first section of chapter 2 contained literature addressing students’
academic help-seeking. It became apparent from this section that few studies have
investigated help-seeking within urban community colleges and in regards to
academic support services. This section also established that the body of literature
on academic help-seeking lacks studies addressing ethnicity and factors related to the
background of ethnically diverse individuals. These factors are likely to influence
students’ perceptions and help-seeking behaviors differently across situations and
61
contexts, and therefore it was imperative to explore a body of research addressing
ethnic differences and help-seeking within the realm of professional psychological
counseling to determine its application within the educational setting.
The proceeding two sections, reviewing literature on ethnic differences and
psychological help-seeking, established that ethnic minority students utilize
psychological counseling services significantly less than Caucasian students, and
particularly due to various culture-specific factors and perceptions, such as
acculturation, value similarity, and worldview match. The constructs of cultural
congruity and perceptions of the academic environment were found to not only
encompass these culture-specific factors, but were also found to influence help-
seeking cross-ethnically. Thus, research related to these two constructs was further
scrutinized. The research findings essentially indicated that positive perceptions of
the academic environment and perceptions of cultural congruity result in positive
academic behaviors, and negative perceptions of the academic environment and lack
of cultural congruity result in negative academic behaviors cross-ethnically, and are
therefore also likely to influence help-seeking behaviors similarly across ethnic
groups.
Covington’s (1984) self-worth theory was further introduced as an
explanation for students’ help avoidance, and the notion of stereotype threat and
stigma consciousness was subsequently reviewed to illuminate why ethnic minority
students might be less likely to seek help. It was established that stereotype threat is
62
a particular factor that is likely to become salient when students perceive the
environment negatively and/or when students perceive to not fit in within their
surroundings. Lastly, self-worth protection and stereotype threat were integrated to
explain the particular case of ethnic minority students’ help avoidance.
Taken together, the findings from this review of literature demonstrate that
students are likely to have similar perceptions of their academic support services as
they have of their academic environment, being that the academic support services
are part of the academic environment. As a result, when students have negative
perceptions of their academic environment and also perceive to not fit in within that
environment, they are also likely to have similar negative perceptions of the
academic support services within that environment resulting in a reluctance to seek
help from those services. In the case of ethnic minority students, their negative
perceptions and lack of cultural congruency is likely to make salient the expectation
that they will be stereotyped should they seek help. Therefore, in an attempt to
simultaneously disconfirm the stereotype and protect their sense of self-worth, they
are likely to avoid seeking help.
63
CHAPTER 3
METHODS
The problem under investigation in the present research effort was the
persisting ethnic minority achievement gap. As was demonstrated in both chapter 1
and 2, one particular behavior that has been found to positively influence students’
academic achievement is their help-seeking from academic support services.
However, research also indicates that ethnic minority students are less likely to seek
help. Therefore, the primary purpose of the current study was to provide greater
insight into why ethnically diverse students might seek help or not from academic
support services, and specifically whether students’ perceptions of the support
services determine their help-seeking behaviors and attitudes. The former part of
this chapter includes a restatement of the research questions proposed and a thorough
description of the research design that was employed in this research effort. The
latter part of this chapter includes the sampling procedure and population,
instrumentation, and procedures for data collection and analysis.
Research Questions
Based on the findings revealed in chapter 2, it is apparent that students’
perceptions of the academic environment, their perceptions of cultural congruity with
the environment, and their need to protect self-worth are the most salient factors
likely to influence students’ help-seeking behaviors and attitudes across ethnic
groups. Moreover, perceptions of academic environment and cultural congruity have
64
also been found to be indicative of students’ perceptions of academic support
services as these services are contained within the general educational environment.
Therefore, the following research questions were proposed for the present research
investigation.
The primary research question was:
1. Do students of various ethnic groups have divergent perceptions of
student/academic support services?
The secondary research question was:
2. Is there a relationship between students’ perceptions of the academic
environment, their perceptions of cultural congruity, their ethnicity, their
tendency to protect their self-worth, and their help-seeking from
student/academic support services?
Research Design
The purpose of the current research was applied as the focus of the
investigation was to contribute to the understanding of the ethnic minority
achievement gap. As such, the research questions were focused toward gaining a
broader picture of the problem under investigation as opposed to deep insight into
one particular aspect of the problem conveyed by a select few. The research design
for the current investigation therefore primarily utilized a quantitative approach,
driven by the nature of the research questions. However, a few qualitative items
were used to corroborate the quantitative findings. Non-experimental techniques
65
were specifically used to assess the relationship between the independent and
dependent variables.
The independent variables in the current study were 1) students’ perceptions
of academic support services, measured by students’ perceptions of the university
environment and cultural congruity; and 2) students’ ethnicity. Students’ tendency
to protect their self-worth served as a proxy for stereotype threat and a potential
explanation for students’ help avoidance. The dependent variables included
students’ tendency, frequency and attitudes toward help-seeking. Several
demographic variables including age and gender were also assessed. All data, except
for certain demographic data (e.g., gender and units completed) and students’ GPA,
were gathered via a pencil and paper survey and scantron. The community college
database provided the demographic variables and GPA for students who gave their
consent to share this information.
Population and Sample
The units of analysis in the following study were individual students. Both
qualitative and quantitative student self-report data and community college-reported
data (i.e., student gender, units completed, and GPA) were collected and
investigated. The sample for the current investigation was randomly selected from
select disciplines at an ethnically diverse urban community college in Southern
California. The sampling frame consisted of classes from the three following
disciplines: African American studies, Chicano studies, and Sociology. These
66
courses were all transferable to four-year universities, were general education
requirements at the specific urban community college, and they tended to have an
even distribution of both freshman and sophomore students (LAVC Factbook, 2006).
Therefore these courses did not reflect a select group of students, but rather the
general student body. Specifically, the researcher utilized a systematic sampling
method, where every 7
th
class was selected from a total sample frame of 68 classes,
totaling a sample of 201 students. To ensure against any possible human bias, the
first class was selected at random.
This was an appropriate sample for the current research purpose because the
sample population was similar to the population of interest, ethnically diverse urban
community college students. Moreover, the fact that a significant part of the sample
population consisted of participants who were in their second year at a community
college increased the likelihood that the participants were familiar with and
acclimated to community college life while also having knowledge of and experience
with the various student and academic support services provided at their particular
community college. Among the 201 surveys entered into analysis, there were 77
(36.5%) male and 124 (58.8%) female participants. Of the total sample 28 (13.3%)
were Caucasian/White, 26 (12.3%), African American, 102 (48.3%)
Latino/Hispanic, 9 (4.3%) Asian, 6 (2.8%) Russian, 32 (15.2%) Armenian, and 8
(3.8%) Other Non-White. Moreover, participants ranged in age from 18 to 57 with a
67
mean age of 23.07 (SD = 7.31). Specifically, 72.6% of the participants were between
18 and 23 years of age.
Instrumentation
In the current investigation students’ perceptions’ of the college environment,
cultural congruity, and self-worth protection were assessed in addition to students’
help-seeking behaviors and attitudes. Both quantitative and qualitative items were
provided on a survey questionnaire that all students were required to answer. The
quantitative data was collected using specific well-established reliable and valid
scales for the constructs of interest. The qualitative data was collected by using
open-ended, short-answer questions. The quantitative scales specifically had the
appropriate psychometric qualities to be employed in quantitative data collection,
which contributed to the validity and confidence of the findings. Several instruments
were utilized to collect the data necessary to assess the influence of the variables
under investigation.
Biographical Data
All participants were required to complete various demographic and
background items including age and ethnicity. Students’ units completed and GPA
were provided by the institution, and students’ GPA was specifically used as a
control for ability. Being that acculturation level is a salient factor likely to influence
the help-seeking behaviors of both Latino and Asian American individuals,
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participants were also required to identify how long they had been residing in the
United States. Appendix A presents the demographic items.
Cultural Congruity Scale (CCS)
The 13-item CCS, validated by Gloria and Kurpius (1996), was used to
assess participants’ perceptions of cultural congruity; the degree to which they felt
that they fit in culturally within their surroundings, and the degree to which they
perceived that their “differences” were made salient within the environment. The
CCS utilized a seven-point Likert-type response format ranging from (1) Not at all to
(7) A great deal, and consisted of items such as “ I try not to show the parts of me
that are ‘ethnically’ based,” and “My ethnic values are in conflict with what is
expected at school.” Eight items were reverse scored. The Cronbach’s alpha for the
13-item CCS in this study was .75, where scores ranged from 13 to 91 with higher
scores indicating greater cultural congruity. Appendix B lists the items for cultural
congruity.
University Environment Scale (UES)
The 14-item UES, validated by Gloria and Kurpius (1996), was used to
assess students’ perceptions of the academic environment and the degree to which
they perceived the academic environment positively or negatively. The UES utilized
a seven-point Likert-type response format with anchors ranging from (1) Not at all to
(7) Very true, and consists of items such as “There are tutoring services available for
me on campus,” and “I do not feel valued as a student on campus.” Five items were
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reversed scored. The Cronbach’s alpha for the 14-item UES in this study was .83,
where scores ranged from 14 to 98 with higher scores reflecting a more positive
perception of the academic environment. Appendix C presents the university
environment scale.
Essentially, the Cultural Congruity Scale (CCS) and the University
Environment Scale (UES) were utilized as indicators of students’ perceptions of the
academic support services. As established in the literature review, students’
perceptions of the academic environment and cultural congruity are likely to be
indicative of students’ perceptions of academic support services, as the academic
support services are part of the academic environment. Moreover, previous research
investigating students’ usage of professional psychological counseling has utilized
these scales to assess students’ perceptions of those services (Gloria et al., 2001).
Self-Worth Protection Scale (SWPS)
The Self-Worth Protection Scale (SWPS) was utilized to assess students’
need to protect self-worth and disconfirm stereotypes about their group as a result of
their perceptions of the academic environment and cultural congruity (e.g., academic
support services). As such, this measure also served as an indicator of students’
tendency to avoid seeking help.
