An Advising Initiative for Online Students on Academic Probation

Online education continues to grow in popularity, as evidenced by student enrollments and facilitated by institutional actions. Among students, this popularity is realized in online course enrollments. In the Falls of 2015 and 2016, respectively, 30% and 32% of postsecondary students took an online course (U.S. Department of Education, 2018). Postsecondary institutions have facilitated this enrollment growth with increased online offerings. This increase was not the result of happenstance. In a 2013 survey, 69.1% of chief academic officers reported that online offerings were deemed central to long-term strategy (Allen & Seaman, 2013). The growth in online education also coincides with a decrease in the number of students taking courses on campus (Seaman, Allen, & Seaman, 2018).

In navigating the migration of students to online education, institutional stakeholders should pay attention to the availability of nonclassroom support for online students. Although the academic quality of online courses remains paramount, online students have noted also the importance of support outside the classroom. According to the 2015 Online Learners National Comparison Group for the Ruffalo Noel Levitz Priorities Survey for Online Learners (N = 118,322), engaging with the faculty and the quality of instruction were reported as among the highest concerns for students pursuing degrees online. However, 4 of the top 10 survey items that students identified as important related to situations outside the classroom: “tuition paid is a worthwhile investment,” “registration for online courses is convenient,” “program requirements are clear and reasonable,” and “this institution responds quickly when I request information.” In a similar acknowledgment of the importance of support outside the classroom, researchers reported the need to improve academic advising for online students. Recommendations from these studies included assigning online students to advisors who also act as case managers, personalizing advisor-to-advisee interactions, and delivering prompt information about curriculum requirements (Axelson, 2007; Gravel, 2012; Raphael, 2006).

Considering all of these factors—the growth in online education, the student survey results, and the recommendations from the studies cited herein—institutional leaders should improve academic advising for online students. However, a clear path to this goal may not be evident at institutions with limited experience working with online students. One method that institutions new to online offerings can use is to adapt initiatives designed for residential students; we discuss an example of this approach. To address a gap in academic advising support for online students, an advising initiative created for residential students on academic probation was redesigned for use with online students on academic probation. For the purpose of this article, the term residential students refers to undergraduates who attend a campus where most students take courses in a face-to-face setting; it is not limited to students who live in college-provided housing. The term online students refers to those who exclusively take online courses and receive advising through e-mail and phone from a centralized advising center.

Setting

The setting for the study was a private, liberal arts, nonprofit, master's degree–granting college in the Midwest. The college comprises students attending courses in three distinct venues: approximately 1,000 students who attend a residential campus, 10,000 students who attend evening and online courses through a system of nationwide locations, and 3,000 students who attend courses solely online.

The institution provides courses for earned credit through a variety of delivery methods (face to face, online, and a hybrid delivery combination), term lengths (8- or 16-week sessions), class lengths (once per week for 4 hours, three times per week for 55 minutes per meeting, or asynchronous online), and geographic locations. The residential and online student demographics at the enrollment institution differ. Residential students tend to be traditional-aged undergraduates, and online students tend to be of nontraditional age. Table 1 presents the demographic information for the two student groups.

Table 1 Residential and online student demographics

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The variety of educational offerings and delivery methods at the institution prompted a general question: Can student support initiatives deemed beneficial for students in one setting be redesigned and successfully implemented with students in another setting? This query was investigated when the administrators redesigned an advising initiative for residential students on academic probation for use with an online student population on academic probation.

Student Persistence Models and Advising Approaches

The foundations for the advising initiatives discussed herein include three student persistence models and two advising approaches. The student persistence models referenced are a model of nontraditional student attrition (Metzner & Bean, 1987), a model of dropout from distance education courses (Kember, 1989), and a model of college student persistence (Milem & Berger, 1997). These models include academics as student persistence factors.

