Empirical Approach of Leading the Academic Advising Process in Higher Education-Juniper Publishers
Juniper publishers- Social Sciences
Abstract
The current study aimed at revealing the reality of
academic advising in Higher education as perceived and experienced by a
head of academic advising committee. Furthermore, this study extant the
literature by handling the lacks to provide convincing approach that
advising has an impact on students in practice. The study revealed that
produce a participating application perfect between the factors of the
academic advising system and the student. Set the plan for every
semester to determine the main actions that should be taken, and agenda
is essential for successful academic advising process.
In addition, inform, suggest, counsel, discipline,
coach, mentor and teach and the follow-up process with students at risk
helps and empowers them to correct their direction and overcome current
problems. Finally, developing the academic advisor’s social capabilities
to overcome the frontier of campus to enable them to move forward in
their academic path. Recommendation of this study suggest that the
academic advising generally tend to use online platform for advising
which it has numerous portions that optimizing the application.
Therefore, more studies should shed lights on the improvement of the
online academic advising with the lack of social interaction.
Keywords: Academic Advising; Empirical Approach; Leadership; University; Higher Education
Introduction
In the contemporary advanced learning contexts, the
university is one of the most important institutions of society, and
since ancient times has been at the forefront a center of radiation for
every new thought and knowledge, a platform from which the views of
thinkers and scientists emerge philosophers and pioneers of reform and
development. Universities have become institutions that no society can
live in the era of dispensing them is that individuals in various
scientific disciplines are at a high level; Is responsible for the
management of modern life, so officials of the university education
system are trying to increase its efficiency as far as possible.
Academic guidance services are an urgent need to
achieve the goals of university education aimed at stimulating the
talents of diverse students to grow academically and ethically
integrated psychologically, socially and behaviorally, and prepare
students in a manner consistent with their attitudes, abilities and
values to the rapid development challenges in the community arena.
Academic guidance is essential and necessary institutions, to discover
the wishes and abilities of students, to identify their goals and to
help them draw plans for them.
Despite academic advising’s theoretical and
professional development, extant literature lacks convincing evidence
that advising has an impact on students in practice [1]. Previous
studies
have found a positive association between academic advising and
student’s retention and satisfaction [2,3]. “Good advising yields a good
outcome in terms of understanding, planning, and applying strategies
for academic success, while bad advising will be frustrating and may
have a damaging effect on students’ progress” [4]. Build a participation
application to make effective link between the factors of the academic
advising system in the benefit of the student.
The present manuscript focuses on the importance of
understanding the attitudes of undergraduate students towards academic
advising and throws light on the relevance of efficient academic
advising systems in the technologically dynamic educational environment.
Developmental advising seeks to provide a holistic approach to the
student-faculty (advisor) relationship outside of the classroom
environment, where the student can receive guidance and discuss topics
such as coursework, career, and values. Consequently, there was a need
to supply the audience with an accredited experience. This paper aims to
fill that gap. In a sense, the rationale of this study was to manage
the overwhelming amount of practices through the critical exploration,
evaluation, and synthesis of the empirical results that merit
reflection. What are the basic theoretical and practical directions of
Academic Advising up to now and which approaches do faculties follow to
achieve these goals?
Literature Review
There is an increasing body of research which revealed
that students often meet academic advisors for reasons other
than academic issues and concerns [5]. An academic advisor
traditionally has been defined as a staff member who ensures
students’ individual academic plans are consistent with their
academic interests and abilities [6].
Developmental advising was first introduced by Crookston
[7]. This approach is focused on helping students explore and
define academic, career and life goals and pathways, and develop
problem-solving and decision-making skills through collaborative
and process-oriented advising. Descriptive advising remains
the most widely used but certainly not enough. The descriptive
advising provides information to students at specific times and
in various ways, such as distributing brochures, pamphlets,
pamphlets, manuals, holding limited personal meetings, or
organizing awareness and education seminars on the nature of
academic extension services.
The method of developmental advising was formulated in
the literature and the legacy of guidance and academic advice in
the early 1980s thanks to the efforts of Winston and Miller [8].
They defined it as a systematic process based on a close bilateral
relationship between the student and his mentor whose goal is
to assist the student in achieving his educational, professional,
personal, and life goals by investing more and more in the
resources and resources available at the university.