The 18-item SWPS (Appendix D), constructed and validated by Thompson
and Dinnel (2003), assesses an individuals’ tendency to protect their self-worth. The
SWPS utilized a seven-point Likert-type response format ranging from (1) Not very
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true of me to (7) Very true of me, and consisted of items such as “Doing well
academically allows me to preserve a sense of self-worth,” and “I find it easiest to
try my hardest at something when there is little risk of failure.” The Cronbach’s
alpha for the 18-item SWPS scale in this study was .83, where scores ranged from 18
to 126, with higher scores reflecting a stronger tendency to protect self-worth.
Help-Seeking
Students’ tendency and attitudes toward seeking help from academic support
services was assessed by having participants indicate the number of times that they
sought help from specified student and academic support services offered at their
community college over the past year (e.g., Please indicate the number of times you
visited any of the following academic/student support services between Spring 2007
and the present.). As part of this question, participants were required to specify an
exact number next to any of the support services (e.g., Financial Aid, Math Lab,
Reading Center, Learning Center, Writing Center, Extended Opportunities Program
and Services (EOPS), Disabled Student Program and Services (DSPS), and
Academic Counseling) they visited within the specified timeframe.
Participants were also required to identify how knowledgeable they were
about each of the specified student/academic support services using a seven-point
Likert-type scale, ranging from (1) No knowledge to (7) Very knowledgeable. This
item served to control for the fact that students might not have visited a certain
academic/student support service due to lack of knowledge about the service or what
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the service offers. Lastly, participants were required to elaborate on their experience
with two support services by first identifying the service, and responding to three
open-ended qualitative questions regarding their help-seeking experience at the
respective services (e.g., Did the help you received meet your original expectations?
Why or why not?). Appendix E lists the items for help-seeking.
Procedure and Data Collection
The researcher obtained IRB approval from the required institution and
permission from the sociology and ethnic studies faculty chair at the community
college to conduct surveys in the classroom. All course instructors were invited to
participate in the study by the faculty chair. The students were surveyed during the
middle of the semester, which allowed students to become acclimated to the new
semester and their classes, while also giving them the opportunity to become familiar
with the academic support services offered at their select institution. Students are
also likely to seek help around the middle of the semester as this is the time when
they are likely to have midterm projects and exams.
The researcher personally visited 16 separate courses to obtain student
consent (Appendix F) and administer the survey questionnaire (Appendix G). The
instructors were asked to leave the respective classrooms to reduce the sense of
coercion. The researcher briefly explained the purpose of the study (i.e., to better
understand how students view academic and student support services, and why and
how frequently students use these services at their community college) and notified
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students that participation was both voluntary and confidential. Specifically,
students were told that the researcher was interested in how their perceptions of
academic support services influence their help-seeking behaviors. After the
researcher briefly oriented students to the main purpose of the study, delivered the
recruitment speech, and obtained student consent, the students completed the paper
and pencil survey by filling in appropriate circles on the scantron for the quantitative
portion and providing short answers to the open-ended qualitative questions. Finally,
students were instructed to complete the survey on their own and submit the
completed form to a box in the back of the room.
Data Analysis
All quantitative data was coded and prepared for statistical analysis using the
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 11.0 program. Descriptive
statistics including means, standard deviations, and Pearson product moment
correlations were computed for all variables and demographic data. Due to the low
representation of certain ethnic groups, four overall racial/ethnic distinctions were
utilized during data analysis. This allowed for the total sample population to be
employed during data analyses. The racial/ethnic distinctions included 28 (13.3%)
White/Caucasian students, 26 (12.3%) African American, 102 (48.3%)
Latino/Hispanic, and 55 (26.1%) Other (including Russian, Armenian, and Asian and
other-non White students). Moreover, to maximize the sample responses a weighted
average was used for all scales, such that participants had to respond to one more
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than half of all the items within a scale to produce a score for the scale. Lastly, since
multiple analyses were performed in the current investigation, the significance level
was set at p < .05.
As mentioned, students’ tendency to protect their self-worth served as a
proxy for stereotype threat. A MANOVA was run to determine whether students of
various ethnic groups had divergent perceptions of the student/academic support
services, and a hierarchical regression analysis was performed to determine the
percent of variance in help-seeking frequency, tendencies, and attitudes accounted
for by perceptions of the academic environment, cultural congruity, ethnicity, and
self-worth protection. To further contribute to the validity and confidence of the
findings, Cronbach’s alphas were conducted for all scales. Moreover, themes were
extrapolated from the qualitative responses to corroborate the results from the
quantitative data analysis.
The results obtained from the present research investigation are reported in
chapter 4, and chapter 5 concludes with a thorough discussion and analysis of
findings, suggestions for future research, and theoretical and practical implications
based on the results from the current research effort.
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CHAPTER 4
RESULTS
This chapter presents the statistical outcomes for the previously stated
research questions: 1) Do students of various ethnic groups have divergent
perceptions of student and academic support services? 2) Is there a relationship
between students’ perceptions of the academic environment, their perceptions of
cultural congruity, their ethnicity, their tendency to protect their self-worth, and their
help-seeking from student/academic support services? Specifically, the former part
of this chapter presents descriptive data for the variables of interest, including
demographic data, means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations. Results from
the MANOVA and hierarchical regression analyses including descriptive data for the
primary and secondary research questions are also presented. The latter part of this
chapter presents results for the qualitative responses and an overall summary of the
findings.
Quantitative Findings
Intercorrelations
A summary of the means, standard deviations, and correlations of the
demographic variables (i.e., age, units completed), perceptions of academic support
services (i.e., cultural congruity, perceptions of the academic environment), self-
worth protection, and help-seeking behaviors are listed in Table 1.
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Table 1
Means, Standard Deviations, and Pearson Product Correlations for Measured Variables
Note. Age = Participant’s Age
* p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001
Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
M SD
1. Age 23.07 7.31 -- -- -.27* .11 -.09 .10 .01
2. Units Completed 38.87 28.88 -- -.08 .02 .12 .26*** .10
3. Cultural Congruity 5.85 .85 -- .38*** -.23*** -.05 -.02
4. Academic Environment 5.38 .99 -- -.13* .37*** .17*
5. Self-Worth Protection 3.89 .97 -- .15* .08
6. Knowledge of Services 3.79 1.51 -- .35***
7. Total Help-Seeking 10.71 17.18 --
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The correlational analyses revealed several interesting findings. With
respect to demographic variables, students’ age had an inverse relationship with
cultural congruity (r = -.27, p < .001), indicating that older students had more
negative perceptions of cultural congruity. In other words, older students had a
higher tendency to perceive that they did not fit in within the academic environment.
However, age was not significantly related to any other measured variables.
Similarly, the units completed variable was only positively related to students’
knowledge of support services (r = .26, p < .001). This finding demonstrates that
students who had completed more units had more knowledge of the various support
services.
In terms of students’ perceptions of support services, students’ perceptions of
cultural congruity and their perceptions of the academic environment were positively
related (r = .38, p < .001). These results demonstrate that students who perceived to
be valued and fit in within the academic environment were also likely to view the
academic environment as a supportive and non-discriminatory place. Moreover,
consistent with the researcher’s expectations, an inverse relationship emerged both
between students’ perceptions of cultural congruity and students’ tendencies to
protect their self-worth (r = -.23, p < .001), and between students’ perceptions of the
academic environment and self-worth protective tendencies (r = -.13, p < .05).
These results indicate that students who felt culturally valued and perceived the
academic environment to be supportive and non-discriminatory reported a lower
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tendency to protect their self-worth, whereas students who did not feel valued or did
not have positive perceptions of the academic environment were more likely to have
stronger self-worth protective tendencies; and as such more likely to perceive their
self-worth to be threatened.
Furthermore, a significant and positive correlation emerged between
students’ perceptions of the academic environment and their knowledge of support
services (r = .37, p < .001), indicating that students who perceived the academic
environment to be a supportive and non-discriminatory place also tended to have a
high level of knowledge regarding the support services offered. One reason for this
relationship may be that students who perceive their academic environment to have a
supportive climate are more likely to seek out information regarding the services
offered, or that students who have more knowledge about the services offered within
their academic environment are more likely to rate that environment positively.
In addition, a positive correlation emerged between students’ perceptions of
the academic environment and their help-seeking frequency (r = .17, p < .05).
Essentially, this finding indicates that the extent to which students viewed their
academic environment as supportive and non-discriminatory was related to how
many times they sought help from support services offered within that environment.
Similarly, self-worth protection and knowledge of support services were positively
correlated (r = .15, p < .05), indicating that students who had a tendency to protect
their self-worth also had more knowledge regarding support services. Findings also
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revealed that students’ level of knowledge regarding support services was positively
associated with students’ frequency of help-seeking from support services (r = .35, p
< .001). This finding implies, on one hand, that the more knowledge students had
regarding services offered the more likely they were to take advantage of those
services by seeking help, or, on the other hand, that students who sought help
became more knowledgeable about the service visited. However, the direction of the
relationship is seemingly unclear.
Conversely, no significant relationship emerged between students’ self-worth
protection and help-seeking frequency (r = .07, p > .05). This finding demonstrates
that students’ tendency to protect their self-worth was unrelated to their frequency of
help-seeking behavior. Similarly, no significant relationship emerged between
students’ perceptions of cultural congruity and their help-seeking frequency (r = -.02,
p > .05), which indicates that the extent to which students felt valued and perceived
to culturally fit in within the environment was not related to their frequency of
seeking help from support services. Lastly, no significant relationship was found
between cultural congruity and students’ knowledge of support services (r = -.05, p >
.05), indicating that students’ level of knowledge regarding support services offered
was not related to their perceptions of fitting in and feeling valued within the
academic environment.
In summary, the correlational analyses revealed several findings that
followed the proposed hypotheses and other results that emerged as contrary to what
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was expected. As expected, students’ perceptions of the academic environment and
their perceptions of cultural congruity were positively related, indicating that
students who perceived that they fit in within the academic environment also rated
that environment positively. It was also hypothesized that students with a negative
perception of cultural congruity and the academic environment would report a high
tendency to protect their self-worth, and these predictions were supported. In other
words, students who perceived the academic environment negatively and did not feel
valued within the academic environment had a higher tendency to protect their self-
worth, and conversely, students who perceived the academic environment positively
and felt valued within the academic environment had lower self-worth protective
tendencies.
