ABSTRACT
The chapters in this volume represent diverse topics and raise diverse issues. Contributors have focused on help seeking among elementary and middle school students, high school and college students, and adults working in organizational settings. Most contributors have focused on students seeking academic help (e.g., “How do you do these math problems?”) or academic advice or counsel (e.g., “Which courses should I take?”). Others have focused on help with job-related difficulties (e.g., “This doesn't make sense … let's find out from the expert if we've made this thing correctly”) or peer harassment (e.g., “Help! This big kid's been really bugging me”). Help is requested of teachers, peers, advisors, colleagues, and computers. Reported research represents different methodologies, both qualitative and quantitative; some chapters emphasize theory and some are more applied. Our contributors have presented rich accounts of their research and discussed directions in which their work is headed. Rather than summarize each chapter, my aim in this final chapter is to suggest common themes and implications for future research. I have organized the discussion according to (a) achievement goals, (b) construct definition of adaptive help seeking, (c) contextual influences on help seeking, and (d) extensions and application.