Proactive and appreciative advising approaches were used to develop the advising initiatives. Proactive advising is based on intrusive counseling, which relies on counselor-initiated contacts (Glennen, 1975). Varney (2012) explained that proactive advising can be employed through a communication plan with students, and the advising initiatives in this study were designed with a communication plan. The content of the proactive communications for the residential and online initiatives was built on appreciative advising stages. The appreciative advising framework was developed in the early 2000s on the basis of positive psychology, appreciative inquiry, choice theory, reality therapy, social constructivist theory, scaffolding, and zone of proximal development approaches (Bloom, Hutson, & He, 2008). The practice of appreciative advising relies on a student-advisor cocreated student development path designed according to the student's strengths and is fostered through regular advisor and student contact (Bloom et al., 2008).

The relationship of proactive and appreciative advising to developmental advising warrants explanation. Winston, Miller, Ender, and Grites (1984) codified the tenets of developmental advising in Developmental Academic Advising. The developmental approach requires a close student-advisor relationship that focuses on achieving both the academic and the personal goals of the student. Grites (2013) later recognized a common thread through proactive, appreciative, and developmental advising: All three approaches use a developmental approach to help students reach their goals.

Literature Review

The advising initiatives outlined in this article relied on several aspects of advising at the college under study: using proactive and appreciative advising approaches, advising online students, and improving the academic performance of students on academic probation. Therefore, we reviewed studies related to these areas.

Advising Initiative for Residential Students on Academic Probation

Prior to the Spring of 2014, no prescribed support was available for students placed on academic probation at the institution we investigated. Students attending the residential campus who were placed on academic probation received letters with information about their probationary status and notices that they would be suspended if they did not raise their GPAs. Initial analysis in the Fall of 2013 revealed that a high percentage of students warned (>48%) were suspended the term after the probation notifications.

In the Spring of 2014, the residential students placed on academic probation were required to participate in advising appointments that focused on their academic success. The students who enrolled after they were placed on academic probation had access to the advising, which was designed to reduce the number of students who were subsequently suspended from the institution for failing to improve their GPAs.

The college advisors who facilitated the sessions attended appreciative advising training. They used the six stages of appreciative advising—disarm, discover, dream, design, deliver, and don't settle—to structure the student meetings (as per Bloom et al., 2008), as presented in Table 2. In addition, materials developed by the University of South Carolina Student Success Office, including an About Me form, were adapted for use in these advising sessions.

Table 2 Alignment of sessions to appreciative advising stages

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Each student placed on academic probation was required to meet with an advisor during the first 2 weeks of the semester. In that meeting, the student completed an overview of his or her academic probation status, an advising agreement, an About Me survey, an academic history exercise, and prompts to identify goals for academic success and a student success plan. Each student was then instructed to meet with the advisor at least two more times during the semester. The content of the second and third meetings was dependent on student-identified obstacles. These meetings could cover a number of topics, such as determining the reason that the student is in college, developing concrete academic goals, identifying academic strengths and areas needing improvement, creating a plan for meeting with professors, and learning about financial aid needs and options. In addition, a majority of students completed a time-management exercise and a learning-styles inventory.

We measured outcomes of the residential advising initiative by within-group and year-over-year comparisons. Students were grouped by completion status—they attended the three required meetings or attended fewer than three meetings—and their academic status the semester following the probation action—off probation, continued probation, suspended, or withdrew from courses. We used the within-group analyses to compare the academic statuses and the juxtaposed postterm GPAs of students on the basis of attendance at the advising sessions. We used the year-over-year comparison to investigate differences in the academic status of students placed on academic probation before and after implementation of the advising initiative. Both groups (preimplementation and postimplementation) were composed of students who started a Fall or Spring semester as a residential student on academic probation or continued probation. We considered the outcome of Summer courses for students in a postimplementation Spring cohort, as students might take Summer courses to improve academic standing before the Fall semester. For the preimplementation group, we report the outcomes for residential students who enrolled with a probationary status the Fall or Spring semester after the probation action. For the postimplementation group, we report the outcomes for students who were required to attend advising sessions. The postimplementation group was not limited to the Fall or Spring semesters immediately following the probation action. The difference in the parameters for the pre- and postimplementation groups is a result of the requirement that postimplementation residential students attend advising sessions no matter how long they waited to reenroll after being placed on academic probation. The variables, statistical methods, and null hypotheses for each test are presented in Table 3.

