Abstracts - Earli

Academic help-seeking: The influence of goals, beliefs, and learning strategiesSilke Schworm, University of Regensburg, GermanyHans Gruber, University of Regensburg, GermanyAcademic help-seeking can be seen as motivated information processing concerning one’s ownlearning and knowledge acquisition. Thus, individual interpretations of the components involvedplay a major role. Of particular relevance are one’s interpretations about the nature of knowledge(epistemological beliefs), about useful learning strategies and about matter which is worth toinvest some effort (goal orientation). It is investigated to what extent university students’ attitudestowards help-seeking are related to their epistemological beliefs, goal orientations and learningstrategies. Two studies are reported, a questionnaire study and a quasi-experimental study. Resultsof study 1 (N=210 students) reveal that students with a positive attitude towards help-seekingbelieve that knowledge is absolute and objective, but not that the ability to learn is fixed. However,the belief that ability is fixed predicts avoidance of help-seeking. Striving for mastery goals andopenness to admit weaknesses leads to a positive attitude towards help-seeking, while theintentions to hide missing competences and to avoid mastery goals predict the avoidance of helpseeking.Help-seeking as a resource-based learning strategy is positively correlated with the use ofcognitive and meta-cognitive strategies and with cooperative learning strategies. Based on theseresults, study 2 was designed. Students of a blended learning seminar in educational science(N=39) were divided into two groups both having access to a virtual workspace. In one groupactive help-seeking behaviour was fostered but not in the other. Results show that the promptsfoster learning outcome. Students prompted on help-seeking participated more actively in forums.More contributions on the learning content as contrasted to organisational aspects of the course areposted and more questions are asked.Three-stage development of a revised epistemological beliefs questionnaireBarbara Moschner, University of Oldenburg, GermanyHans Gruber, University of Regensburg, GermanyAlthough theoretical interest and empirical research in the area of personal epistemology havegrown tremendously in the past years, key issues in this field are still not resolved. These issuesconcern the definition of epistemological beliefs, boundaries of the construct, and appropriatemeasurement. We present a three-stage development of a questionnaire for epistemological beliefswhich integrates different lines of research. Epistemological beliefs were conceptualised as a broadconstruct, including for example beliefs about gender related ways of knowing and about thecultural bound nature of knowledge. These dimensions are discussed in the literature, but have notyet been thoroughly addressed as dimensions in questionnaires. A pilot study with a newlydeveloped first questionnaire was conducted during a summer-school of the "Studienstiftung"(German National Academic Foundation). Subjects were 104 scholars of the Studienstiftung.Based on exploratory factor analyses and internal consistency estimates of reliability we identifiedten sub-scales, which were considerable different from Schommer’s scales. The results encouragedus to revise the questionnaire. In a second study, the revision (second questionnaire) wasadministered in an online-study. The sample included 365 females and 143 males. Exploratoryfactor analyses identified seven sub-scales, which proved to be highly reliable. Sub-scales were:absolute knowledge, learning to learn, relativity of knowledge, gender-related ways of knowing,cultural bound nature of knowledge, silence of knowledge, and innate ability. In our third study, areduced version of the second questionnaire was administered in three different Germanuniversities (third questionnaire). Subjects in this sample were 1508 students enrolled in different– 64 –