However, contrary to expectations, a similar inverse relationship did not
emerge between students’ self-worth protection and help-seeking. Essentially,
students with a lower tendency to protect self-worth were not more likely to seek
help than students with a higher tendency to protect self-worth. Moreover, the
researcher expected that students’ perceptions of the academic environment and their
perceptions of cultural congruity would both be positively related to students’ help-
seeking, such that if they reported low scores on cultural congruity and perceptions
of the academic environment, that they would also report lower frequency of help-
seeking. While the relationship between perceptions of the academic environment
and help-seeking was supported, the relationship between cultural congruity and
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help-seeking was not. Lastly, it was expected that if the students’ had a low
frequency of help-seeking, they would also have a low level of knowledge regarding
the various support services. These expectations were confirmed.
Research Question 1
Do students of various ethnic groups have divergent perceptions of student
and academic support services? A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA)
analysis was conducted to answer the primary research question. The goal of this
analysis was to determine whether there were differences in the perceptions of
various ethnic groups regarding the academic and student support services.
Results from the MANOVA analysis indicated a significant main effect for
ethnicity (Wilks’ Lambda = .93, p < .05). Specifically, differences based on ethnic
background were significant for both students’ perceptions of cultural congruity (F =
3.60, df = 3, 207, p < .05), and their perceptions of the academic environment (F =
3.60, df = 3,207, p < .05). These results demonstrate that students of various ethnic
backgrounds perceived the same academic environment differently, with some ethnic
groups perceiving the environment more positively and others perceiving the
environment more negatively. These findings also indicate that students from some
ethnic groups felt valued and perceived to fit in within the academic environment
better than students from other ethnic groups.
Due to the uneven distribution of ethnic groups within the current sample
population, a Scheffe test was performed to determine specific differences between
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ethnic groups with respect to perceptions of academic support services (cultural
congruity and perceptions of the academic environment). Mean differences were
significant for Caucasian and Other students in regards to perceptions of cultural
congruity (MD = .55, p < .05), and for Latino and Other students with respect to
perceptions of the academic environment (MD = .47, p < .05). These results indicate
that Caucasian students perceived to be valued and fit in within the academic
environment more than students of Russian, Armenian, as well as Asian and other
non-White origin. Similarly, Latino students perceived the academic environment
more positively and as a more supportive and non-discriminatory place than students
of Russian, Armenian, Asian and other non-White origin.
Contrary to the researcher’s expectations, no significant mean differences
emerged between Caucasian and African American students with respect to
perceptions of cultural congruity (MD = .43, p > .05) and perceptions of the
academic environment (MD = .36, p > .05). Similarly, no differences were found
between Caucasian and Latino students in their perceptions of cultural congruity
(MD = .19, p > .05) and their perceptions of the academic environment (MD = .10, p
> .05). Inconsistent with previous research which has found that ethnic minority
students tend to have differential perceptions than Caucasian students when it comes
to cultural congruity and perceptions of the academic environment (Gloria et al.,
2001; Castillo et al., 2006), these results imply that Caucasian, African, American,
and Latino students viewed the academic environment similarly, and that they also
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perceived that they fit in and felt valued to the same degree within the academic
environment. One potential explanation for these inconsistent results might be due
to the varied representation of ethnic groups in the current sample population.
Further discussion about the distribution of ethnic groups is included in Chapter 5.
In addition, several one-way analyses of variance (one-way ANOVA) were
conducted to determine whether there were differences among the various ethnic
groups in regards to their knowledge of the respective support services. The one-
way ANOVA analyses revealed no differences between the various ethnic groups in
their knowledge of the learning center (F = .48, df = 3, 207, p = .70), the math lab (F
= 1.11, df = 3, 207, p = .35), the writing center (F = .45, df = 3, 207, p = .72), the
reading center (F = .21, df = 3, 207, p = .89), academic counseling (F = .24, df = 3,
207, p = .87), financial aid (F = .38, df = 3, 207, p = .77), and DSPS (Disabled
Student Program and Services) (F = 2.00, df = 3, 207, p = .12).
However, a significant difference emerged for students’ knowledge of EOPS
(Extended Opportunities Program and Services) (F = 2.79, df = 3, 207, p < .05).
Specifically, African American students (M = 4.42, SD = 2.42) had more knowledge
about EOPS than Caucasian (M = 2.57, SD = 1.97), Latino (M = 3.47, SD = 2.34),
and Other students (i.e., Russian, Armenian, Asian and other non-White) (M = 3.47,
SD = 2.51). Several one-way ANOVAs were also performed to determine sex
differences with respect to the measured variables (i.e., cultural congruity, academic
environment, self-worth protection, knowledge of support services, and help-
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seeking). A significant and interesting sex difference emerged for self-worth
protection (F = 5.95, df = 1, 199, p < .05), indicating that males and females reported
varying degrees of self-worth protective tendencies. Specifically, female participants
had a higher tendency to protect their self-worth (M = 3.99, SD = .89) than male
participants (M = 3.65, SD = 1.07).
In summary, contrary to expectations and previous research, no differences
emerged between Caucasian, Latino, and African American students with respect to
perceptions of academic environment and cultural congruity. However, significant
differences in perceptions of cultural congruity emerged between Caucasian and
Other students (Russian, Armenian, Asian and other non-White), and differences in
perceptions of academic environment emerged between Latino and Other students.
Moreover, the only significant difference found between ethnic groups in regards to
their knowledge of the respective support services emerged for EOPS with African
American students having a higher level of knowledge.
Research Question 2
Is there a relationship between students’ perceptions of the academic
environment, their perceptions of cultural congruity, their ethnicity, their tendency to
protect their self-worth, and their help-seeking from student and academic support
services? A hierarchical regression analysis was employed to investigate the
relationship of the secondary research question. The goal of the hierarchical
regression analysis was to determine the strength of the relationship between each
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independent variable (i.e., students’ perceptions of the academic environment,
perceptions of cultural congruity, ethnicity, self-worth protective tendencies) and the
dependent variable (i.e., help-seeking frequency), while controlling for students’
GPA and their knowledge of support services. In this analysis, the variables were
entered stepwise, with GPA being entered at the first step, followed by students’
knowledge of support services at the second step, and finally, all other variables at
the third step (ethnicity, cultural congruity, perceptions of academic environment,
and self-worth protection). The results of the hierarchical regression analysis are
presented in Table 2.
Inconsistent with previous research and the researcher’s expectations, GPA
explained 0% of the variance in help-seeking frequency (F = .01, df = 1, 189, p =
.91). However, when knowledge of support services was entered next, it explained
12.1% of the variance in help-seeking (F
change
= 25.79, df = 1,188, p < .001), with
the entire model being significant (F = 12.90, df = 2, 188, p < .05). Further, in
analyzing coefficients, results showed that those participants with a higher level of
knowledge sought help more frequently ( β = .35, p < .001). This finding is
consistent with the positive correlation between knowledge of support services and
help-seeking frequency (r = .35, p < .001). Finally, when the remaining variables
were entered in step three (cultural congruity, academic environment, self-worth
protection, ethnicity), contrary to predictions, they did not add a significant amount
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Table 2
Summary of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Variables Predicting Help-Seeking
Variables R
2
B β t
Step 1 .00
GPA .160 .008 .115
Step 2 .12***
Knowledge of Services 3.978 .349*** 5.078
Step 3 .13
Cultural Congruity
-.378 -.018 -.233
Academic Environment 1.326 .081 .081
Self-Worth Protection .144 .008 .008
White/Caucasian -5.078 -.102 -.102
African American -1/028 -.019 -.019
Latino/Hispanic -.337 -.010 -.010
Note. * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001
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of variance above and beyond knowledge of support services. However, as indicated
earlier, students’ perceptions of the academic environment was positively related to
students’ frequency of help-seeking (r = .17, p < .05), alluding to the fact that
students who perceive the academic environment positively are more likely to seek
help from support services within that environment.
In summary, contrary to expectations, cultural congruity, perceptions of the
academic environment, self-worth protection, and ethnic background did not predict
help-seeking above and beyond students’ GPA and knowledge of support services.
However, findings revealed that students’ knowledge of support services added
variance above and beyond students’ GPA in explaining students’ help-seeking
behaviors.
Qualitative Findings
To provide further understanding into students’ perceptions of the support
services and their help-seeking tendencies, students were asked to elaborate on their
experience with two of the support services they had visited by answering several
qualitative open-ended questions regarding their experience (i.e., Where did you go?
What type of help did you want? What type of help did you get? Did the help that
you received meet your original expectations? Why or why not?) Results from the
qualitative responses indicated minimal differences in the amount of negative and
positive responses across ethnic groups, with descriptive data demonstrating 28%
negative responses for Caucasian students; 27% for African American students; 21%
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for Latino/Hispanic students; 19% for Asian and other non-White students; and 21%
for Armenian and Russian students.
However, the quality of the responses and students’ perceptions regarding the
support service experience suggested both similarities and differences across ethnic
groups. In terms of similarities, the data demonstrated that most students across
ethnic groups desired directions and guidance that helped them to complete tasks
independently, such as illustrated by the following student comments: “Yes, the help
met my expectations, because now I know how to write a research paper;” “Yes, the
tutor facilitated things for me for a better understanding;” and “Yes it did, and more
beyond. I thought they were going to give me a sheet and that was it. The counselor
explained it to me step by step.” These findings are consistent with previous
research on instrumental and adaptive help-seeking, which indicates that students
who seek and are provided with instrumental and developmental advising become
more self-regulated, competent, and autonomous individuals and learners (Alexitch,
2006; Karabenick, 2004; Sigmund, 2006).
In contrast, students who felt that they did not receive adequate advising in
terms of only receiving partial answers to a question, limited directions, and
nonelaborated help rated their support service experience as not meeting their
expectations, such as illustrated by the following comments: “No, my counselor
didn’t help me with what I needed only with what she was told to tell me;” and “No,
my expectations were not met, I still had so many questions.” Taken together, these
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findings indicate that most students who sought help rated their support service
experience as meeting their expectations if they received instrumental help, and
conversely, as not meeting their expectations if they received executive help.
