NACADA Journal Volume 38: Issue 2

In Academic Advising as a Field of Inquiry, Habley (2009) chronicled 30 years of academic advising research and scholarship through 2008, noting that although progress had been made to increase the number of published articles related to academic advising in peer-reviewed journals, much more needed to be done to secure the place of academic advising in higher education. At this year's Annual Conference, the Director of the NACADA Center for Research, Dr. Wendy Troxel, along with colleagues from the United States and the United Kingdom presented preliminary results of their content analysis of research on academic

Motivation and psychological characteristics play important roles in college student success. Upon matriculation, pre-health students must strive for academic success to present competitive profiles for health professions schools. In this qualitative study, 17 high-achieving, upper level pre-health students at a large, mid-Atlantic university participated in focus groups and wrote letters of advice to incoming freshmen, which provided insight into their definitions of academic success and the psychological and contextual factors they perceive as promoters of success. They struggled to reconcile their mastery goals for academic success with perceived expectations to perform and compete for admissions to health professions schools. Students with grit maintained passion for long-term goals and actively sought resources to support individual needs.

We examined first-semester adjustment among students in and out of an honors college because honors college participants receive relatively little attention in the advising literature. As expected, honors college students earned relatively high grades and were associated with high retention rates. Two noncognitive factors predicted these differences: self-confidence and external influences on college choice. In an interesting finding, honors students expressed less self-confidence and placed greater importance on external college-choice factors than their high-achieving peers outside the honors college. Implications for the support of honors students and their peers are discussed.

In this study, the difference in the number of initial credits between incoming transfer and first-year students entering a land grant university in a professional education program was examined (N = 488). A multivariate analysis of variance revealed that transfer students transferred significantly more total credits and more credits that counted toward degree programs than did first-year students. Undergraduates who had graduated from small high schools transferred more credits and more credits that counted than did those from large high schools. However, first-year students transferred a significantly higher percentage of total credits that counted toward the degree programs than did transfer students. Implications for advisors, institutions, and policy makers are discussed.

From the Co-Editors

A Qualitative Exploration of Pre-health Students' Perceptions of Academic Success and Persistence

Honors College Students' Adjustment Factors and Academic Success: Advising Implications

Examining Incoming Credit Differences Between First-Year and Transfer Students

Nontraditional Women Students' Experiences of Identity Recognition and Marginalization During Advising

Application of Clinical Judgment Models to the Development of Academic Advisors

Graduate Student Perceptions of Online Advising

What is Academic Advising? An Application of Analytic Induction

From the Co-Editors

Understanding Athletics Academic Advisors’ Experience with Job Burnout

Rural College Students’ Academic, Financial, and Health-Related Obstacles During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications for Academic Advisors

Career Advising in a VUCA Environment

From the Co-Editors

THE URSINUS COLLEGE FRESHMAN ADVISING PROGRAM

CAMPUS LEAVING BEHAVIOR

APPROACHING A DEFINITIVE POSITION ON ACADEMIC ADVISING

THE ADVISOR UNDER STRESS—FIRED UP OR BURNED OUT?

WHAT YOU'D REALLY LIKE TO SAY . . .