The purpose of this study was to examine students' perceptions of teacher characteristics that support or inhibit help seeking, using the critical incident technique, and to explore the feelings students experience in seeking help from teachers. 115 students (grades 2-7) in 6 suburban elementary schools participated in a semistructured interview. An inductive analysis of the interview transcripts yielded 10 broad categorical descriptors of teacher characteristics that students perceived as supporting or inhibiting their help seeking. These included teacher willingness, competence, reactions to help seeking, expectations, personality traits, relationships with students, predictability, familiarity, gender, and mood. We provide rich descriptions of responses in each category. Help-seeking interactions evoked strong feelings in students that related to how comfortable they were in seeking assistance from teachers. Results are discussed in relation to previous research and implications for teaching.
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Mare et al. (2002) studied this question.
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