Previous research on academic help-seeking has also identified the belief that
help seeking will not be effective as one of the main reasons why students fail to
seek help (Ryan et al., 2005). Consistent with this research, the data demonstrated
that students rated their help-seeking experience positively if they perceived the
helper to have the time, patience and competence to provide complete and accurate
help, such as illustrated by the following student comments: “Yes, they sat down
with me one-on-one to figure out my strengths;” and “It exceeded my expectations in
terms of knowledge, attentiveness, and how they made the concepts easier to
understand.”
However, to the contrary, students rated their help-seeking experience
negatively and as not meeting their expectations if they felt that the counselor neither
had the patience, competence, nor time to be of help, such as illustrated by the
following comments: “No, the help did not meet my expectations, because the
counselor was too quick with her explanation and I sensed with every question asked
a little annoyance coming from the counselor;” “No, I’d like for someone to talk me
through a ‘goal path’ and be helpful if I have any questions, not just give me a piece
of paper;” and “No, it didn’t. I was really disappointed. I would ask him a specific,
straightforward question and he would explain something else about the problem.”
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With respect to differences across ethnic groups, the qualitative data
demonstrated that Caucasian students’ responses centered mostly around task-
specific issues whereas African American and Latino students’ responses centered
around relational issues. In other words, Caucasian students had a tendency to rate
their support service experience negatively if they experienced difficulty with
logistical issues, such as scheduling appointments, and when they did not receive
adequate direction in an efficient manner, and positively when these requirements
were met. The following comments illustrate the task-specific concerns of
Caucasian students: “I like how efficiently I was helped. I walked in with a problem
and left with a solution;” “I don’t like how they give me a hard time since I cannot
schedule an appointment due to work;” “No, she simply gave me all of the
information I already had obtained from the internet, so it was not a very efficient
meeting;” and “Yes, because the counselor was very organized, had a good
understanding of what I was asking about, and we got everything done and I got out
of there real quick.”
While there was a general sense that all students appreciated the fact that
their help-giver seemed to care on an individual basis, the importance of
interpersonal relations was more prevalent among ethnic minority students (i.e.,
African American, Latino). In other words, the data demonstrated that there was a
tendency for some African American and Latino students’ responses and perceptions
to center around relational issues, such as feeling welcomed, cared for, and more
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specifically, about being treated fairly as opposed to judged based on grades or
performance. Specifically, of the total number of African American students’
negative responses, 50% of them contained messages that revolved around the fact
that these students perceived their counselor or tutor to have preconceived notions
about their ability. The tendency was less prevalent for Latino students with 19% of
their total negative responses including such perceptions. The following comments
illustrate the importance of relational issues and not being judged to ethnic minority
students: “I did not feel that the counselors truly cared for me and my concerns
(African American student);” “I like how the counselor took time to get to know me
and treated me like a human being (Latino student);” “I was not judged, just helped
(African American student);” “It helped me out in one way, but what I didn’t like is
that instead of encouragement they tried to bring me down (African American
student);” and “No, because another counselor stated that I wasn’t the ‘nursing’
student because I started off with low grades (Latino student).”
These findings are consistent with the research on cultural congruity and
academic environment which not only indicates that ethnic minority students are
likely to have differing perceptions than Caucasian students, but also that ethnic
minority students might have more negative expectations and perceptions with
respect to cultural congruity and the academic environment in that they might not
feel as valued as other students and perceive the environment to be less supportive
and more discriminatory (Gloria et al., 2001; Miville & Constantine, 2006).
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Similarly, these findings also indicate that some ethnic minority students were more
likely than Caucasian students to perceive the support service personnel as having
negative beliefs regarding their performance and their abilities. This finding has
important implications, which are further discussed in chapter 5.
Moreover, while the majority of students were satisfied and pleased with the
help that was provided at the various academic support services, there were some
important findings that emerged in regards to certain services. With respect to
financial aid, some students voiced concerns due to lack of individual step-by-step
guidance. Specifically, some students expressed that they had several unanswered
questions and that they were having difficulty filling out their FAFSA (Federal
Application for Student Aid) applications individually, such as illustrated by the
following student comments: “No, I wasn’t able to fill out the FAFSA application
online. I found it difficult. I needed someone to guide me through it;” and “No, not
really, they didn’t help me solve my problem. They all had different answers to the
same question.”
Similarly, the main concern students had regarding academic counseling
revolved around not receiving adequate help, having unanswered questions, and
remaining confused after help sessions, such as illustrated by the following
comments: “I thought I would come out fully understanding what transferring was
about, maybe a booklet would help to have;” “In a way, but it didn’t fully satisfy me
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because I’m still confused about what I want to do in college;” and “No, because I
thought I would receive more help but I didn’t at all.”
The main concern that emerged regarding the math lab was lack of personnel.
Many students described their visit to the math lab as a waste of time because they
had to wait for an extended time to receive help, and because they perceived the
counselors to not have enough time to spend with them on a one-on-one basis, such
as illustrated by the following student comments: “No, I thought there were going to
be more tutors in the math lab, so it was a waste of time;” and “Not really, they
didn’t seem to friendly or eager to help me. There wasn’t that many people and I
raised my hand and had to wait until someone looked up at me to receive any help,
about five minutes.” Lastly, students also voiced concerns with respect to DSPS.
Specifically, students expressed that the DSPS counselors lacked warmth and
concern, such as illustrated by the following comments: “No, it did not. They are not
very caring there or welcoming;” and “No, I thought if I showed documentation of
my disability then they would help me, but they were just cold and unhelpful.”
Summary
In summary, the current study demonstrated that students of various ethnic
groups had divergent perceptions of support services (i.e., cultural congruity and
perceptions of the academic environment). These differences emerged specifically
for Caucasian and Other students (Russian, Armenian, Asian and other non-White)
with respect to cultural congruity, and for Latino and Other students in regards to
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perceptions of the academic environment. Contrary to expectations, no differences
were found between Caucasian, African American, and Latino students. However,
qualitative findings indicated both similarities and differences among ethnic groups
with respect to support service experiences and expectations.
It was hypothesized that cultural congruity, perceptions of the academic
environment, ethnicity, and self-worth protection would predict students’ help-
seeking behaviors, however, students’ knowledge of support services emerged as the
only significant predictor of students’ help-seeking. The potential reasons for the
insignificant relationship between students’ perceptions of the academic environment
(i.e., cultural congruity and perceptions of the academic environment), self-worth
protection, and help-seeking are extensively discussed in Chapter 5.
Correlational relationships, on the other hand, pointed to a significant and
positive relationship between students’ perceptions of the academic environment and
help-seeking. Specifically, as expected, an inverse relationship emerged between
cultural congruity and self-worth protection, and between students’ perceptions of
the academic environment and self-worth protection. These findings have important
implications, and are therefore further discussed and interpreted in Chapter 5
including recommendations for future research and practice.
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CHAPTER 5
DISCUSSION
This chapter presents a brief review of the findings from the current
investigation, followed by a discussion of insights and implications gained as they
relate to community college students. Limitations of the current study and
recommendations for future research and practice are also provided.
The current study sought to extend the research on academic help-seeking by
looking beyond motivational factors to those factors associated with ethnic
perceptions and background as predictors of help-seeking. Specifically, the results
offered insights into the relationship between ethnic students’ perceptions of support
services (i.e., perceptions of cultural congruity and the academic environment) and
their help-seeking behaviors.
The results indicated that students of various ethnic groups had divergent
perceptions of cultural congruity and the academic environment. In particular,
Caucasian students perceived that they fit in and felt that they were valued more
within the academic environment than Russian, Armenian, Asian and other non-
White students. Similarly, Latino students perceived the academic environment to
be a more supportive, comforting, and non-discriminatory place than Russian,
Armenian, Asian and other non-White students. However, contrary to expectations,
no significant differences in students’ perceptions emerged between Caucasian,
African American, and Latino students.
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Moreover, inconsistent with the proposed hypotheses, students’ ethnic
background, their perceptions of cultural congruity, the academic environment, and
self-worth protection did not predict help-seeking. However, students’ knowledge of
support services clearly predicted students’ help-seeking behaviors above and
beyond students’ GPA.
Insights and Implications
Despite the fact that the data did not fully support the proposed hypotheses
with respect to differences in ethnic perceptions and the predictive value of cultural
congruity, perceptions of academic environment and self-worth protection, there
were several important insights and implications gained from the current data
analyses.
Insights Related to Help-Seeking and Support Services
Contrary to predictions, students’ knowledge of support services was the only
predictive variable in explaining students’ help-seeking behaviors. Essentially, this
finding demonstrates that students’ knowledge of support services influences their
frequency of help-seeking from these services. This finding has important
implications for community college educators, counselors, and personnel in terms of
their responsibility in educating and informing students about the various services
offered within the academic environment, such that students are more likely to seek
help. Future researchers should, therefore, consider investigating how students with
higher levels of knowledge regarding support services acquire knowledge, and also
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how their knowledge might be different from students who do not seek help. Results
from an investigation such as this can potentially decipher how educators,
counselors, and other personnel can encourage students who do typically not seek
help to utilize support services.
In discussing the predictive relationship between knowledge of support
services and their help-seeking, it is important to note the positive correlation that
emerged between students’ knowledge of support services and their help-seeking
behaviors. While the direction of this relationship is unclear, it is possible that on,
one hand, students’ who attend support services acquire more knowledge about the
services they visit. On the other hand, it is also possible that students who learn
more about a specific support service are more likely to use it.
A quantitative finding from the current study that can illuminate the former
interpretation is the difference in knowledge of support services that emerged for
African American students with respect to EOPS (Extended Opportunity Programs
and Services). EOPS is a state funded support program for educationally
disadvantaged and low income students, which provides these students with tailored
counseling and tutoring, childcare, book services and priority registration (LAVC
Equity Plan, 2004). It is reasonable to contend that EOPS students are required to
attend the service to utilize its benefits, which potentially explains why African
American students had a higher level of knowledge about EOPS than any other
students.
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This interpretation points to the importance of making support service
attendance a part of class requirements, such that students are likely to acquire more
knowledge about the various services and potentially take advantage of what the
services have to offer. In addition, counselors and advisors can take advantage of
help-seeking sessions by providing students with appropriate and adequate
knowledge of what their respective service provides, while also introducing students
to other appropriate services on campus.
