Help-seeking perceptions and behaviors: A comparison of Chinese and American graduate students

Abstract

The article compares the help-seeking perceptions and behaviors of Chinese and American graduate students. Understanding students' needs and knowing the problem areas in which they need the most help is important for planning and evaluating counseling effectiveness. Students' choice of helpers for various problems also affects how counseling services will be delivered. It examines understanding of cultural differences in students' coping patterns but will also shed light on how student characteristics such as sex, field of study, and length of study are associated with graduate students' perceptions and coping behaviors. Foreign-born Chinese and native-born American graduate students who were attending the University of Iowa in 1986 were selected to participate in this study. The results of the analysis indicated that Chinese and American students generally agree on the following choices for helpers: a doctor for health problems; parents for financial difficulties; a friend for social-psychological, personal-psychological, courtship, sex, marriage, and family problems; no one for morality and religious problems; and an advisor for academic problems. There were only two areas of differences: Vocational-Educational Problems and Psychological Pathology.