Table 3 Comparison groups, variables, statistical methods, and null hypotheses for the evaluation of the advising initiative for residential students

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Results for Residential Students

The number of advising sessions a residential student attended affected the student's academic status and GPA. More students who attended three or more sessions (59.2%) were removed from probation compared to students who attended fewer than three sessions (29.5%). This difference was significant (p = .001). Fewer students (23.9%) who attended three or more sessions were suspended compared to those students who attended fewer than three sessions (45.5%). This difference was also significant (p = .018). We found other differences in the academic statuses of the two groups, but these were not significant. Table 4 shows the results of the two-tailed, two-sample proportion tests for the within-group analyses, and Figure 1 presents the comparisons of academic statuses.

Table 4 Within-group comparison of academic status for residential students on academic probation who were required to attend appreciative advising sessions, Spring 2014–Spring 2016

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A two-tailed, two-sample t test was conducted to compare the postterm GPAs of students who attended three or more sessions to those who attended fewer than three sessions. A significant difference was found between the postterm GPAs of students who attended three or more sessions (M = 1.875, SD = 0.427) and the postterm GPAs of students who attended fewer than three sessions (M = 1.489, SD = 0.661); t(63) = −3.42, p = .001.

Differences also emerged in the year-over-year analysis of academic status. The proportion of students removed from probation significantly increased from 20.5% to 47.8% after the advising initiative was implemented (p = .001). Table 5 features the results of the two-tailed, two-sample proportion tests for the year-over-year analysis of academic status, and Figure 2 shows the academic statuses for students before (Fall 2012–Fall 2013) and after (Spring 2014–Spring 2016) the advising initiative was implemented.

Table 5 Year-over-year comparison of academic status before (Fall 2012–Fall 2013) and after (Spring 2014–Spring 2016) implementation of an appreciative advising initiative for residential students on academic probation

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Advising Initiative for Online Students on Academic Probation

Despite the implementation of the residential advising initiative described herein, a standard outreach plan for online students on academic probation did not exist at the institution. Initial analysis revealed that a high percentage of online students were suspended one term after being placed on academic probation (>45%). College administrators decided to adapt the residential initiative for use with online students.

Academic advisors for online students (online advisors) created a proactive outreach plan on the basis of the residential advising initiative. These advisors were chosen to create the online version because they had the best understanding of online students' needs and preferences at the institution. To complete this plan, the advisors considered differences between the residential and online academic environments: the length of terms (16 weeks for residential and 8 weeks for online terms), the maximum concurrent hours allowed per student per term (18 hours for residential and 6 for online students), the delivery method (face to face for residential and asynchronous for online students), availability of academic support such as tutoring, and the geographical proximity of students to their advisors. The result of the adaptation was a communication strategy comprising three scheduled, proactive outreach efforts via e-mail and phone calls. The length of online courses and the inability to ensure advisor availability when students were likely available (most online students were thought to be working adults, and the academic advisors held limited hours after 5:00 p.m.) resulted in different parameters for online student participation. Unlike the required meetings for residential students, the online initiative was composed of no-risk, no-reward communications; neither a response nor a lack of response had positive or negative consequences for students.

Appreciative advising was chosen as the scaffold for the online student communication plan because the approach had been used with residential students. The online advisors developed topics in the communication strategy that were aligned with the six appreciative advising stages (see Table 6). The first communication was sent by e-mail to students on academic probation the week before or the first week of the term. This e-mail included a short explanation of academic probation; questions prompting students to identify possible barriers to their academic success, such as test taking, paper writing, and time management; links to college resources for the topics listed herein; suggestions for a reduced course load; and a question asking students to consider the courses they may retake to improve their academic standing.

