When perfectionism is coupled with low achievement: The effects on academic engagement and help seeking in middle school

Predictors of adaptive help seeking across ninth‐grade students enrolled in Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses

“…The positive, significant bivariate relationships found between adaptive help seeking, adaptive perfectionism, perceived benefits associated with help seeking, academic efficacy, and teacher emotional support are consistent with previous studies demonstrating similar relationships Ryan & Pintrich, 1997;Schenke et al, 2015;Shim et al, 2016;Tanaka et al, 2002). Likewise, the negative correlation found between adaptive help seeking and perceived threats associated with help seeking is similar to previous research findings showing significant inverse relationships between these two variables (Tanaka et al, 2002).…”

“…These findings align with previous research showing that teacher emotional support (Schenke et al, 2015) and perceived benefits associated with help seeking are important predictors of adaptive help seeking among high school students (Tanaka et al, 2002). Likewise, similar to Shim et al (2016) who found that adaptive perfectionism was a significant predictor of middle school students' help-seeking behaviors, the results of the current study also identified adaptive perfectionism as a significant unique predictor of ninth-grade AP/IB students' adaptive help seeking from classroom teachers. As few studies have investigated perfectionism as a predictor of adaptive help seeking, this study adds to the academic help-seeking literature by underscoring the link between adaptive help seeking and adaptive perfectionism-specifically, holding high expectations for one's performance-among another group of students (i.e., high school students who are enrolled in AP/IB courses).…”

“…Likewise, the negative correlation found between adaptive help seeking and perceived threats associated with help seeking is similar to previous research findings showing significant inverse relationships between these two variables (Tanaka et al, ). The current study found a significant negative relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and adaptive help seeking from teachers, whereas research with a younger group of adolescents did not find an association between help seeking from peers and a form of maladaptive perfectionism that entailed concern over making mistakes (Shim et al, ). Differences between samples might contribute to these distinct findings, as researchers have found that maladaptive perfectionism tends to increase across grade levels (Margot & Rinn, ; Shaunessy et al, ).…”

“…Differences between samples might contribute to these distinct findings, as researchers have found that maladaptive perfectionism tends to increase across grade levels (Margot & Rinn, ; Shaunessy et al, ). It is possible that maladaptive perfectionism was more pronounced and salient for ninth‐grade students as compared with the middle school students in Shim et al’s () study.…”

“…Although academic help seeking is positively associated with desired student outcomes (e.g., academic achievement and students’ engagement in school; Schenke, Lam, Conley, & Karabenick, ), some students elect to not ask for help related to their schoolwork for various reasons. A number of studies have identified both personal (Shim, Rubenstein, & Drapeau, ; Tanaka, Murakami, Okuno, & Yamauchi, ) and contextual (Schenke et al, ) factors that relate to students’ decision to seek academic help from their teachers and peers. There may also be demographic factors at play; research suggests that adolescent male students are less likely to engage in academic help seeking compared with their female peers (Ryan, Gheen, & Midgley, ; Schenke et al, ; Tanaka et al, ), with some studies showing gender differences in several predictors of academic help seeking (Cheong et al, ; Ryan & Pintrich, ; Tanaka et al, ).…”