Children often help their peers in the classroom. A child might ask a classmate for help or, more formally, teachers may set up collaborative learning opportunities. During collaborative learning, children help each other learn, which can have benefits over working individually. However, not all help is equal. If help is offered in a way that is not empowering, it can backfire. The best kinds of help encourage peers to practice their skills and find solutions on their own.
What kinds of help do children give their peers?
I wanted to find out whether the help children give others is influenced by how competent they believe their peers to be. In one recent project, I gave 7- to 9-year-olds the opportunity to help two other children who were working on quizzes. Before they started helping, they overheard someone remark that one of the two had done “very well” on a previous quiz, while the other “did not do so well.” If asked for help, the children could provide either hints or correct answers.
Providing hints signals that the helpers view their peers as competent, because they are capable of using the hints to solve challenges on their own. If, on the other hand, the helpers provide correct answers, that suggests that they view the other children as less competent and unable to use hints to work out the answer. Giving hints also provides opportunities for peers to develop their skills, while giving the correct answer does not.
“If help is offered in a way that is not empowering, it can backfire.”
In my studies, children gave more hints to peers they perceived to be already competent, and more correct answers to those they believed to have done poorly on a previous quiz. As a result, the peers who struggled the most were offered less opportunity to practice and improve their skills. A questionnaire revealed that the children in my studies understood that giving someone hints helps them learn more, compared with providing correct answers.
How does unequal help contribute to achievement gaps?
These findings suggest that children’s behavior in such situations can perpetuate achievement gaps between those who struggle most and those who are most competent. Children recognize that the type of help that is offered reflects a certain perception of that child’s competence; accordingly, if they see some peers being offered more help or more correct answers than others, they may assume that those kids are less smart.
Children who receive more help may themselves conclude that they are less intelligent, leading to more negative self-views. This creates a vicious cycle: The children who receive more help have fewer opportunities to improve their skills, they and others form negative views about their competence, and they continue to struggle.
How can we disrupt this cycle?
Teachers and caregivers often encourage children to help each other, and assume that children enjoy being helped. But help is not always positive. Helping relations are frequently unequal, and exchanges of help can sometimes lead to negative outcomes. While children are often motivated to help, their efforts may not always be truly helpful.
“Helping relations are frequently unequal, and exchanges of help can sometimes lead to negative outcomes.”
To disrupt this cycle, adults should communicate to children that abilities are not fixed, and create classroom cultures that emphasize growth. A growth mindset, in turn, leads children to see help less as a signal of incompetence, and more as an opportunity to acquire new skills. Changing perceptions of help can encourage children to provide the right kind of help to their peers; they may also make it easier to ask for help because doing so is not a sign of weakness, but instead signals competence and motivation.
It is time for a child-centered perspective in our efforts to enable all children to learn and thrive at school. We need to be mindful of the ways in which peers can inadvertently perpetuate inequality. Keeping this in mind will be helpful as we seek to provide opportunities for children to play an active role in creating more equitable educational environments.