Motivational Influences on Gender Differences in SelfReferral for Peer Relationship Problems

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Motivational Influences on Gender Differences in
Self-Referral for PeerRelationship Problems

• Kristina L. McDonald,
• Julie Paquette MacEvoy,
• Steven R. Asher
• Duke University
• American Educational Research Association
• Chicago, IL April 2007

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Research on Help-Seeking

• Help-seeking in the academic domain
• (for a review, see Ryan, Pintrich, Midgely,
  2001)
• Help-seeking in the peer domain
• Help-seeking in peer harassment situations
• (e.g., Newman, Murray, Lussier, 2001)
• Self-referral for peer relationship skills
• (e.g., Asher, 1993)

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Self-Referral for Peer Relationship Skills

• Some kids are kind of worried about how they are
  getting along with other kids. These children
  are having some problems making friends or
  keeping friends. Imagine that there was a person
  in the school whose job was to help children
  learn how to make friends and get along better
  with other kids. This persons job would be to
  help children change how well they get along with
  other kids. Now imagine that all the kids in the
  school had a chance to get help from this person.
  Would you like to get help if this person really
  worked at the school?
• (Asher, 1993)

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Goals of the Present Study

• To create and validate a Self-Referral measure
  that assesses the desire for help in five
  different peer relationship domains
• a) acceptance by peers
• b) victimization by peers
• c) conflict with peers
• d) making friends
• e) friendship quality

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Goals (continued)

• To examine how childrens perceptions of their
  problems with peers are related to their desire
  for help in peer relationship domains.

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Goals (continued)

• To examine the association between childrens
  implicit theories about the learnability of
  peer relationship skills and childrens desire
  for help with peer relationship problems.

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Goals (continued)

• To examine gender differences in self-referral,
  implicit theories, and perceived problems with
  peers.

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Participants

• 265 4th and 5th grade students (131 male) from
  one Southeastern and one Northeastern public
  elementary school
• 48.3 Caucasian, 27.2 Hispanic, 21.9
  African-American, and 2.6 Other

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Procedure and Measures

• Part of a larger study that consisted of three
  group-administered sessions
• Session 1
• Rating-scale sociometric measure of peer
  acceptance
• Session 3
• Self-referral
• Perceptions of Problems
• Personal and General Implicit Theories

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The Self-Referral Scale
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The Perceptions of Problems Scale
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Personal Implicit Theory
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General Implicit Theory
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Differences between Personal and General Implicit
Theories
Note plt .05 plt .01
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Significant Gender Differences

• Self-referral
• Girls gt Boys
• Victimization
• Making friends
• Mean of the Self-Referral Scale
• Perceived problems
• Girls gt Boys
• Acceptance
• Victimization
• Making friends
• Mean of the Perceptions of Problems Scale
• Implicit Theories
• No significant gender differences

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Hierarchical Regression Analysis of the
Self-Referral Scale
-.10
Note plt .10 plt .05 plt .01
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Conclusions

• Introduction of a new psychometrically sound
  measure of self-referral for diverse types of
  peer relationship problems
• Interest in help declined over grade
• Lower peer acceptance associated with
  self-referral but only a trend

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Conclusions (continued)

• Beliefs about the learnability of peer
  relationship skills were related to self-referral
• Perceptions of peer relationship problems were
  related to self-referral
• Gender differences decreased when degree of
  perceived problems was accounted for
• The need to compare across help-seeking
  literatures