Abstract

Through a structural model, this study analyzed how personal and contextual variables explain the student’s willingness to seek institutional academic help. The study involved 848 students of both sexes from public and private Chilean universities. The participants responded to a questionnaire evaluating personal (enabling and inhibitory) and contextual variables. Based on previous evidence from the literature and preliminary regression analysis, an explanatory model of the willingness for academic help-seeking was proposed and evaluated through a structural model (SEM). The results show a good fit of the final model, highlighting direct and indirect determinants of the student’s willingness for academic help-seeking and the mediator role of knowledge of access procedures to institutional support services. Also, and against expectations, a slight effect of shame on willingness to institutional help-seeking was observed. Finally, the implications of having a parsimonious model to explain this process are discussed. © 2025, Hipatia Editorial. All rights reserved.