This dissertation investigated the expectations both professional academic advisors and undergraduate students, respectively, possessed of academic advising and of the advisor role. As students come to their postsecondary endeavors with increased needs, expectations, and consumer-mentalities, it is important to understand their expectations -- and…

This Dissertation in Practice applied an improvement science approach to address an actionable problem of practice in higher education: lack of assessment of student satisfaction with academic advising. The study took place in a school within a public university in the Southeastern United States. A pre-intervention assessment of the current state…

In the dynamic educational environment, college and university leaders are feeling more pressure from federal and state funding agencies to justify the rising cost in college education. A major influence in student success is the ability of students to develop attainable educational and career goals. College administrators put academic advisors in…

Both undergraduate academic advising and Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) play a key role in Latinx student success. The purpose of this intrinsic case study was to explore servingness within the context of undergraduate academic advising at Border University (BU) -- an HSI on the U.S.-Mexico border. The overarching research questions were: 1)…

Legitimacy has been used to understand institutional and faculty behaviors within higher education contexts. Faculty members frequently apply the concept of professional legitimacy to their work, such as publishing and teaching. Few studies have considered how legitimacy is enacted when advising undergraduate students about graduate education.…

Texting is a universal form of communication used by traditional undergraduate students. Its influence on higher education cannot be understated, particularly as it pertains to institutional retention efforts. Communication with an academic advisor has been shown to impact student persistence and retention. Tinto's theory of student departure…

As higher education diversifies, students from underrepresented groups find themselves on campuses unprepared to support them. Academic advising can cultivate belonging or reify" cultural mismatches" when students' norms do not match institutional norms. Leveraging interviews with Chinese international, Chinese American, and European…

Resilience serves as a powerful protective factor against a range of negative physical and psychological health outcomes and has much value for college students who are vulnerable to an increased number of stressors. Thus, universities should explore ways to aid students in building resilience, particularly through academic advising. In this…

A required undergraduate computer science 15-week project course at North Carolina State University, Department of Computer Science, USA, has grown rapidly in 29 years from serving 3 student teams to up to 39 teams. To maintain the integrity of the award-winning program and to facilitate the collaboration of hundreds of students in an academic…

Texting has been identified as a tool that has the potential to enhance informational exchanges between academic advisors and students. We use focus group and survey data from a recent texting intervention to assess student and advisor receptivity to texting as a new mode of communication. The data reveal that most students immediately saw the…

Scholars and practitioners know that students flourish when they choose majors that are congruent with their self-conceptions. What is less investigated is the information they have for making that choice and how they gather that knowledge. This study demonstrates that a significant gap exists between student impressions of political science and…

This paper uses a capstone class in the bachelor of technology program at Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (Canada) as a case study for reimagining a "successful" student and promoting growth in a variety of learners. In this course, students, guided by faculty advisors, work in teams to address real-world projects solicited by…

Although research exists on Black women undergraduates and Black women faculty in American higher education, there is scant research on how Black women professional academic advisors for undergraduates are experiencing the academy. One way to learn more about the life experiences of Black women professional academic advisors for undergraduates is…

Often discussed as a support system or strategy linked with academic, social, and emotional benefits for its participants, mentorship is conducted in increasingly more diverse forms, and the discussion thereof has gained much traction in multiple domains. In China, mentoring has received increasingly more attention in recent years. Holistic,…

This study employs a mixed-methods approach to explore perceptions of academic advising among faculty, advisors, and undergraduate students at an urban university in the Midwest, focusing on its implications for student success. Utilizing Creswell's research design framework, the research integrates quantitative and qualitative data collection…