Seeking academic support services at university: a stigmatized behavior?

This study focuses on the social representations associated with university students who use academic support services (e.g, tutoring, remedial courses, etc.). Previous research has highlighted the role of self-stigmatization as a significant barrier to engaging with such services. In particular, students likely to benefit from them express the fear of being perceived as incompetent or failing if they use them, which can lead them to hide their use of these services or avoid them altogether. However, as outlined in Pryor and Reeder's model (2011), self-stigmatization is part of a broader system of public stigma, which also includes stigma by association and institutional stigma. While existing research has primarily focused on self-stigma, few studies have examined the broader shared representations within the general student population, including those who are not themselves in need of such services. A central question therefore arises: do the negative beliefs internalized by potential users (for example, perceiving themselves as less intelligent than the general population) reflect stereotypes more widely shared within the broader student population? The aim of this study is therefore to explore the social representations and stereotypes associated with students who use academic support services, in a sample of general university students from three institutions in France. To this end, several methodological tools will be used: a task involving the free production of traits associated with users of the services ; a questionnaire based on the stereotype content model (Fiske, 2018), assessing the relative perception of users' competence and warmth compared to the general student population ; and finally, a measure of the social image associated with service use through three items adapted from the "Image" dimension of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000). This approach seeks to better understand how academic support service users are represented and, more broadly, to enrich our understanding of public stigma mechanisms, particularly stereotypes, which may fuel or reinforce the self-stigmatization described in previous research. In line with past findings on self-stigma, we expect to observe that using academic support services is associated with perceptions of lower competence, a less favorable evaluation, and an overall negative social image of service users.