Abstract:
Academic advising on American college and university campuses
has evolved into a professional activity supported by a growing body
of theory and research. Developmental psychology provided the
foundation for an approach to advising that emphasizes an holistic view
of the student by supplementing traditional advising functions with
career and personal counseling, decision-making strategies, and a
personal relationship between the student and advisor.
The majority of advising literature assumes that developmental
advising can meet the needs of most students in every postsecondary
setting. The purpose of this study was to discover whether this is the
case for community college students. Subjects in two Pacific Northwest
community colleges were surveyed using an instrument derived from
Winston and Sandor's (1984c) Academic Advising Inventory. The
instrument discriminated between prescriptive and developmental advising and measured the degree of satisfaction expressed by students
in a variety of demographic categories.
The study found that most students who received advising
indicated that it was essentially developmental in nature and that they
were generally satisfied. No significant differences were found in the
style of advising (prescriptive or developmental) or in the level of
satisfaction expressed by students in a variety of demographic
variables. Significant differences were found both in the style of
advising and in satisfaction based on the format or settings in which
the advising took place. The highest level of satisfaction was
associated with an assigned advisor in an advising center. Students
who were advised by peers experienced the most developmental service,
but they were a very small proportion (N=5) of the overall sample,
causing the results on this dimension to be inconclusive. These results
suggest that for community college students, the format of advising may
be as important as the developmental or prescriptive style of advising.
The finding that 29% of the study subjects received no advising
underscores the issue of access and perceived need for advising. Of
this group, minorities and students who were enrolled for less than six
credits were not being advised at higher rates than other student
groups.
