The author gratefully acknowledges the generous grant support of the American College Personnel Association's Academic Affairs Administrators Commission and the National Association of Academic Affairs Administrators, which funded this research.
Introduction
Academic advising has long since been a function of professionals in higher education. In early colleges, faculty members served as both teacher-tutor and adviser. Over time, the role of faculty members shifted from tilling the affective domain of students to concentrating on their cognitive development (Thelin, 2004). The advising function was, in large part, turned over to professional advisers and student affairs professionals.
As academic advising grew as a profession, so did the need for professional standards and theory. In terms of professional standards, the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS) has promulgated standards for high-quality professional practice in higher education across more than thirty functional areas, including academic advising (Miller, 2003). An excerpt of the professional standard for academic advising reads:
The primary purpose of the Academic Advising Program (AAP) is to assist students in the development of meaningful educational plans. AAP must incorporate student learning and student development in its mission. AAP must enhance overall educational experiences. (Miller, p. 29)
In terms of theory, most academic advisers leaned upon explanations from developmental psychology until Crookston (1972) published an outline of two academic advising styles: prescriptive and developmental. Prescriptive advising is characterized by advisers who give information to students, usually in a unidirectional manner. Developmental advising refers to “advisors who foster a relationship with students so that teaching and learning about crucial academic and life concerns occur” (Daller, Creamer, & Creamer, 1997, p. 31).
tudies have shown that developmental advising is a superior approach to guiding or “charting” students through important educational decisions (Creamer & Creamer, 1994; Lopez, Yanez, Clayton, & Thompson, 1988; O'Banion, 1972). For instance, Daller, Creamer, and Creamer (1997) studied ten professional academic advisers in advising sessions with thirty-five traditional-aged students to determine if differences in advising styles could be observed. They found that advisers employed three different styles (i.e., teacher, counselor, scheduler), though they did not find support for labeling approaches as prescriptive versus developmental. These authors focused on traditional-aged students; thus, far less is known about the appropriateness of a developmental (versus prescriptive) approach to advising other student groups such as high-achieving African American collegians.
A growing line of inquiry centers on the experiences of high-achieving African American collegians. For instance, high-achieving Black collegians often report feeling undue pressure to prove their intellectual ability to peers and faculty (Fries-Britt & Griffin, 2007). As another example, Freeman (1999) conducted a longitudinal study of twenty-one high-achieving students identified by Ebony magazine as “top high school seniors” using in-depth interviews and a questionnaire. She found that most of these students hailed from two-parent households, were first-generation to college, felt pressured to succeed, and grew up in Black neighborhoods. Other findings indicate that Black high-achievers experience isolation and loneliness at predominantly White institutions (Fries-Britt, 1998).
While the literature on African American college students emphasizes the academic and social challenges that such students face (Cuyjet & Associates, 2006; Fleming, 1984), no studies were readily uncovered that described the academic advising needs or experiences of academically successful Black collegians. Conversely, the academic advising literature was developed on largely White student samples and traditional college students (e.g., 18 years old at entry, fairly well prepared for college, etc.) and therefore may be marginally reflective of the academic advising needs of minority student subgroups, such as high-achieving African Americans. It is out of this context that the need for the present study grew.
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to conduct a sequential mixed methods study in which a secondary analysis of institutional survey data preceded follow-up one-on-one and group interviews with willing participants. Specifically, the following questions guided this study:
- Do high-achieving African American collegians and their White counterparts “evaluate the quality of academic advising ... at [said institution]” equally?
- How do high-achieving African American collegians describe their academic advising experiences?
- To what extent, if any, do Black high achievers prefer prescriptive and/or developmental approaches to academic advising?
Significance of Study
Academics have long striven to understand how college affects students and whether student success is influenced by specific characteristics of students, their respective institutions, and attendant experiences. Scholars conclude “the impact of college on students forms, perhaps, the single largest base of empirical investigations in higher education”; a more limited knowledge base exists concerning the experiences of racial/ethnic minorities (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991, p. 455). Thus, more information is needed about the college experiences of racial/ethnic minorities such as African Americans. While recent works have given attention to African American males (Cuyjet & Associates, 2006) and African American student-athletes (e.g., Gaston, 2003), research is needed on the academic advising experiences of high-achieving African American college students.