To determine potential causes for the nonpredictive value of cultural
congruity, perceptions of the academic environment, ethnicity, and self-worth
protection on students’ help-seeking behaviors, secondary data analyses were
performed. Specifically, a skewness and kurtosis analysis were conducted for
students’ help-seeking frequency responses and for students’ GPA. Results from the
analyses indicated that students’ scores for GPA were negatively skewed, with a
skewness of -.60 (SE = .173), thus potentially limiting the variance of GPA on help-
seeking. Further, students’ responses for their total frequency of help-seeking were
positively skewed and leptokurtic, with a skewness of 6.55 (SE = .172), and a
kurtosis of 61.07 (SE = .341). Essentially, the mean for students’ help-seeking
responses was 10.71 and the modes were 0 and 4, indicating that most students
scored low with some students reporting very high help-seeking frequency thereby
further contributing to the insignificant findings and lack of variance.
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The fact that a majority of students simply did not seek help is an area that
needs further elaboration. Past research indicates that the three main reasons that
students do not seek help include the perception that help-seeking is a dependent
behavior which conflicts with the need for autonomy (Ryan et al., 2005); the
perception that help-seeking is perceived as evidence of incompetence, and
therefore, a threat to self-worth (Butler, 1998); and the belief that help-seeking will
not be useful or effective due to lack of competent and willing helpers (Ryan et al.,
2005).
While the quantitative data did not support the notion that help-seeking might
be perceived as a threat to self-worth or ability, the qualitative data supported the
notion of help-seeking as not effective or useful as one of the main reasons that
students were not satisfied with their help-seeking experience. This finding has
important implications as previous research has found that students who have prior
help-seeking experiences that are either perceived as negative or not useful are
unlikely to return for additional help sessions (Alexitch, 2006). As a result, it is
apparent that students’ initial impressions of help sessions play a significant role in
their future help-seeking expectations and behaviors. Therefore, it is essential that
individuals working within the community college support services maximize the
importance of students’ initial impressions and their expectations in their initial
meetings with students.
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In addition, the fact that some students reported very high frequency of help-
seeking is another important finding to take note of as frequent help-seeking
behavior is not always adaptive. The main goal of adaptive help-seeking is for
students to develop their competence, autonomy, and self-regulatory abilities, such
that they can increasingly tackle problems and tasks independently (Karabenick,
2003; Sigmund, 2006; Volet & Karabenick, 2006). However, when students seek
help too frequently it suggests that they have not acquired or contributed to these
skills. In fact, previous research indicates that when students engage in frequent
help-seeking, they are essentially engaging in executive or nonadaptive dependent
help-seeking, which involves providing students with short-term solutions to
problems and, in turn, increases their dependence on others as opposed to their own
independence; ultimately, this defeats the purpose of seeking help (Collins & Sims,
2006; Newman, 2007).
As a result of the skewness and kurtosis analyses, a secondary hierarchical
regression was also conducted. The help-seeking frequency responses above 12
were excluded as this brought the variable into normal distribution, leaving a sample
of 145 participants. However, results indicated that knowledge of support services
was still the only predictor in the model, explaining 12.7% of the variance in help-
seeking (F
change
= 16.91, df = 1,135, p < .001). One potential explanation for these
results could be the reduction in sample size. Future research should, therefore, re-
examine the relationships from the current investigation.
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Despite the fact that students’ perceptions of the academic environment did
not emerge as a predictor of students’ help-seeking, this study further confirms and
adds to previous research showing a positive relationship between students’
perceptions of the academic environment and their help-seeking behaviors. Previous
research investigating students’ perceptions of the academic environment and help-
seeking has focused specifically on help-seeking attitudes as opposed to students’
actual rate of help-seeking. Thus, the current finding implies that how students view
their academic environment might influence whether or not they actually seek help.
Essentially, if students view their academic environment as a non-supportive and
discriminatory place they are likely to not seek help; whereas, if they view the
environment positively they are likely to engage in help-seeking.
This finding has important implications for community college
representatives and students, as previous research has clearly demonstrated that
students who seek help are more successful than students who do not seek help and,
specifically, that help-seeking positively influences students’ academic achievement
(Gribbons & Dixon, 2001; Hendriksen et al., 2005; Karabenick, 2003; Sigmund,
2006; Volet & Karabenick, 2006). This is especially important for community
college students who are aiming to transfer to four-year institutions, as previous
research has also shown that students who are successful in transferring from
community colleges to four-year institutions owe much of their success to their help-
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seeking from the appropriate resources, counselors, and personnel (Bensimon, Pak,
Malcolm, Marquez, & Park, 2007).
It is, therefore, particularly important for community college educators,
counselors, and personnel to consider how students might perceive their academic
environment, and adapt or change it accordingly, such that students are more likely
to seek help from the services offered within that environment, contributing to their
own academic success and, ultimately, their transfer to a four-year institution.
Moreover, since cultural congruity and perceptions of the academic environment
were positively related, the management of students’ perceptions of the academic
environment becomes even more significant as students’ positive perceptions of the
academic environment could also positively influence students’ perceptions of
cultural congruity.
In addition, given that knowledge of support services was found to be the
only predictor of help-seeking in the current investigation, and students’ perceptions
of the academic environment and their knowledge of support services were also
positively correlated, it further emphasizes the importance for educators and
community college representatives to manage students’ perceptions of the academic
environment such that students are more likely to seek out knowledge regarding the
services offered within the environment and, in turn, seek help from those services.
With respect to support services, the qualitative findings further support past
research on academic help-seeking. Specifically, students rated their support service
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experience favorably when they received instrumental help (i.e., developmental
advising), when they perceived the help as effective and useful, and lastly, when they
perceived the helper to be competent and patient. In sharp contrast, help sessions
were rated less favorably when these components were not present. It is likely that
students perceived the help sessions as less useful and the helper as less competent
and patient when they were not provided with instrumental help. Instrumental help
involves assistance in the form of prompts, clarifications, procedures, and examples
that help students’ complete and master tasks independently and maintain interest
and persistence on tasks. Executive help, on the other hand, assists students in
solving immediate problems by providing short-term solutions (Collins & Sims,
2006; Sigmund, 2006). Clearly, instrumental help requires more time, guidance, and
effort on the part of the counselor, which is likely to contribute to students’
perceptions that the help is useful, and that the helper is competent and patient.
Moreover, previous research has clearly established the importance and usefulness of
instrumental help in developing student autonomy and competence (Collins & Sims,
2006; Sigmund, 2006).
Insights Related to Ethnic Differences
Important insights with respect to ethnic differences were also gained from
the current analysis. The data demonstrated that Russian, Armenian, Asian and other
non-White students experienced more negative perceptions of cultural congruity and
the academic environment than Caucasian and Latino students, respectively. It is
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important to note that while Armenian students are not generally considered ethnic
minority, it is possible that their differences in perceptions could be explained by the
fact that they might have perceived themselves as minority with respect to language.
Previous research investigating cultural differences has indicated that individuals
with language barriers or who perceive themselves as language minority are also
likely to have more negative perceptions of cultural congruity potentially due to the
fact that they are less acculturated (Paris et al., 2005; Stanton-Salazar et al., 2001).
Nonetheless, these findings have important implications for both community
college representatives and students from the specified ethnic groups as previous
research has established that students who have more negative perceptions of cultural
congruity and the academic environment tend to persist less, have more negative
help-seeking attitudes, and experience less psychological well-being and more stress
(Castillo et al., 2006; Gloria et al., 2005; Gloria et al., 2001; Gloria et al., 1999).
Clearly, strategies for enhancing these students’ positive perceptions of cultural
congruity and the academic environment are warranted, such that these students have
a higher likelihood of persisting and are afforded the same opportunities as students
from other ethnic groups to enjoy and thrive within their educational environment.
Contrary to predictions and previous research, neither Latino students nor
African American students had different perceptions from those of Caucasian
students when it came to cultural congruity and the academic environment. One
potential reason for these insignificant findings could be the uneven distribution of
104
ethnic groups in the current sample. While the population at the community college
consists of 40.4% Latino, 35% Caucasian, 7.3% African-American, 13.2% Asian,
4% Other Non-White students (Trombley et al., 2002), the overall ethnic groups in
the current study population consisted of 13.3% Caucasian students, 12.3% African
American, 48.3% Latino, and 26.1% Other. Clearly the sample population was not
accurately representative of the overall community college population and, more
importantly, since the study population had a lower representation of certain ethnic
groups, this could have potentially impacted the results due to limited responses for
these ethnic groups (i.e., African American, Caucasian).
Moreover, the Armenian student population might have identified in both the
Caucasian ethnic category as well as the Armenian category, which could have
further influenced the results. Essentially, Armenian students were the most highly
represented ethnic group within the Other ethnic category. Also, this group was the
only group that had significantly different scores than Caucasian and Latino students
with respect to cultural congruity and perceptions of the academic environment,
respectively. Thus, if some Armenian students identified in the Caucasian category
it could potentially reduce the mean for the Caucasian ethnic group, thereby
contributing to the lack of differences between the Caucasian ethnic group and the
remaining ethnic groups.
In addition, most previous research examining students’ perceptions of
cultural congruity and the academic environment that has obtained significant
105
differences in terms of ethnic perceptions, has been performed at predominantly
White institutions (Gloria et al., 2001; Castillo et al., 2006; Miville & Constantine,
2006). In contrast, the current investigation took place at an academic institution
with predominantly Latino students. This potentially explains the insignificant
results with respect to ethnic perceptions. In other words, being that cultural
congruity represents the degree to which an individual perceives to fit in and feel
valued within an environment (Gloria et al., 2001) and perceptions of the academic
environment involves the degree to which students perceive the academic climate to
be supportive (Miville & Constantine, 2006), it is highly likely that there were no
significant differences between Latino and Caucasian students with respect to these
constructs due to the fact that the Latino student population is most highly
represented at the respective community college. Future research should, therefore,
seek to differentiate whether ethnic minority students only perceive low cultural
congruity in academic environments where their ethnic group is underrepresented,
and further what might contribute to perceptions of high cultural congruity and
positive perceptions of the academic environment where their ethnic group might be
underrepresented.
