On the Benefits of Seeking (and Avoiding) Help in Online Problem-Solving Environments

Seeking the right level of help at the right time can support learning. However, in the context of online problem-solving environments, it is still not entirely clear which help-seeking strategies are desired. We use fine-grained data from 38 high school students who worked with the Geometry Cognitive Tutor for 2 months to better understand the associations between specific help-seeking patterns and learning. We evaluate how students’ help-seeking behaviors on each step in a tutored problem are associated with their success on subsequent steps that require the same skills. Analyzing learning at the skill level allows us to compare different help-seeking patterns within a single student, controlling for between-student variations. Overall, asking for help on challenging steps is associated with productive learning, and overusing help is associated with poorer learning. However, contrary to many help-seeking theories, avoiding help (and failing repeatedly) is associated with better learning than seeking help on steps for which students have low prior knowledge. These results suggest that novice learners may benefit from engaging in solution attempts before they can make sense of given assistance. Methodological benefits for using local measures of learning are discussed, and comparisons are drawn to other forms of productive failure in problem solving.