Pedagogical Issues Concerning Academic Advising

Abstract

This study examined whether, and to what extent, students’ personal and cultural variables have an impact on the advising process. 225 students in an urban, private university were asked to complete twenty-nine structured questions in the Fall 2005. Each question asked the student to rank on a scale of one to five the importance of a characteristic/responsibility of an academic advisor.  These twenty-nine characteristics/responsibilities were those most often cited in the literature as critical for an effective academic advisor.  In addition, the students were asked to provide some cultural, personal, and academic information on themselves including class status, GPA, age, gender, school, and ethnicity.  We used the chi-square testing technique.  This method of testing the hypothesis allowed us not only to identify which of the advisor’s characteristics and/or responsibilities were significant but also to identify which personal and cultural trait of the student a particular characteristic was most consistent with.   We found that students with different variables had quite different perceptions of the advising process. Students’ perceptions varied by age, class status, GPA, gender, school, and ethnicity. While there has been an increasing number of studies devoted to examining student satisfaction with academic advising, few of these studies have considered the student’s cultural, personal, and academic background as determinant factors in a successful academic advising process.