Qualitative findings further indicated important differences in ethnic
students’ perceptions regarding help sessions. Specifically, findings revealed that
Caucasian students rated their support service experience favorably when they
received help that aided them in efficiently and competently solving the problem or
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task at hand. In contrast, ethnic minority students had a higher tendency to rate their
help session experience positively when they perceived the helper to build rapport
with them, treat them fairly, and care about their individual needs. Previous research
has also pointed to the importance of relationships between help-giver and help-
seeker in contributing to ethnic minority student success. Specifically, Bensimon et
al. (2007) demonstrated that students who were successful in transferring to four-
year institutions attributed their success to key relationships that had developed
between themselves and a key authority figure within the academic environment who
had gone the extra mile in reaching out and noticing their potential. Clearly, it is
important for community college advisors and counselors to build relationships with
their students as they are likely to be more vested and serve as key change agents in
their students’ academic careers.
On the other hand, ethnic minority students (i.e., Latino, African American)
rated their support service experience negatively when they perceived the helper to
treat them unfairly or judge them based on ability or performance. This finding has
important implications with respect to stereotype threat, as Latino and African
American students struggle with stereotypes about being less capable than Caucasian
students. Moreover, since stereotype threat interferes with students’ performance
due to increased anxiety about confirming the stereotype (Osborne, 2001), it is likely
that students who are seeking help due to academic difficulties might not be able to
effectively take advantage of the help being provided. In fact, previous researchers
107
contend that since seeking help can serve to confirm a stereotype about a students’
ability, it is highly likely that students who perceive stereotype threat will not take
advantage of available help to the same degree as students who do not experience
threat (Sims & Collins, 2006). Essentially, the threat of being perceived as less
capable than other students might force students who experience stereotype threat in
help-seeking situations to disengage and avoid the resources that should ultimately
help them academically. Future research, therefore, needs to further explore whether
stereotype threat interferes with students’ tendencies to seek help.
Further corroborating the importance of this finding is the notion that
students have a tendency to avoid seeking help because they view help-seeking as
evidence of incompetence, inferiority, and as a threat to their ability perceptions
(Butler, 1998). Essentially, if students decide to seek help and the counselor or tutor
gives the students the impression that they lack adequate ability to perform a certain
task or to pursue a specific field of interest, it is highly likely that these students will
not return for additional help sessions due to the fact that they will perceive that they
are inferior and that they lack the competence and ability to succeed.
Insights Related to Self-Worth Theory
This study sought to extend the application of self-worth theory by
hypothesizing that self-worth protection was the mediating link between students’
perceptions of academic support services (i.e., perceptions of cultural congruity and
the academic support services) and their help-seeking behaviors. In other words, it
108
was predicted that if students perceived the academic support services negatively
(i.e., low scores on cultural congruity and perceptions of the academic environment),
then they would have a high tendency to protect self-worth, potentially due to the
notion of stereotype threat, and subsequently avoid seeking help.
While self-worth protection was not confirmed as a mediating variable in the
relationship between students’ perceptions and their help-seeking behaviors, the
current findings add to past research on self-worth theory by demonstrating inverse
relationships between cultural congruity and self-worth protection, and students’
perceptions of the academic environment and their self-worth protective tendencies.
Essentially, these relationships imply that students, who feel that they are not
culturally valued and perceive the academic environment to be discriminatory and
non-supportive, are likely to have a higher tendency to protect their self-worth.
These findings have important implications for community college students
and community college educators and personnel, as previous research investigating
self-worth and academic behaviors has consistently demonstrated that students who
perceive their self-worth to be threatened also have a higher tendency to engage in
self-worth protective strategies such as, disengaging from academic activities,
withdrawing effort, prevarication, low goal-setting, self-handicapping, and
procrastination among others (Covington, 1998; Thompson, 1994, 1996). These
maladaptive academic behaviors, in turn, tend to culminate in negative academic
outcomes for the students who exhibit them (Thompson, 1996). Therefore, it is
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essential for educators and community college personnel to understand and take into
consideration how students might view the academic environment in terms of its
social and cultural conditions, and also how students perceive they fit in within the
predominant culture in their decision-making regarding students’ academic
achievement.
Another related but unexpected finding was the positive relationship that
emerged between students’ knowledge of support services and their self-worth
protective tendencies. Essentially, this finding implies that the more knowledge
students have regarding support services the higher their tendency to protect self-
worth. At first this finding might seem counterintuitive, however, when taking the
nature of self-worth protection into consideration, it is reasonable to assume that the
nature of students’ knowledge might have been a threat to their sense of self-worth.
This finding, therefore, has important implications for the community
college, as students’ knowledge of support services was the only predictor of help-
seeking behavior in the current study. Future research should therefore go beyond
students’ knowledge level to investigate the nature of students’ knowledge regarding
the support services. Since students’ tendency to protect their self-worth is likely to
increase due to something that they perceive to be a threat to their self-worth, it is
entirely plausible that if students have a higher level of negative knowledge
regarding the support services, that they also might have a higher tendency to protect
their self worth.
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Limitations and Recommendations
The study had several limitations that have to be taken into consideration
when interpreting the current findings. Most importantly, much of the data was
gathered through self-report, thereby making the study vulnerable to social
desirability effects. Along the same line, there was no pre-set scale for participants
to utilize in reporting their rate of help-seeking, which contributed to the skewed and
leptokurtic help-seeking frequency variable. Moreover, since most of the significant
findings were correlational in nature, it is important to interpret them with caution in
terms of cause and effect relationships. In addition, since students’ perceptions of
cultural congruity and the academic environment were proxies for their perceptions
of the academic support services, it is important to not interpret the data on students’
perceptions of these constructs as direct reflections of students’ perceptions of the
academic support services. Lastly, since the study took place at one Southern
California urban community college, the results may, therefore, not be generalizable
to the larger body of community college students, or other higher education
institutions.
Several recommendations for future research and practice also stem from the
current study. In terms of future research, the secondary analyses demonstrated that
a replication of the current study utilizing a more representative sample, a pre-set
scale for help-seeking behavior, and measurements that more directly reflect
perceptions of support services is warranted. Moreover, since the current study
111
showed inverse relationships between students’ perceptions of the academic
environment and cultural congruity and their tendency to protect their self-worth,
future researchers should consider examining the differences in these perceptions of
students who seek help and students who do not seek help, and further explore these
relationships with other maladaptive academic behaviors and self-worth protective
strategies, such as nonpersistence and self-handicapping.
In addition, as students’ knowledge of support services emerged as the only
predictor of students’ help-seeking behaviors in the current study, future researchers
need to investigate whether students who seek help and those who do not have
different knowledge about support services, and specifically what knowledge
differences they have, utilizing a qualitative research design. Given the importance
of students’ perceptions of cultural congruity and the academic environment, future
research should further attempt to determine what interventions, strategies, and
programs might positively influence these perceptions utilizing a longitudinal and
experimental design allowing for students’ perceptions to change over time. Lastly,
future researchers should also consider further investigating the role of stereotype
threat in ethnic students’ help-seeking behaviors.
There are also a number of practical recommendations for the community
college as a result of this study. Based on the preceding discussion, it is apparent
that students’ expectations regarding help sessions and their future help-seeking
behaviors are partly influenced by their previous support service experiences.
112
Moreover, students also perceived their help sessions to be more useful and rated
their help sessions positively when they were provided with instrumental help.
While community college counselors and advisors are likely to receive
training in their area of expertise, they might not receive much training in how to
effectively provide instrumental help. Therefore, it is essential that counselors are
trained in how to provide instrumental help in addition to their area of focus.
Specifically, counselors should receive training in how to: (1) provide effective
examples of procedures and concepts; (2) effectively convey a step-by-step process
as opposed to providing a solution; (3) probe students who are seeking executive
help with questions and prompts; and finally (4) decipher whether a help request
requires prescriptive (executive help) as opposed to developmental advising, as
several requests such as where to locate specific information, institutional policies,
and class and program requirements require executive help (Alexitch, 2006).
Moreover, Alexitch (2006) noted that while developmental advising can be
time-consuming, it leaves students with the impression that the counselor views them
as an individual with unique academic needs and interests and, more importantly,
that they are valued by the institution. As such, providing students with instrumental
help will not only build a positive relationship between student and counselor, which
was indicated as an important and positive aspect of help sessions, but it can also
positively influence students’ perceptions of cultural congruity and the academic
environment. For those services that were identified as limited staff (i.e., Math lab,
113
Financial aid), counselors and advisors can create handouts with step-by-step
directions for the most inquired tasks or problems.
To further contribute to positive perceptions of cultural congruity and the
academic environment previous researchers have suggested that counselors and
advisers should make their help culture-specific by incorporating the cultural context
of their students into their programs and interventions (Dupey et al., 2006; Gloria et
al., 1999; Gloria et al., 2001). Academic institutions can also employ support service
counselors and advisors that are representative of the various ethnic groups (Gloria et
al., 1999; Gloria et al., 2001). While having ethnically representative counselors and
advisors is ideal because these individuals can serve as role models as well as non-
threatening conduits for introducing the overall educational culture, this solution is
not always feasible.
However, there are other strategies for providing culture-specific assistance.
What is of utmost importance is that the individuals aiding ethnically diverse
students are culturally-sensitive, competent, and aware. On an organizational level,
the institution can provide training in cultural awareness, culturally relevant
counseling approaches, and finally how to create or maintain support services that
are welcoming to diverse populations (Dupey et al., 2006). Moreover, as part of
initial training or orientation, counselors and advisor can also receive education and
information about the sociocultural history and background of diverse groups on
campus. Incorporating such information into initial training programs can further
114
promote cultural awareness and sensitivity, which is likely to reduce stereotyping
(Ancis et al., 2000).
In addition, since qualitative findings indicated that some ethnic minority
students perceived counselors to judge them unfairly based on ability, it is also
important that counselors and advisors contribute to reducing students’ perceptions
of stereotype threat such that they are more likely to return for additional help
sessions. In this regard, there are two main strategies that counselors and advisors
can utilize to reduce their students’ perceptions of stereotype threat.