Theoretical Frameworks
Sanford's (1966) conceptual framework of challenge and support influenced the organization of this study. The central idea behind this framework is that all people need an appropriate balance of challenge and support to grow, develop, and succeed in a particular environment or setting (e.g., schools, colleges, etc.). Challenge refers to encounters with new situations, people whose backgrounds differ from one's own, and ideas that cause cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957) or disrupt current thinking, which, in turn, causes one to see the world differently, engendering growth and development (Baxter Magolda, 2001; Creamer & Associates, 1990). On the other hand, support refers to aspects of the human and material environment that provide students with security, sense of belonging, and information (e.g., academic advising) needed to succeed in college (Rogers, 1961). Thus, academic and social development is a function of challenges (in the environment) balanced by appropriate levels of support. This is a useful “lens” through which to view advising relationships—that is, that academic advising should provide the support necessary to balance students' challenges in college.
Method
Sample and Measures
This study employed data from two student samples. First, to explore differences between high-achieving African Americans and their high-achieving White counterparts, I derived survey responses from a sample of students who participated in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) in 2006 and met the sampling criteria (i.e., high achievers as defined by high school grade-point average above 3.0 and ACT score above 23). These criteria have been used in prior research on similar samples (Harper, 2003). With this sampling frame, the analytic sample consisted of 113 Black high achievers and a matched sample of 100 White high achievers (N = 213), most of whom were women.
To probe subtle nuances that may exist among Black high achievers and to identify and understand their academic advising needs and experiences, I conducted one-on-one and group interviews with twenty-three African American achievers in Phase II of the project. Interview questions were designed to vet their academic advising experiences and to probe their preferred approach to advising.
The dependent variable in this analysis was operationalized using a single item from the NSSE: “Overall, how would you evaluate the quality of academic advising you have received at your institution?” Response options ranged from 1 (poor) to 4 (excellent). The independent grouping factor separated high achievers into two groups: 0 (African American/Black) and 1 (White).
Data Analysis
To analyze the survey data, I used quantitative methods of analysis to calculate descriptive statistics and frequencies for the NSSE item that measured the quality of academic advising on campus. To test for significant departures from expected frequencies (or normality), I calculated Pearson chi-square tests. Due to the nature of the dependent variable (i.e., ordinal), I conducted confirmatory t-tests, which accommodate values that are ordered and/or hierarchical (Agresi, 1996).
To analyze the qualitative interview data, members of the research team developed verbatim transcripts. I employed the constant-comparison method as described by Glaser and Strauss (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). That is, I read and re-read transcripts to generate and organize categories of information or codes, a process known as open coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Coding is the process of organizing the material into “chunks” before bringing meaning to those chunks (Rossman & Rallis, 1998, p. 171). Then I collapsed codes by grouping categories that seemed to relate to each other. This smaller list of categories was used to generate major themes. To answer the last research question, I re-read all transcripts to code for the two advising approaches described earlier in the paper (i.e., prescriptive, developmental).
Key Findings
African American high achievers (M=2.79, SD=0.91) in the sample rated their academic advising experiences higher than their White high-achieving counterparts (M=2.69, SD=0.95). A two-way contingency table analysis was conducted to evaluate whether Black and White high-achievers rated the quality of academic advising differently. Race and perceptions of academic advising were found to be statistically unrelated, Pearson X2 (3, N=213) = 1.03, p=0.79, Cramer's V = 0.04.
Given the nature of the survey item (i.e., ordinal), I conducted independent sample t-tests to confirm the X2 results using perceptions about academic advising as the dependent and race as the grouping variable. The test was not significant, t(211) = 0.82, p = 0.41. The 95 percent confidence interval for the difference in means was quite small, ranging from -0.14 to 0.35. The eta square index indicated that the race of high-achieving students accounted for less than 2 percent of the variance in perceptions of the quality of academic advising. Indeed, these findings are consistent with those from the Pearson chi-square analysis.
Black High Achievers' Satisfaction with Academic Advising
Generally, Black high achievers described their academic advising experiences positively as “helpful” and “effective.” By comparing the unit of analysis across transcripts, I realized that participants used positive modifiers to describe both their advisers and their advising sessions. Words like helpful, effective, really useful, and caring are examples of the adjectives used.
African American high achievers also reported being “satisfied” with their academic advising experiences. For instance, Kim said:
I would say I'm pretty satisfied with my experiences ... [um] and probably would say [they] have somewhat helped me on my path as far as helping me take my academics seriously. I think it is pretty much what you make of it as far as taking advantage of those resources.
Qualities and Approaches to Academic Advising
Several participants identified traits and qualities in their academic adviser that they deemed as important. Candace iterated a sentiment of many participants when she stated:
Um, I know maybe not from experience, but I know from talking and e-mails that he was available all the time, so if you ever needed something, he wouldn't hesitate ... I know I seen him on the street a couple of times and he stopped and talked to me ... he stopped whatever he was doing to help me ... so just being available is key.
