Methodological Illustrations of Way Forward to A Cumulative Psychological Science in Academic Help-Seeking Behavior of College Students - paper

Oct 15, 2026

Li et al. (2023) synthesized research on academic help-seeking in college students, identifying key themes including definitions and theories, links to performance, resource types and their use, positive and negative influences, and characteristics of online help-seeking. Building on future-research recommendations, this study applies Imam (2024) guidelines for moving psychology toward a cumulative science. It illustrates how the research cycle can operate differently from standard mainstream practices.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Limits of NHST in cumulative psychological science

Alternatives through small-N designs

Methodological contrasts and the proposed grand experiment

Methodological Illustrations of Way Forward to A Cumulative Psychological Science in Academic Help-Seeking Behavior of College Students Abdulrazaq A. Imam Behavior Labs Africa Consultancy, Nigeria, and John Carroll University, USA, [https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1262-6022](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1262-6022) Abstract: Li et al. (2023) reported a comprehensive systematic review of academic help-seeking behavior of college students. Their review included studies from nearly twenty countries, although most of them were from the United States of America. Five broad themes were identified characterizing students’ help-seeking behaviors, including 1) definitions, theories, types and processes of the behavior, 2) the relationship of helpseeking and performance, 3) resource types, locations, and frequencies, 4) positive, negative, and irrelevant factors in help-seeking behavior, and 5) characteristics of online help-seeking behaviors. These culminated in recommendations for four areas of future research. The four areas included the nature of, resources for, factors affecting, and methodologies deployed to study, academic help-seeking behaviors of college students. The present study applies to these future directions the guidelines outlined by Imam (2024) for moving psychology toward achieving a cumulative science as illustrations. Each case illustrates how the research cycle operates differently from the standard research practices commonly deployed in mainstream psychology today. . Keywords: Psychology, Methodology, Process Method Approach, Cumulative Science, Academic HelpSeeking Citation: Imam, A. A (2025) . Methodological Illustrations of Way Forward to A Cumulative Psychological Science in Academic Help-Seeking Behavior of College Students. In M. S. Ozturk, M. Unal & M. L. Ciddi (Eds.), Proceedings of ICEMST 2025--International Conference on Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology (pp. 118-137), Antalya, Turkiye. ISTES. Introduction Dichotomous thinking associated with significance testing has derailed the goal of achieving a cumulative psychological science (Amrhein, Korner-Nievergelt, & Roth, 2017; Branch, 2014; Kruschke, & Liddell, 2018b) since the widespread adoption of null hypothesis statistical testing (NHST) about the middle of the twentieth century (Hubbard & Ryan, 2000; Imam, 2021, 2024) . The problematic side effects of the blanket reliance on NHST have been widely acknowledged and condemned, but its use has been hardly eschewed sufficiently to warrant a respite from serious concerns about the state of psychological science. Psychological researchers continue to reply on ‘significant’ and ‘not significant’ decision making regarding their data based on p-value reporting, despite the recognition that the p-value is no more than a bet against chance (see Trafimow et al., 2018; Nuzzo, 2014) . Habits are hard to break but the problem is multiplied with the mass ritualization ofNHSTin psychological research. As Imam (2024) put it, The myriad of problems that ensued due to the ritualized use of NHST in mainstream psychology were unavoidable and intractable. Multiple statistical assumptions in psychological research are routinely violated (Erceg-Hurn & Mirosevich, 2008) . One questionable research practice (QRP) begot another and all became routine. For example, incentivized pursuit of the “sexy,” such as happened in the power posing saga (Whitt et al., 2022), encouraged p-hacking, a practice that invariably builds a literature wrought with publication bias. Heavy reliance on college students from mostly western origins (Henrich et al., 2010; Krypotpos et al., 2022; e.g., Muthukrishna et al., 2020) for samples have raised questions of representativeness and generalizability of psychological phenomena. The charge of underpowered research while using group designs in psychology premised on the statistical requirement for large numbers often suggest use of power analysis (e.g., Wilson et al., 2022

FAQs

What is the main critique of mainstream psychological research discussed in the introduction?

The introduction argues that dichotomous thinking and widespread null hypothesis statistical testing (NHST) derail the goal of cumulative psychological science, with significant side effects from heavy reliance on p-value based decisions.

How does the document describe the role of small-N designs?

Small-N designs are presented as decades-long approaches that emphasize in-depth study of a few individuals or settings, focusing on functional relationships between behavior and environmental conditions, with replications built across and within conditions.

What solution direction is proposed for achieving cumulative psychology?

The document calls for methodological alternatives beyond statistical fixes, emphasizing other methodological approaches and illustrating how the research cycle can differ from standard practices to support cumulative science.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Maya Linwood