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For this study, 361 first-year undergraduate students (132 males, 229 females) completed the Learning Orientation-Grade Orientation Scale (Eison, Pollio, & Milton, 1986), Academic Advising Inventory (Winston & Sandor, 1984), and two help-seeking scales (Karabenick & Knapp, 1991), to determine whether educational orientation, gender, academic performance, and help-seeking attitudes and tendencies directly or indirectly predicted preferences for advising received from professors. Results have implications for providing academic advising to students who may not feel comfortable approaching faculty for help.
Students in university or college may seek help and advice on a wide range of topics and concerns, obtain help from a variety of individuals and institutional services, and appeal for help both inside and outside the classroom (Alexitch, 1994, 1997; Andrews, Andrews, Long, & Henton, 1987; Karabenick & Knapp, 1991; Tinsley, de St. Aubin, & Brown, 1982). Although university students approach informal sources (e.g., peers, family) more often than formal sources (e.g., professors, career planning center) for help, professors are the most frequently used formal source of help approached by students with academic concerns (Alexitch, 1994; Knapp & Karabenick, 1988; Tinsley et al.). Indeed, faculty can have a critical impact on students' intellectual, academic, and personal development (Terenzini & Pascarella, 1980; Terenzini, Springer, Pascarella, & Nora, 1995). For example, Terenzini and Pascarella found that students' interactions with faculty can have a positive effect on students' intellectual growth. Moreover, students' inclass and out-of-class interactions with professors can increase the intrinsic value that students place on learning (Terenzini et al.). Contact with faculty can be especially crucial for new students or for those in the early stages of their postsecondary studies, because this contact can help with adjustment to university (Holdaway & Kelloway, 1987), with academic difficulties, and with decisions concerning academic programs and careers (Alexitch, 1999).
However, educators are aware that some students who need assistance with their academic work often choose not to seek help or may engage in behaviors that promote little skill development or learning (e.g., asking others for a solution to a problem, selecting easier tasks) (Ames & Lau, 1982; Newman & Schwager, 1995; Ryan, Hicks, & Midgley, 1997; Ryan & Pintrich, 1997). This type of help-seeking, referred to as "nonadaptive," can result in a student persisting unsuccessfully in an academic course,...