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In a classroom setting, working with others can increase a student\u2019s motivation to attempt more challenges, reduce the difficulty of complicated concepts, and bring about greater overall success. Despite extensive research in other domains, there has been minimal exploration within computing on what impacts a student\u2019s decision to seek social assistance in highly competitive university environments. To understand what affects introductory programming students\u2019 social help-seeking behavior in this context, we conducted 32 semi-structured interviews with students and performed thematic analysis and qualitative coding on the ensuing transcripts. Our qualitative analysis revealed 18 significant factors. We noticed that the decision to seek social help involved a two-fold process: first, the decision to engage in social help-seeking, and subsequently, the decision of who to ask for help. Furthermore, we found that help-seeking in computing is not fundamentally different from other disciplines, although some of the factors were unique to the topic of computing and the specific environment of this study. Factors related to communication style, the type of question being asked, and the school\u2019s cheating policy were central when discussing code, an integral part of computing. Regarding the environment, students repeatedly reported that the competitive major, the explicit and implicit class standards, and feelings of intimidation, among others, influenced them. These findings suggest that understanding both steps and the sociocultural context is important in order to effectively lower the barriers to asking for help.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1145\/3639059","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,12,30]],"date-time":"2023-12-30T15:57:17Z","timestamp":1703951837000},"page":"1-27","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":8,"title":["Factors Influencing the Social Help-seeking Behavior of Introductory Programming Students in a Competitive University Environment"],"prefix":"10.1145","volume":"24","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0100-4201","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Anael Kuperwajs","family":"Cohen","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Macalester College, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2164-365X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Alannah","family":"Oleson","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Washington, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7461-4783","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Amy J.","family":"Ko","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Washington, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"320","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,2,19]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_1_2_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"292","DOI":"10.1007\/3-540-45108-0_33","volume-title":"Intelligent Tutoring Systems","author":"Aleven Vincent","year":"2000","unstructured":"Vincent Aleven and Kenneth R. 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Academic Help Seeking Constructs and Group Differences: An Examination of First-year University Students. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Nevada, Reno. https:\/\/scholarworks.unr.edu\/\/handle\/11714\/2140Accepted: 2017-10-23T18:32:10Z."},{"key":"e_1_3_1_13_2","volume-title":"The Interpretation of Cultures","author":"Geertz Clifford","year":"1973","unstructured":"Clifford Geertz. 1973. Thick description: Towards an interpretive theory of culture. In The Interpretation of Cultures, Clifford Geertz (Ed.). 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