Table 6 Alignment of communications topics sent to online students to appreciative advising stages

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The second communication was a phone call before midterm exams. Advisors checked student activity in the learning management system and then called the students to discuss their progress. Advisors sent e-mails to students whom they could not reach by phone. Information discussed included a GPA projection worksheet, a student success plan adapted from the form used with residential students, an offer of assistance in formulating an academic success plan, and a set of links to academic resources. The third communication was a phone call in the 6th or 7th week of the 8-week term. As with the midterm phone call, advisors checked students' progress in the learning management system and then called them to discuss progress and preparation for finals. Advisors sent e-mails to students they could not reach by phone.

We used different parameters to categorize online student participation than those used to classify residential student participation. Residential students were considered to have completed the advising sessions if they attended the three required meetings. Online students were not required to attend meetings; therefore, for this study, we could not use the same criteria as had been used for residential students to determine participation. Instead, we classified online students as either responders or nonresponders. The first e-mail was sent to all online students placed on probation at the end of the academic term, no matter their enrollment status for the following term (this e-mail was sent during the enrollment period for the following term). Responses to the midterm and late-term communications, which advisors extended to enrolled students, determined the students' response status. Nonenrolled students fell outside the scope of the intended communications, so they were not included in the evaluation of the advising initiative.

Like for the residential students, the advising initiative for online students was evaluated using within-group comparisons and a year-over-year comparison. Students were grouped by their response status—responded to at least one communication or did not respond to any communications—and by their academic status the term following the probation term—off probation, continued probation, suspended, or withdrew from courses. We used the within-group analyses to compare the academic status and the postterm GPAs of students by response status. We used the year-over-year comparison to investigate differences between student outcomes before and after implementation of the advising initiative. Both groups (preimplementation and postimplementation) were composed of students who started a term as an online student on academic probation. The variables, statistical methods, and null hypothesis for each test are presented in Table 7.

Table 7 Comparison groups, variables, statistical methods, and null hypotheses for the evaluation of the outreach initiative for online students

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Results for Online Students

Response to the advising communications was an indicator of improved academic status for online students. Students who responded to at least one of the communications were placed on continued probation at a higher rate than students who did not respond: 30.7% compared with 19.7%, a significant difference (p = .025). We found other differences in the academic status of students who responded and students who did not respond, but none were significant. Table 8 features the results of the two-tailed, two-sample proportion tests for the within-group analyses, and Figure 3 presents the comparisons of the academic status categories for each group.

Table 8 Within-group analyses of academic status one term after being placed on academic probation for online students who received appreciative advising communications, Spring 2015–Winter 2016

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A two-tailed, two-sample t test was conducted to compare the postterm GPAs of online students who responded with those who did not respond. No significant difference was found between the GPAs of responders (M = 1.413, SD = 0.721) and nonresponders (M = 1.247, SD = 0.790); t(306) = −1.93, p = .054.

Significant differences were found in the year-over-year comparison of academic statuses of online students. We found an increase in students removed from probation, from 16.6% in 2014–2015 to 23.9% in 2015–2016 (p = .015) and a decrease in suspensions, from 46.7% in 2014–2015 to 37.4% in 2015–2016 (p = .011). Table 9 features the results of the two-tailed, two-sample proportion tests for the year-over-year analysis of academic status, and Figure 4 shows the rates of academic statuses before (2014–2015) and after (2015–2016) the implementation of the advising initiative.

Table 9 Year-over-year comparison of academic status one term after being placed on academic probation before (2014–2015) and after (2015–2016) implementation of an appreciative advising communication initiative for online students

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Discussion

The advising initiatives correlated to positive outcomes for residential and online students. Residential students who attended three or more advising sessions were removed from probation at a higher rate than those who attended fewer than three sessions. Online students who responded to the communication were placed on continued probation, a positive outcome, at a higher rate than those who did not respond. Continued probation enabled a student to avoid suspension and enroll in the following term. As a possible cause for the venue-dependent outcomes, online students were limited to 6 credit hours in each 8-week term. Six credit hours may not have provided enough leverage for students to raise their GPAs above the probation threshold but enabled them to increase their GPAs sufficiently to avoid suspension and remain on continued probation.

