e-Learning in universities: Supporting help-seeking processes by instructional prompts

University students are more responsible than school students for their own learning. The role of self-regulated learning increases in virtual e-learning course environments. Academic help-seeking is an important strategy of self-regulated learning, but many students fail to use this strategy appropriately. A lack of information and a perceived threat of help-seeking may cause this effect. Among others, giving prompts is an instructional means to support students to adequately apply academic help-seeking . A study is presented in which the effect of giving prompts on the quantity and quality of academic help-seeking was experimentally investigated in a blended university learning course of educational science. Compared with students who received no prompts, students with prompts about the relevance of active help-seeking had better learning outcomes, participated more actively in online learning activities, more explicitly referred to learning contents in the forums and took more initiative in starting discussions. The perceived threat of help-seeking could not be reduced, however.