Efficacy of Intrusively Advising First-Year Students via Frequent Reminders for Advising Appointments
Intrusive advising has been frequently used to encourage or require at-risk or probationary students to attend advising sessions. The efficacy of intrusive advising targeted to all students has received little attention. We implemented a case-control experiment with 501 first-year students at a large, urban, state university to test the efficacy of nonmandated intrusive advising designed to encourage advising session attendance. Students in three academic units were randomly assigned to outreach or no outreach conditions. Those in the outreach group received a series of reminders to schedule advising appointments. Results suggest intrusive advising was successful in increasing the probability students would schedule and keep an advising appointment during their first semester of college enrollment and in shortening the time until that appointment was held. Implications for broad implementation of intrusive advising are discussed.
Contributor Notes
David C. Schwebel is associate professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Psychology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). He is Director of Undergraduate Studies, including advising, in the Psychology Department. This manuscript represents his first foray into research on advising, but he has published extensively on psychological aspects of understanding and preventing children's unintentional injuries. He has developed injury prevention techniques for child pedestrian, playground, and swimming pool safety and his research has been funded by the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. Dr. Schwebel earned his BA in psychology from Yale University and his PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Iowa. Communication should be directed to him at schwebel@uab.edu.
Nancy Walburn is the Director of the Division of General Studies at UAB. In that role, she oversees advising of exploratory students (undeclared, pre-nursing, and pre-health), provides leadership for a university-wide advising network (Committee on Academic Advising), and oversees initiatives that promote students' success in the academic context of the university. Ms. Walburn has been active in NACADA since 1986, serving in a variety of leadership roles including the Board of Directors and most recently as Vice President of the Association. She has presented at numerous conferences in higher education, served as a consultant for numerous institutions on advising and advising initiatives, and served on the advisory board for the Noel Levitz training video on academic advising.
Sharon Jacobsen is the lead advisor for the pre-nursing advising team in the Division of General Studies at UAB. She serves as the liaison between the director and pre-nursing advisors, managing weekly advisor meetings and supervising support staff. As an active member of NACADA for over 10 years, Ms. Jacobsen has attended several NACADA Assessment Institutes, presented at the local, regional, and national level, and recently published an article on the assessment of advising at UAB for Academic Advising Today. She earned her MA in student personnel services from Northwestern State University in Louisiana.
Kevin Jerrolds serves as lead advisor for undeclared advising in the Division of General Studies at UAB. He meets individually with undeclared students, provides leadership for the undeclared advising team, advises the UAB chapter of Alpha Lambda Delta National Honor Society for First Year Students, and serves in various leadership roles on several campus-wide task forces and committees. Mr. Jerrolds earned his MEd in counseling from the University of Mississippi and has been active in NACADA since 2002.
Katherine Klyce is the academic advisor in the UAB Department of Psychology. Her research interests include issues about undergraduate student populations and group advising strategies. Ms. Klyce earned an MS degree in Fisheries and Allied Aquacultures from Auburn University and an MS degree in clinical psychology from Illinois State University.
Thanks to Doug O'Neil for computer database assistance.
