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Good Begets Good: The Role of Helping Others on Engagement and Achievement Among University Students

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It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Abstract

Educational research has emphasized the importance of help-seeking in learning and engagement. However, little is known about the impact that help-giving may potentially have on student engagement and academic achievement. There is also a lack of knowledge about the environmental factors that might facilitate help-giving. This study investigated how help-giving is associated with student engagement and academic achievement by drawing on the Chinese College Student Survey (CCSS), which involved data from 67,182 Chinese college students. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. Results showed that students who experienced a positive social climate, particularly those who had positive social interactions with their peers, teachers, and university staff members were more likely to help their peers with schoolwork. In turn, these students who helped their peers were more cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally engaged. They also had higher levels of academic achievement themselves. The results applied to students of different demographic characteristics and different school types. Theoretical and practical implications of the research are discussed.

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Notes

  1. As the students were nested within institutions, one reviewer suggested that we use hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) to analyze the data. However, due to a data embargo, we are unable to re-analyse the data using the HLM approach. As a workaround, we readjusted the p-value to 0.01 and only take as significant those results that are less than p < .01. We also conducted multi-group invariance tests to show that the results were similar across different institutional types. The use of an SEM approach also offers some advantages over HLM as SEM is able to take into account relationships among multiple types of outcome variables and it can model the latent nature of the data. We note that each statistical analysis has strengths and weaknesses, and we recommend future studies to use HLM when analysing data from students across multiple institutions (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002; Rocconi, 2013).

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  1. Faculty of Education, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Ronnel B. King

  2. Institute of Education, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Yan Luo

  3. School of Education, Renmin University of China, Haidian District, Beijing, China

    Meng Xie

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King, R.B., Luo, Y. & Xie, M. Good Begets Good: The Role of Helping Others on Engagement and Achievement Among University Students. Res High Educ 65, 989–1006 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-023-09768-1

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