Expanding Research in Academic Advising: Methodological Strategies to Engage Advisors in Research

Intercultural Communication Competence: Advising International Students in a Texas Community College

“…Research in academic advising and intercultural communication provides guidance to frontline practitioners. It can also broaden their understanding and enrich their knowledge of academic advising (Aiken-Wisniewski, Smith, & Troxel, 2010). Advisors may use their firsthand experiences as bases for empirical investigation, which can inform other advisors with valuable and practical understanding in helping interna tional students.…”

Direct Measure Assessment of Learning Outcome–Driven Proactive Advising for Academically At-Risk Students

“…Specifically, we addressed the curricular benefits of using direct measures to assess the efficacy of a proactive advising intervention designed to increase student learning about the causes of and remedies for poor academic standing and to improve the proactive advising curriculum. Because advising literature on assessment is typically based on indirect measures, such as student satisfaction and self-evaluation (Aiken- Wisniewski, Smith, et al, 2010;Banta et al, 2002;Powers et al, 2014), our work provides new evidence to reinforce the value of enhancing advising assessment with direct measures of student learning as part of a comprehensive assessment plan. It also provides multiple examples of successful approaches used to establish student mastery.…”

“…Only with the appropriate foundational knowledge can advisors support student development and exploration within an advising setting. Aiken-Wisniewski, Smith, and Troxel (2010) suggested that the literature lacks evidence of practitioner-level success in areas such as program assessment and evaluation, specifically citing a need for advising units to design curricula with intentionality; specifically, stakeholders should focus on defining and assessing student learning outcomes (SLOs). In this article, we seek to share our successful approach to proactive advising improvements through an intentional curriculum design that scaffolds and augments foundational knowledge with application to aid in student development and growth.…”

Validating Faculty Advising Through Assessment

“…The aggregated group of faculty advisors who participated in the workshop received higher overall advising Assessment scores than they had received the previous year. This remarkable, measurable improvement in scores highlights the importance of training for faculty advisors and the evaluation of those efforts as cited in the advising literature (Aiken-Wisniewski, Smith, & Troxel, 2010;Cuseo, 2008;Wiseman & Messitt, 2010). We recommend, especially for institutions at which advisors already undergo evaluations, an examination of the advising assessments both before and after professional development workshop participation (per Cuseo, 2008) to assess the efficacy of the workshop and implementation of the principles learned.…”

“…We also recommend assessing the efficacy of these advising workshops by comparing the student evaluations, such as those from the Academic Advising Assessment, for statistically significant differences before and after advisor workshop attendance. Future advancements of this evaluation process should include measures of student learning via the advising context, as recommended by several advising experts (Aiken-Wisniewski et al, 2010;Powers et al, 2014). In this era of focus on higher education assessment, institutional stakeholders must effectively assess their advising program, including an evaluation of advisors, student learning, and the influence of advisor professional development.…”