According to these participants, academic advisers should not only be accessible, but they should be disciplinarians and motivators, when necessary:
Dr. Hall [pseudonym] helped motivate me or whatnot, cause I started meeting with her when I was on probation, so she really got down my throat, but I could tell she really cared, and I felt like I really had somebody who was pushing for me and I actually got fussed at a couple of times.
Simply discussing their academic experiences with others in a retrospective manner and recounting their experiences in college thus far led some participants to revisit feelings that moved them to tears. Several high-achieving African Americans echoed the sentiment expressed by Tony:
Umm ... well my freshman year, to be honest, I actually failed a course and I thought it was the end of the world, so I came in here to confide in the advisers and they were, like, it will be okay ... you know you can retake the course, and they will reconfigure the GPA so it doesn't just go downhill from here ... so don't get discouraged; and they were like pushing me and helping me to the best of my abilities and told me to talk to my professors, and the next semester I did much [emphasis added] better as cum laude, so it just really helped me out ... they are nice; they really help you out and tell you to just stick with it, that's the best thing.
Lastly, participants expressed a preference for developmental advising versus prescriptive advising approaches. Melanie's words capture the essence of their sentiments: “The adviser doesn't answer the why [emphasis added by participant] ... they just say what you have to do.”
Although the frequency with which participants met with their academic advisers varied among the group members, they had in common a clear preference for close relationships with their advisers and “tailored” advising sessions. A first-year student from Memphis, whose academic major is engineering, summed it up:
The advising sessions ... no, I haven't attended mine this year ... last semester, I mean, some people just had to do that if you happen to be on probation or something like that ... but then I went [one time] ... it's somebody new ... it's not like I feel like, I feel like I have a close relationship with who I am talking to ... I'm just telling them this is how I'm doing in school and that I'm following the requirements ... I don't get anything out of it ... is it too much to ask for them to know me and focus on my real [emphasis added by participant] needs?
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to conduct a sequential mixed methods study in which a secondary analysis of institutional survey data preceded follow-up one-on-one and group interviews with willing African American high achievers at a predominantly White institution.
Specifically, the following questions guided this study:
- Do high-achieving African American collegians and their White counterparts “evaluate the quality of academic advising ... at [said institution]” equally?
- How do high-achieving African American collegians describe their academic advising experiences?
- To what extent, if any, do Black high achievers prefer prescriptive and/or developmental approaches to academic advising?
In sum, findings indicate that (a) high-achieving students do not differ on the basis of race in their evaluation of the quality of academic advising, (b) African American high achievers describe their academic advising experiences generally positively, and (c) Black high achievers use words that suggest a preference for developmental approaches to advising.
This study has implications for a number of constituent groups in higher education. Due to the limits of this essay, I will commit the balance of this article to identifying and describing implications for academic advisers. For instance, this study provides evidence that Black and White high achievers do not rate their advising experiences differently; careful analysis of frequency data suggest that while 68 percent of Blacks rated the quality of advising as “fair” or “good,” only 66 percent of Whites did so. In both cases, approximately 20 percent of students rated their experiences as “excellent.” Advisers should consider subtle nuances of this kind that may suggest the need for additional research or innovative approaches to advising, which may increase the proportion who rate advising as “excellent.”
Qualitative results from this study may provide clues to academic advisers who work with Black high achievers. For instance, participants described positive traits and qualities of advisers (e.g., approachable, available, motivating, and caring) as well as times when advisers had to be disciplinarians and mentors. Professionals should consider this information when working with students; quite often, advisers have to toe the line between friendly facilitator and friend. Even when enforcing rules and university policies (e.g., academic suspension), advisers can be gentle, nurturing, and careful to encourage students to “take a break” without compromising their ultimate goal of earning a degree.
Finally, African American high achievers used words to suggest a preference for developmental versus prescriptive approaches to academic advising. Recall that developmental advising refers to “advisers who foster a relationship with students so that teaching and learning about crucial academic and life concerns occurs” (Daller et al., 1997, p. 31). Advisers should consider these findings when working with Black achievers and strive to offer advising sessions that are tailor-made to fit the student's academic and personal needs. Similarly, graduate preparation faculty members might consider these results when designing courses on advising styles and college counseling. Graduates who aspire to be academic advisers should be well versed in how to employ a number of developmental strategies that nurture students' self-authorship (Baxter Magolda, 1990).