First, previous research has demonstrated that educators and counselors can
diminish students’ perceptions of stereotype threat by providing them with external
attributions for their difficulty (Good, Aronson, & Inzlicht, 2003). Essentially,
providing students with explanations for their anxiety and distraction associated with
stereotype threat that do not implicate the self or validate the stereotype about their
group can diminish the effects (Good et al., 2003). For instance, counselors and
advisors can emphasize to African American and Latino students who are seeking
help due to academic difficulties that the transition from high school to college is
often quite difficult and that the challenges they might be experiencing can typically
be overcome with time or appropriate academic strategies. This technique takes the
focus away from students’ ability or performance as an explanation for their
academic difficulty, which is a common stereotype that affects Latino and African
American students.
115
Secondly, emphasizing an incremental view of intelligence can also diminish
the effects of stereotype threat for students who struggle with stereotypes about
being less capable than other students (e.g., Latino, African American) (Good et al.,
2003). Essentially, counselors can encourage these students to view their
intelligence as malleable or as developing through work and effort as opposed to
something fixed that they cannot change. This is likely to reduce students’
perceptions of stereotype threat because of the realization that they can be as capable
as other students.
Lastly, while enhancing counselors and advisors cultural awareness and
competence is likely to contribute to positive impressions once students decide to
utilize the various services, these techniques will not contribute to their positive
expectations prior to initial help sessions. Since qualitative findings demonstrated
the importance of positive impressions of initial support service experiences to future
help-seeking expectations and behaviors, it is important to manage students’
impressions of support services prior to their initial meetings. These initial
impressions can be managed by implementing an initial mandatory orientation or
class where new students are oriented to the various services and have to visit and
learn about these services as part of the orientation or class. Having an initial
introduction such as this is not only likely to contribute to students’ positive
expectations for future help sessions, which is likely to make students more
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comfortable seeking help when difficulties arise, but also likely to contribute to their
knowledge of support services and reduce their potential for encountering academic
and other difficulties (Alexitch, 2006).
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References
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APPENDICES
Appendix A
Biographical Data
1. How old are you?
2. How long have you lived in the United States?
3. Please indicate your primary ethnic background using the options provided
below:
1. White/Caucasian 5. Russian
2. African American 6. Armenian
3. Latino/Hispanic 7. Other Non White
4. Asian
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Appendix B
Cultural Congruity Scale (Gloria & Kurpius, 1996)
For each of the following items, indicate the extent to which you have experienced
the feeling or situation at school. Use the following ratings:
Not at all A Great Deal
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
____ 1. I feel that I have to change myself to fit in at school.
____ 2. I try to not show the parts of me that are “ethnically” based.
____ 3. I often feel like a chameleon, having to change myself depending on the
ethnicity of the person I am with at school.
____ 4. I feel that my ethnicity is incompatible with other students.
____ 5. I can talk to my friends at school about my family and culture.
____ 6. I feel I am leaving my family values behind by going to college.
____ 7. My ethnic values are in conflict with what is expected at school.
____ 8. I can talk to my family about my friends from school.
____ 9. I feel that my language and/or appearance make it hard for me to fit in with
other students.
____ 10. My family and school values often conflict.
____ 11. I feel accepted at school as an ethnic minority.
____ 12. As an ethnic minority, I feel as if I belong on this campus.
____ 13. I can talk to my family about my struggles and concerns at school.
128
Appendix C
University Environment Scale (Gloria & Kurpius, 1996)
(Adapted to reflect the Community College Environment)
Please respond to these next statements using the following scale:
Not at all Very True
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
____ 1. Class sizes are so large that I feel like a number.
____ 2. The library staff is willing to help me find materials/books.
____ 3. College staff have been warm and friendly.
____ 4. I do not feel valued as a student on campus.
____ 5. Faculty have not been available to discuss my academic concerns.
____ 6. Financial aid staff has been willing to help me with financial concerns.
____ 7. The university encourages/sponsors ethnic groups on campus.
____ 8. There are tutoring services available for me on campus.
____ 9. The university seems to value minority students.
____ 10. Faculty have been available for help outside of class.
____ 11. The university seems like a cold, uncaring place to me.
____ 12. Faculty have been available to help me make course choices.
____ 13. I feel as if no one cares about me personally on this campus.
____ 14. I feel comfortable in the college environment.
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Appendix D
Self-Worth Protection Scale (Thompson & Dinnel, 2003)
Pleas respond to these next statements using the following scale:
Not very true of me Very true of me
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
____ 1. I avoid academic situations in which I can’t do as well as I would like.
____ 2. I don’t doubt my ability to do well academically.
____ 3. I withdraw from challenges due to fear of failure.
____ 4. I find it necessary to do well academically in order to preserve a sense of
self-worth.
____ 5. I find it easiest to try my hardest at something when there is little risk of
failure.
____ 6. When I compare my ability to those around me, I think that others may be
more intelligent than I am.
____ 7. I avoid challenges that might result in failure.
____ 8. I’m best able to try my hardest at something when failing at that thing won’t
reveal low ability.
____ 9. I strive to ensure academic success through dogged persistence and hard
work.
____ 10. I lack confidence in my ability to do well.
____ 11. Doing well academically allows me to preserve a sense of self-worth.
____ 12. I perform at my best when there is little risk of failure.
____ 13. I find it difficult to try my hardest because of a persistent fear of failure.
____ 14. I closely follow requirements of an assignment to avoid being marked
down.
130
____ 15. I strive to ensure success by being thorough, leaving no stone unturned.
____ 16. I must prove I’m worthwhile through my achievements.
____ 17. When I face new challenges, I doubt my ability to do well.
____ 18. I don’t rate my academic ability very highly.
131
Appendix E
Help-Seeking Attitudes and Behaviors Instrument
Please indicate to what degree you have knowledge of each of the following
academic/student support services at LAVC. Please indicate your level of
knowledge using the following rating scale:
No knowledge Very
knowledgeable
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. Learning Center
2. Math Lab
3. Writing Center
4. Reading Center
5. Academic Counseling
6. Financial Aid
7. Extended Opportunities Program and Services (EOPS)
8. Disabled Student Program and Services (DSPS)
9. Please indicate the number of times you visited any of the following
academic/student support services between Spring 2007 and the present by
providing the specific number in the space provided. Please specify the
number for all the services you visited.
Learning Center___ Math Lab___ Writing Center___
Reading Center___ Academic Counseling___ Financial Aid___
Extended Opportunities Program and Services (EOPS)___
Disabled Student Program and Services (DSPS)___
10. Where did you go?___________________ (support service)
132
a. What type of help did you want?
b. What type of help did you get?
c. Did the help that you received meet your original expectations? Why
or why not?
133
Appendix F
Informed Consent Form
University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education
Waite Phillips Hall 600 C
Los Angeles, CA 90089-4036
INFORMED CONSENT FOR NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH
********************************************************************
CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE IN RESEARCH
Students’ Perceptions of Academic/Student Support Services and
Their Help-seeking at a Community College.
USC and Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC) are working together to learn more
about LAVC student success. The information you provide is extremely important
in helping students like yourself achieve educational goals. We thank you in
advance for sharing your perceptions and valuable input. You are asked to
participate in a research study conducted by Ayesha Madni, (Principal Investigator),
M.A., a doctoral candidate, and Myron H. Dembo, Ph.D., faculty advisor, from the
Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California because you
are a student. The results of this study will be contributed to a dissertation and
executive summary. You were selected as a possible participant in this study
because you are a community college student at an urban community college. You
must be at least 18 years of age to participate. A total of between 200 and 350
participants will be randomly selected from the following disciplines to participate:
African American Studies, Chicano Studies, and Sociology. Your participation is
voluntary. You should read the information below, and ask questions about anything
you do not understand, before deciding whether or not to participate.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this study is to better understand how students view academic and
student support services, and how and why students use these services at a
community college. This will be accomplished by assessing students’ perceptions of
the academic and student support services, as well as help sought from any of these
services during the semester in relation to ethnicity.
134
PROCEDURES
If you volunteer to participate in this study, we would ask you to do the following
things:
You will be asked to complete a survey in class, which asks 59 questions about how
you perceive and use academic and student support services at your community
college. This survey will take approximately 30-35 minutes to complete in class.
For example, you will be asked to rate your opinion with items 1 – 53 using
variations of the following scale “Not at all,” Somewhat,” and “Very true.” A
sample survey item will ask you to rate your opinion with a statement such as:
“Financial aid staff has been willing to help me with financial concerns.” Another
example on the survey will ask you to rate your opinion with the following
statement: “I can talk to my friends at school about my family and culture.” In
addition, there will be a few open-ended prompts, such as: “Where did you go?
What type of help did you want? What type of help did you get? Did the help that
you received meet your original expectations? Why or why not?”
This study will also be looking at your GPA and demographic data (e.g., gender),
which require your permission to access. This type of analysis is normal and is part
of the ongoing analyses performed at Los Angeles Valley College. However, for the
purposes of this study the data and your Los Angeles Valley College ID number will
only be viewed by the principal investigator administering this study. Your
responses will be held in the strictest professional confidence. Instructors will not
have access to the information you provide on this survey and your answers will not
influence the grade you receive in this course.
POTENTIAL RISKS AND DISCOMFORTS
This study does not pose any identifiable risks beyond minor discomfort. You may
be uncomfortable due to spending time away from your studies, from your GPA
being reviewed, or concerned with the confidentiality of your answers on the survey.
If you feel discomfort you may stop and withdraw from the study at any time.
Confidentiality will be protected at all times during data collection, analysis, and
presentation of the written research report.
POTENTIAL BENEFITS TO SUBJECTS AND/OR TO SOCIETY
There will be no direct benefit to you for participating in this study. However, the
information from this study will be used to help inform decisions and improve the
academic and student support services for students.
PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION
There is no monetary compensation for participating in this study.
135
CONFIDENTIALITY
Any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can be
identified with you will remain confidential and will be disclosed only with your
permission or as required by law.