In another positive outcome, residential students who attended three or more sessions were suspended at a lower rate than those who attended fewer than three sessions. This result supports previous findings on the use of proactive outreach or related methods with students who exhibit academic risk factors (Abelman & Molina, 2002; Kirk-Kuwaye & Nishida, 2001; Molina & Abelman, 2000).

The year-over-year comparisons were positive for both groups—a greater percentage of online and residential students were removed from probation than in the previous year—even though not all students completed or responded to the advising initiatives. Perhaps the initiatives increased overall awareness of academic probation requirements and outcomes, prompting some students to take action independent of the advising sessions. We also found a difference in the year-over-year analyses: Fewer online students were suspended than in the previous year. A similar outcome was not found for residential students.

The number of meetings that residential students attended was an indicator of GPA improvement; the mean GPA of students who attended three sessions was 0.386 higher than those who did not (p = .001). This finding supports that from Preuss and Switalski (2008). However, we did not observe a similar difference in GPAs with online students. Online responders had higher GPAs than nonresponders, but the difference did not meet the criteria for statistical significance. Similar to the venue-dependent outcomes for academic status, the 6-hour cap on the number of credit hours in the 8-week term may have limited the likelihood that online students could significantly raise their GPAs in a single term.

Implications for Practice

Advising initiatives for residential students can be adapted for use with online students. To accomplish this type of modification, institutional leaders must first identify gaps in the current system of online student support. Additional items to consider include the definition of program success, the core operating principle(s) of the residential advising initiative, differences between the residential and online academic environments, preferred communication methods for online students, venue-dependent expectations for outcomes, and the use of proactive advising through communication plans.

Planners should first identify gaps in support for online students, which can be accomplished by identifying students failing to persist. Complex statistical models on attrition and risk factors could be used to this end; however, as shown in this article, a simple analysis of the proportion of a student subpopulation that enrolls in the following term may prove sufficient for determining areas of need.

Before adapting a residential student advising initiative to address gaps in online student support, stakeholders must clearly assess and understand the success of the residential advising initiative. After determining the assessment metric(s), they can decide on the threshold for identifying student success. For the advising initiative discussed herein, academic standing was used as the assessment metric, and the outcomes for residential students on academic probation were deemed a success. In some cases, this process may require assessment of preexisting initiatives that were developed during a number of years, not those designed and tested in a clinical environment. For example, administrators and advisors described in this article knew that the advising initiative for residential students did not control for all the variables that affect student success. However, the correlated outcomes provided sufficient evidence to prompt creation of a related advising initiative for online students.

When adapting programs, planners should consider the differences between residential and online academic environments, and their knowledge of the academic environment for online students proves crucial because advisors cannot design applicable outreach without fully understanding the context for it. For the advising initiative described in this article, the important factors for consideration included the length of the academic term, the number of concurrent credit hours allowed in a session, and the supplemental academic resources available (such as tutoring).

Once they select an initiative to adapt for online students, the designers need to identify the core operating principles of the residential initiative. They may not be able to retain all aspects of the outreach or keep them the same as for on-campus students. For example, as in the case presented, creation of advising sessions that required face-to-face meetings at the institution would have been pointless for the online students. However, elements of the resident approach were used, such as the proactive outreach efforts and the use of appreciative advising as the scaffold for communications.

To design a successful advising initiative for online students, advisors may need to use multiple outreach methods. Gravel (2012) noted that these communications can rely on both synchronous and asynchronous tools, such as phone calls, e-mails, instant messages, and video conferences. Whichever method is selected, the outreach should be about communicating with the student in his or her preferred medium to facilitate meaningful communication.

