Chapter 3: Characterizing Sources of Academic Help in the Age of Expanding Educational Technology: A New Conceptual Framework

When college students need academic help, an online “self-help” article by U.S. News (2011) recommends they begin by seeking help from their professors, then their academic adviser, then the tutoring center, and finally, to help themselves by taking care of their health and monitoring how they spend their time. Another advice website suggests that students seeking academic help in college should seek help from their professors in all of their classes, then a tutoring center, a peer tutoring program, a paid tutor, mentoring programs, the campus writing center, the campus library, peer advisors, friends, and finally, to check in with themselves (About.com, 2012). At the University of Michigan, an academic support services website lists an astonishing 88 distinctive advising/support services (general and discipline-specific) available on campus. These institutional resources range from academic advising centers both across and within disciplines, tutoring programs, peer mentoring, writing centers, career centers, learning communities, language and mathematics tutors, technology and instruction centers, and library support services. How do college students, and learners in general, select from among these resources when they face an academic problem? Should they “bother” their friends, one of their instructors, seek out one of their school’s formal institutional resources, look online, or should they persist on their own?