Academic social comparison orientation and adaptive academic help-seeking among university students: academic anxiety as a mediator and academic self-efficacy as a moderator

Introduction

Academic help-seeking is a self-regulatory academic behavior that may be shaped by students' evaluative experiences and beliefs about their academic capability. This study examined whether academic anxiety statistically mediates the association between academic social comparison orientation and adaptive academic help-seeking, and whether academic self-efficacy moderates the association between academic anxiety and adaptive academic help-seeking among university students.