Essential Functions of Academic Advising: What Students Want and Get
We designed this study to understand academic advising at an urban university from diverse student perspectives. Based on a review of the advising literature, we identified 12 functions of academic advising and surveyed 2,100 undergraduates to address the following questions: Which of these advising functions are most important to students? How satisfied are students with the advising they receive on these functions? Do student characteristics impact importance and satisfaction ratings? Results show that students rated all functions as highly important, but satisfaction with advising was not commensurate with the importance students attached to it. In general, student characteristics (gender, ethnicity, financial need, age/cohort, enrollment status, and class level) influenced perceived importance of, but not satisfaction with, advising functions.
Relative emphasis: *theory, research, practice
Contributor Notes
Cathleen L. Smith, PhD, is professor of Psychology at Portland State University. She may be contacted at smithc@pdx.edu.
Janine M. Allen, PhD, is professor of Education in the Postsecondary, Adult, and Continuing Education program at Portland State University. She may be contacted at allenj@pdx.edu.
Dr. Smith and Dr. Allen co-chaired a presidential initiative to improve academic advising at Portland State University. They now lead the assessment of the changes resulting from the initiative.
*See note on page 4.
The authors thank Dr. Todd Bodner for his statistical consultation, and the Portland State University Office of Institutional Research and Planning for support in data collection.
