Most students (87.6%) prefer attempting to solve problems independently before seeking support, managing uncertainty privately before engaging formal support¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r1 · q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? In the pre-experiment questionnaire, most students agreed they preferred to attempt solving problems independently before seeking support (87.6%), suggesting students manage uncertainty privately before engaging formal sources of assistance. → Andy Gray 2026

Evidence¶

Andy Gray 2026¶

Andy Gray, Jake Hobbs. (2026). Reducing Barriers to Academic Support: Evaluating a Course-Specific RAG System for Addressing Help-Seeking Disparities in Higher Education. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.21600 doi:10.48550/arxiv.2609.21600

q2 · i? · associational · r1

Pre-experiment questionnaire of the main study's fifteen undergraduate computing participants. The article reports "moststudentsagreeingthattheypreferred to attempt solving problems independently before seeking support (87.6%)" and interprets this as private management of uncertainty; no effect size is printed.

"Atthesametime,therewasapref erenceforautonomy,withmoststudentsagreeingthattheypreferred to attempt solving problems independently before seeking support (87.6%).Thesefindingssuggestthat,whileinstitutionalsupportstruc turesareavailable,manystudentsstillattempttomanageuncertainty privatelybeforeengagingwithformalsourcesofassistance."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

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• GenAI's immediate answers reduce engineering students' teacher-student interactions for generalizable tasks, while teachers remain preferred for complex problem-solving — related
• Pre-course problem-solving preference does not predict final course grade — related
• Adaptive students request significantly fewer on-demand hints and spend longer on a step before requesting help than Control students — related
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• Sequencing independent task engagement before LLM consultation is associated with stronger student outputs — related
• K-12 learners preferred incremental hints and multiple attempts over immediately revealed solutions
• Not requesting any hints in at least one problem is related to greater wheel-spinning, consistent with help avoidance — related