Institutional leaders should be prepared for venue-dependent outcomes. The impact of an online student advising initiative may be limited by the online academic environment. For example, the ability for the online students depicted in this article to raise their GPAs in a single term was limited by the number of concurrent credit hours they were allowed to attempt in that term. This constraint likely affected the number of students who raised their GPAs above the probation threshold. Hence, we suggest that similar venue-dependent factors be taken into account when assessing the suitability of residential student advising initiatives for online students.

After determining the gaps to fill and the success of the residential initiatives, planners may find that proactive advising enables advisors to strengthen connections with online students. As previously noted, communication plans act as vehicles for proactive advising (Varney, 2012). In addition, the use of proactive communication plans facilitates additional developmental advising opportunities, fulfilling the recommendation of Gravel (2012) to increase the availability of these types of interactions for online students.

Limitations and Additional Research

Student persistence and completion are multivariate considerations. The advising initiatives we discuss featured some limited variables, but they did not take place in a closed, controlled environment. They were not part of a clinical trial or experimental study of an advising approach; therefore, we could not control the many variables that students face during an academic term. In addition, because of the number of staff members involved (more than 10), the communication plan was administered with variations. Although we provided outlines for phone calls and example e-mails to the advisors, the organic nature of conversations with students means that not every communication was scripted. Advisor notes were reviewed and compared to contact records, where available, to verify students' responses to outreach. Also, this study was limited by the application of the advising outreach at a single college, and the results from one institution may not transfer to another institution.

The data used to group preimplementation online students and the GPA data for postimplementation online and residential students were the records available to staff immediately following the end of an academic term. In some cases, these data did not account for subsequent academic actions such as completion of incomplete courses, replaced grades, delayed academic decisions, the outcome of academic appeals, or backdated academic decisions. As a result, the withdrawn cohort for the preimplementation online group includes four students who completed courses in the term reviewed but whose academic status was incomplete in the original data set or updated after the initial academic status decision. For the postimplementation residential students, postsession GPA data for one student were not available, and one student was dismissed and included in the suspended cohort.

We investigated short-term gains for students—the impact on academic status and GPA after one academic session. No longitudinal success factors were assessed; therefore, the methods used in this study may not influence long-term student success metrics. Although improved academic standing may affect long-term persistence and completion, the current setting did not allow for an in-depth investigation over time. Additional research is needed to confirm the benefit of these types of outreach and the impact they have on metrics such as retention and graduation rates. Additional research may reveal learning outcomes for these types of advising initiatives and whether meeting those outcomes results in improved academic standing for students.

Future studies might review the outcomes of required meetings with online students on academic probation. Swecker, Fifolt, and Searby (2013) reported that each meeting with an academic advisor increased the likelihood of retention of first-generation students by 13%. The setting for our study did not enable the advisors to require meetings with online students on academic probation, but mandated meetings may have exerted a different influence than did the strategy used. In addition, different outreach methods (phone, e-mail, Skype) may lead to different outcomes. Online advisors used both e-mails and phone calls in this study. However, the efficacy of either method used independently was neither recorded nor measured.

Conclusion

Students and researchers have reported the need to improve academic advising for online students. However, at institutions with limited experience providing support to online students, advisors may not believe they possess the means to improve advising for this student population. This study shows that leaders at colleges and universities can adapt advising initiatives used with residential students to support a similar population taking classes online when venue-specific differences are taken into account. We identified length of the academic term, number of credit hours allowed in a session, and availability of supplemental academic resources (such as tutoring) as specific considerations for advisors to consider when looking to adapt an existing program to online students.

Specifically, we showed that an advising initiative for residential students on academic probation can be adapted for use with online students on academic probation. Advised students in both groups experienced improved academic standings. Residential students who attended three or more advising sessions were removed from probation at a higher rate and suspended at a lower rate than those who attended fewer than three sessions, 59.2% compared to 29.5% (p = .001) and 23.9% compared to 45.5% (p = .018). Online students who responded to an advising initiative based on this residential initiative were placed on continued probation (avoiding suspension) at a higher rate than those who did not respond, 30.7% compared with 19.7% (p = .025). We also saw improved GPAs, but these data showed significance only for residential students.