Any personal information and data collected for the study will be coded to ensure
privacy. Only members of the research team will have access to the data associated
with this study. The data will be stored in the principal investigator’s office in a
locked file cabinet/password protected computer. The data will be stored for three
years after the study has been completed and then destroyed. Course instructors will
not have access to the information you provide on this survey and your answers will
not influence the grade you receive in this course. Responses will be held in the
strictest professional confidence and will only be viewed by the principal
investigator. The informed consent forms with your Los Angeles Valley College ID
and name will be stored separately from your completed survey so that no
connection can be made to them. In addition, the portion of the survey and the
scantron that contains your student ID will be cut out and destroyed after data
transcription so the information will be unidentifiable.
When the results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no
information will be included that would reveal your identity.
PARTICIPATION AND WITHDRAWAL
You can choose whether to be in this study or not. If you volunteer to be in this
study, you may withdraw at any time without consequences of any kind. You may
also refuse to answer any questions you don’t want to answer and still remain in the
study. The investigator may withdraw you from this research if circumstances arise
which warrant doing so.
ALTERNATIVES TO PARTICIPATION
Your alternative is to not participate.
RIGHTS OF RESEARCH SUBJECTS
You may withdraw your consent at any time and discontinue participation without
penalty. You are not waiving any legal claims, rights or remedies because of your
participation in this research study. If you have questions regarding your rights as a
research subject, contact the University Park IRB, Office of the Vice Provost for
Research Advancement, Grace Ford Salvatori Hall, Room 306, Los Angeles, CA
90089-1695, (213) 821-5272 or upirb@usc.edu.
136
IDENTIFICATION OF INVESTIGATORS
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact
the Principal Investigator, Ayesha Madni via mail at 3250 Ocean Park Blvd., suite
100, Santa Monica, CA 90405; email at amadni@usc.edu; or phone at (310) 581-
5440 x 114. You may also contact the Faculty Advisor, Dr. Myron H. Dembo via
mail at WPH 600C, Los Angeles, CA 90089-4036; email at dembo@usc.edu; or
phone at (213) 740-2364.
SIGNATURE OF RESEARCH SUBJECT
I understand the procedures described above, and I understand fully the rights of a
potential subject in a research study involving people as subjects. My questions have
been answered to my satisfaction, and I agree to participate in this study. I have
been given a copy of this form.
□ I agree to have my demographic information (i.e., gender and units)
accessed.
□ I do not agree to have my demographic information (i.e., gender and units)
accessed.
□ I agree to have my GPA accessed.
□ I do not agree to have my GPA accessed.
Student ID#: (including all leading zeros, if applicable):_______________________
Name of Subject
Signature of Subject Date
137
SIGNATURE OF INVESTIGATOR
I have explained the research to the subject and answered all of his/her questions. I
believe that he/she understands the information described in this document and freely
consents to participate.
Name of Investigator
Signature of Investigator Date (must be the same as
subject’s)
138
Appendix G
Student Support Survey
Student ID#__________
Dear Student:
Your input is very valuable to this study. When responding to the following survey
items please think about the extent to which you have experienced the feeling or
situation at LAVC. When you are finished, please turn in your surveys and signed
consent form in the box provided at the back of the room.
Please mark your multiple choice responses on the scantron form
using a #2 pencil.
Please write your fill-in answers on this survey.
Please fill-in your Student ID number in the designated area on the
top left corner of the scantron sheet and the top right corner of
this page.
Below is a list of questions about you as a student at LAVC. For question 1-13,
please fill in the circle on your scantron that best describes your opinion using the
following rating scale: 1 = Not at all, 4 = Somewhat, and 7 = A Great Deal.
Not at
all
Somewhat A Great
Deal
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. I feel that I have to change myself to fit in at school.
2. I try to not show the parts of me that are “ethnically” based.
3. I often feel like a chameleon, having to change myself depending on the
ethnicity of the person I am with at school.
4. I feel that my ethnicity is incompatible with other students.
5. I can talk to my friends at school about my family and culture.
6. I feel I am leaving my family values behind by going to college.
7. My ethnic values are in conflict with what is expected at school.
8. I can talk to my family about my friends from school.
139
9. I feel that my language and/or appearance make it hard for me to fit in with
other students.
10. My family and school values often conflict.
11. I feel accepted at school as an ethnic minority.
12. As an ethnic minority, I feel as if I belong on this campus.
13. I can talk to my family about my struggles and concerns at school.
The following questions are about how you view LAVC. For questions 14-27,
please fill in on your scantron the circle that best describes your opinion using the
following rating scale: 1 = Not at all, 4 = Somewhat true, and 7 = Very true.
Not at
all
Somewhat A Great
Deal
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
14. Class sizes are so large that I feel like a number.
15. The library staff is willing to help me find materials/books.
16. College staff have been warm and friendly.
17. I do not feel valued as a student on campus.
18. Faculty have not been available to discuss my academic concerns.
19. Financial aid staff has been willing to help me with financial concerns.
20. The college encourages/sponsors ethnic groups on campus.
21. There are tutoring services available for me on campus.
22. The college seems to value minority students.
23. Faculty have been available for help outside class.
24. The college seems like a cold, uncaring place to me.
140
25. Faculty have been available to help me make course choices.
26. I feel as if no one cares about me personally on this campus.
27. I feel comfortable in the college environment.
Carefully read each statement below and assess the extent to which each statement
applies to you in regards to your academic situations. For questions 28-45, please
fill in on your scantron the circle that best describes your opinion using the
following rating scale: 1 = Not very true of me, 4 = Somewhat true of me,
and 7 = Very true of me.
Not at
all
Somewhat A Great
Deal
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
28. I avoid academic situations in which I can’t do as well as I would like.
29. I don’t doubt my ability to do well academically.
30. I withdraw from challenges due to fear of failure.
31. I find it necessary to do well academically in order to preserve a sense of self-
worth.
32. I find it easiest to try my hardest at something when there is little risk of
failure.
33. When I compare my ability to those around me, I think that others may be
more intelligent than I am.
34. I avoid challenges that might result in failure.
35. I’m best able to try my hardest at something when failing at that thing won’t
reveal low ability.
36. I strive to ensure academic success through dogged persistence and hard
work.
37. I lack confidence in my ability to do well.
38. Doing well academically allows me to preserve a sense of self-worth.
141
39. I perform at my best when there is little risk of failure.
40. I find it difficult to try my hardest because of a persistent fear of failure.
41. I closely follow the requirements of an assignment to avoid being marked
down.
42. I strive to ensure success by being thorough, leaving no stone unturned.
43. I must prove I’m worthwhile through my achievements.
44. When I face new challenges, I doubt my ability to do well.
45. I don’t rate my academic ability very highly.
For questions 46-53 below, please indicate to what degree you have knowledge
of each of the following academic/student support services at LAVC. Please
indicate your level of knowledge using the following rating scale: 1 = No
knowledge, 4 = Some knowledge, and 7 = Very knowledgeable.
Not at
all
Somewhat A Great
Deal
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
46. Learning Center:
47. Math Lab
48. Writing Center
49. Reading Center
50. Academic Counseling
51. Financial Aid
52. Extended Opportunities Program and Services (EOPS)
53. Disabled Student Program and Services (DSPS)
142
54. Please indicate your primary ethnic background using the options provided
below:
5. White/Caucasian 6. Russian
6. African American 7. Armenian
7. Latino/Hispanic 8. Other Non White
8. Asian
55. How old are you? ___________________
56. How long have you lived in the United States? ________________________
57. Please indicate the number of times you visited any of the following
academic/student support services between Spring 2007 and the present by
providing the specific number in the space provided. Please specify the
number for all the services you visited.
Learning Center___ Math Lab___ Writing Center___
Reading Center___ Academic Counseling___ Financial Aid___
Extended Opportunities Program and Services (EOPS)___
Disabled Student Program and Services (DSPS)___
For question 58 and 59, please pick two of the services you visited and discuss your
experience using the questions provided.
58. Where did you go?___________________ (support service)
a. What type of help did you want?
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
b. What type of help did you get?
____________________________________________________________________
143
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
c. Did the help that you received meet your original expectations? Why
or why not?
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Learning Center___ Math Lab___ Writing Center___
Reading Center___ Academic Counseling___ Financial Aid___
Extended Opportunities Program and Services (EOPS)___
Disabled Student Program and Services (DSPS)___
59. Where did you go?___________________ (support service)
a. What type of help did you want?
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
b. What type of help did you get?
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
144
c. Did the help that you received meet your original expectations? Why
or why not?
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
Thank you for your time and attention to this important survey.
Please place your completed survey and signed consent form in the box located at the back of the
room.
If you have any questions regarding the statements and/or content of this survey, please contact
Ayesha Madni at (310) 581-5440 x114 or Dr. Myron Dembo at (213) 740-2364.
Abstract (if available)
Abstract
The purpose of the current study was to extend the research on help-seeking by investigating factors associated with ethnic background that are likely to influence students help-seeking from academic and student support services. Specifically, the study examined the relationship between students perceptions of academic support services (i.e., cultural congruity, academic environment), their ethnicity, and their resulting help-seeking behaviors.
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Madni, Ayesha
(author)
Core Title
Do the perceptions of the usefulness of academic support services influence ethnically diverse students' help-seeking attitudes and behaviors?
School
Rossier School of Education
Degree
Doctor of Education
Degree Program
Education (Leadership)
Publication Date
03/28/2008
Defense Date
03/11/2008
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
academic support services,community college,cultural congruity,ethnic differences,help-seeking,OAI-PMH Harvest,perceptions of academic environment,self-worth,stereotype threat
Language
English
Advisor
Dembo, Myron H. (
committee chair
), Clark, Ginger (
committee member
), Raskoff, Sally (
committee member
)
Creator Email
amadni@usc.edu
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m1064
Unique identifier
UC1272299
Identifier
etd-Madni-20080328 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-43194 (legacy record id),usctheses-m1064 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
etd-Madni-20080328.pdf
Dmrecord
43194
Document Type
Dissertation
Rights
Madni, Ayesha
Type
texts
Source
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Repository Name
Libraries, University of Southern California
Repository Location
Los Angeles, California
Repository Email
cisadmin@lib.usc.edu
Tags
academic support services
community college
cultural congruity
ethnic differences
help-seeking
perceptions of academic environment
self-worth
stereotype threat