The Power of We: How Cooperative Mindsets Predict Help-Seeking Strategies and Academic Engagement in STEM and HEED Fields

Abstract

Academic help-seeking is a core strategy of self-regulated learning, yet it is often underutilized due to perceived social costs. This study examines how university students’ cooperative mindsets—a set of beliefs that emphasize the value of cooperation for academic success—relate to help-seeking strategies and academic engagement within two gendered academic domains: STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and HEED (health care, elementary education, and the domestic spheres). Drawing on survey data from 590 German higher education students, we examined gender and domain differences in cooperative mindsets and tested a mediation model linking cooperative mindsets to academic engagement through autonomy-oriented help-seeking and help-seeking avoidance. Results showed that female students across both domains reported stronger cooperative mindsets and lower avoidance of help-seeking than their male peers. Unexpectedly, STEM students endorsed cooperative mindsets more strongly than HEED students. Mediation analyses indicated that, for male students in both domains, cooperative mindsets were indirectly associated with academic engagement through autonomy-oriented help-seeking. For female students, no indirect effects were found, but cooperative mindsets were associated with more adaptive help-seeking and academic engagement. Our findings suggest that cooperative mindsets can serve as a psychological resource by promoting adaptive help-seeking behaviors for both male and female students, though they enhanced academic engagement indirectly only for male students. We discuss how making cooperation visible as an academic norm may help foster more inclusive and engaging learning environments.