On the other hand, Crookston [9] described “academic
guidance as a multi-faceted activity that achieves the maximum
benefits that Crockstone has identified in the following:
1. Helping students determine their values, objectives and
understanding
2. Helping students understand the nature and purpose of
higher education and its mission
3. To provide the student with accurate and correct
information about the educational options and requirements
of the degree and the policies and regulations of the university
and its formal procedures
4. Assist students in the ongoing monitoring and evaluation
of academic progress
5. Help the student in the planning of an academic program
consistent with his tendencies and abilities
6. Work to create an integrative formula between issued by
the university and its possibilities and investment to achieve
personal educational needs and aspirations of each student”.
In this context, Light [10] establish had a relationship between
academic advising and students’ academic growth and stated
that “good academic advising can have a profound impact on the
academic growth of students” (p. 15). He also observed that such
interactions may help a student find his or her place within the
university and may also give a more satisfying college experience.
Nutt [11,12] describes academic advising as an integral part of
how the student will perceive his or her relationship with the
institution.
The prescriptive or traditional advising model is focused
primarily on providing students with information directly related
to their academic program and progress, such as academic policies,
major/program requirements and course selection. Glennon is the
first introduced a model for instructive advising services in 1975.
“A defining feature of this approach is that contact is initiated by
the advisor rather than the student” [13].
Empirical Approach of Academic Advising
Obviously, academic guidance in the higher education is an
integral part of university education. Its purpose is to help students
take responsibility for their learning and to develop meaningful
educational plans consistent with their abilities, professional goals
and goals of life. It includes helping students formulate important
questions about their preparedness, their own interests, and the
best learning path for everyone who wants advice. Counselors also
assist students in discovering many campus resources and, more
importantly, providing continuous encouragement to students; to
use these resources and their purpose continuously.
There is quite believe that the interaction of students with
faculty members who conduct their academic guidance inside
and outside the classroom has a positive impact on their cognitive
and intellectual development, which in turn increases the
intrinsic value of learning and university education. In the same
vein, Zalabak [14] believes that academic counselors play a vital
role in helping the student and supporting him in his university
experience. Therefore, their role should not stop when students
are informed and informed of what courses or materials can
be recorded, they dream and belong to become good citizens.
Obviously, academic advising is part of the roles of the faculty
member accredited in American universities and is therefore
expected to assume its responsibilities in this regard and provide
appropriate and appropriate extension service for students when
required to do so.
The researcher was appointed to lead the Academic Advising
Committee (AAC) in the Business Administration Department.
The work of ensuring an effective advising process is a huge and
important task. I understand that the academic advising process
plays a vital role in guiding student to reach their potential
and move forward confidently in their career path. Essentially,
“academic advising has the advantage of providing students with
repeated one-on-one interactions across multiple years” [15].
To accomplish this essential task, I prepared a plan for every
semester to determine the main actions that should be taken and
specify meeting time and agenda. Then, I chaired meetings with
faculty to explain the role of the academic advisor and the plan
for this semester. I explained the main objectives of the academic
advising process and emphasized that students should be given an opportunity to meet their advisors throughout the learning
process. Basically, I worked to ensure that academic advisors
assisted students in successful completion of their degree
programme through periodic coaching, mentoring and guiding
the students through the university policies, regulations and
assessment criteria. The nature of this initiative was to inform,
suggest, counsel, discipline, coach, mentor and teach [16], and the
follow-up process with students at risk helps and empowers them
to correct their direction and overcome current problems.
Many academics classify student development into three
different categories: psychosocial, social identity, and cognitivestructural
development. Hence, academic advising encompasses
discussion of life goals and building rapport with students to
discuss respect personal issues that might represent a barrier
to their academic progress. Therefore, I clarified the benefits
of reaching students who may not have been motivated to seek
advising; establishing at an early stage an advisor/advisee
relationship; engaging in intentional degree planning; and
providing individualized support [17]. Moreover, I worked on
developing the academic advisor’s social capabilities to hold
discussions with students to overcome the frontier of campus and
encourage students who have low academic scores to feel free in
such discussion which aims at the end to enable them to move
forward in their academic path. For this purpose, I organized and
delivered a workshop for all staff on the key social skills needed
to build effective advisor relationships with student, in order to
assist students in the areas of engagement, academic planning,
decision making, and problem resolution.
In the workshop I emphasized that advisors should take
special care with students, at risk, by meeting them to discover
the main reasons behind failure to score well in their courses. I
prepared forms to organize the student-adviser meetings which
include a list of causes of failure. Recently, I discussed with both
Registration and Student Affairs Deanship to make those forms of
academic advising available online to easily monitor the student –
advisor sessions and the improvement plan. In addition, digitizing
academic advising process can help the advisor to improving
student’s success. In fact, regular reviews of student records can
reveal potential problems which promote academic planning.
Bylaws for the Academic Advising Committee chair state
that they are responsible for assessing that it is operating
smoothly, so one of my responsibilities is annually evaluating
the performance of every faculty, since all academic advisors are
guided and informed about advising techniques, new policies,
roles and responsibilities by the University Advisory Committee.
Normally, I evaluate each advisor on their advising skills using the
student advisory files and through student feedback regarding the
benefits that the students have received. Advisors are evaluated
on factors such as the number of students under their supervision,
the frequency and regularity of their meetings, quality and
content of their recommendations and advice and the adherence
to University regulations and procedures.
In addition, the students can evaluate their Advisor at the
end of each academic year using the Student Advisor Evaluation
form. For outstanding success in chairing Academic Advising
Committee at department level, recently, I was promoted to lead
the AAC of the Administrative Science College, because the College
Council had looked at my achievements during the last years in
leading the AAC in the department level and was confident that
I could lead the committee at the College level. In cooperation
with Deanship of Student Affairs, I presented a seminar at the
beginning of the current year attended by all academic staff in
university to illustrate the main roles of academic advising and
what is important to do in next stage.
The big challenge for me is to handle the problem of
monitoring and advising students at risk to ensure they can fulfill
their graduation requirements. There are many students at risk at
the university who are identified and supported by our academic
outreach initiatives. The peer counselors’ program is one of
these initiatives, where counselors are trained on how to identify
students who have received low GPA results, low test results
under guidance, and supervision by academic advisors, and peer
counselors are split to share their resources and expertise; try,
take advantage of the learning centers on campus.
We also believe that we can find the preventive measures
we can take to reduce the likelihood of falling into a scenario at
risk. Overall, academic advising plays a critical role in connecting
students with learning opportunities to foster and support
their engagement, success, and the attainment of key learning
outcomes” [12]. The statistics show that in our college we
successfully reduced the number of the students at risk, including
those with a disability or health condition impacting on their
academic performance. Also, I emphasize that academic advisors
are responsible for ensuring that the students at risk develop an
academic action plan to overcome the current challenges that put
them in a position of academic risk.
Conclusion
Academic advising has become an imperative in higher
education institutions, where members are the faculty is interested
in aiding students to plan programs that help them achieve. Their
academic and professional goals. Thus, academic guidance at the
university level is a fundamental pillar for university education,
because students and students need those who guide them and
guide them to adapt to life with a view to highlighting the expected
expectations of them about their orientation and abilities that
need guidance in order to benefit the individual, the university
and society.
We presented in this research an academic application which
is used to reduce the cost, time, and effort for both the advisors
and students. Some university student’s face some problems
with academic guidance may be due to various factors, including:
unclear guidance philosophy and objectives and procedures for
the student and even for academic advisors themselves, which may be reflected in students’ attitudes towards mentoring academic
importance to them. They may have negative attitudes in the face
of some problems concerning their educational processes. Hebley
[18,19] stated that the academic guidance is part of the roles of
the faculty member accredited in American universities and is
therefore expected to assume its responsibilities in this regard
and provide appropriate and appropriate extension service for
students when required to do so.
There is essential need to build and design online application
that lead to create learning community which lie in personal
interactions with academic advisors and peer leaders, and
participation online program. Start with tagging the new students
who have recently joined the learning community from their first
day on campus are taught to participate in interactions, workshops
and initiatives that promote learning exploration, emphasize the
importance of community relationships, and peer counselors
guide new students in shaping and promoting community ties to
use the resources available to them all.
This research conclude from the personal experience that
the university should reconsider the current situation, where
the allocation of one academic advisor to dozens of students and
its role is focused on follow-up only, which should be reviewed,
the academic guidance requires a greater bilateral interaction
between the academic leader Of the members of the teaching staff
and a specific number of students assigned to him not exceeding
ten, are assisted in the selection of their academic specialization
and commensurate with their goals and abilities and their
personal aspirations and aspirations, without limiting the role of
the main guide in follow-up scholastic defaulters.
Recommendation of this study suggest that the academic
advising generally tend to use online platform for advising which
it has numerous parts to further improve the functionality and
application. Therefore, more studies should shed lights on the
improvement of the online academic advising with the lack of
social interaction.
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