ACADEMIC ADVISEMENT AND STUDENT RETENTION: EMPIRICAL CONNECTIONS & SYSTEMIC INTERVENTIONS

Joe Cuseo

Empirical Relationships between Student Advisement and Student Retention
While there appears to be a long-standing logical link between high-quality advising and high rates of student retention, their empirical connection has yet to be systematically demonstrated. Described below is a series of research findings that provide evidence for an empirical link, albeit indirect, between academic advisement and factors or conditions that are strongly correlated with student retention.

1. College Satisfaction, Academic Advising, and Student Retention
There is a well-established empirical relationship between students� level of satisfaction with the postsecondary institution they are attending and their rate of retention at that institution (Noel, Levitz, & Saluri, 1985), i.e., college satisfaction is a �primary predictor� of student persistence (Noel & Levitz, 1995). Furthermore, college satisfaction is an assessment outcome that has been found to be the least influenced or confounded by students� college-entry characteristics�e.g., academic preparedness, educational aspirations, gender, and socioeconomic status (Astin, 1991).
Research on student satisfaction with the quality of academic advisement in higher education reveals a pattern of disappointing findings. Astin (1993) reports the results of a national survey in which advising ranked 25th among the 27 different types of types of services evaluated by students, with only 40% of the surveyed students indicating that they were either �satisfied� or �very satisfied� with the quality of academic advising they received at their college. In their seminal and influential tome, Developmental Academic Advising, Ender, Winston, & Miller (1984) conclude categorically that, �The greatest difficulty students cite with the quality of their academic experiences is advising� (p. 14). Ironically, despite widespread dissatisfaction with advising, students express a strong desire for advisor contact and place a high value on academic counseling relative to other student services (Wyckoff, 1999).
Given the fact that student satisfaction is a �pure� outcome that is unlikely to be confounded or �contaminated� by students� personal characteristics, its established association with student retention, plus empirical evidence pointing to low levels of student satisfaction with academic advising in higher education, it is reasonable to conclude that institutional efforts that are intentionally designed to improve student satisfaction with academic advising should serve to improve students� level of college satisfaction and, in turn, their retention to degree completion.
Empirical evidence for a relationship between student satisfaction with the quality of advising received at their college and their retention at that college is provided by Metzner (1989), who conducted a longitudinal investigation of freshman-to-sophomore retention rates of students enrolled at public university. The study involved a large sample of first-year students and it incorporated a sizable number of influential student variables (e.g., students� academic preparedness, employment status while in college, college grades, and college satisfaction). Results revealed that students who perceived advising to be of �good quality� withdrew from the university at a rate that was 25% lower than that of students who reported receiving �poor advising,� and they withdrew at a rate that was 40% less than that of students who received no advising at all. Further data analysis revealed that high-quality advising had a statistically significant, indirect effect on student persistence, which was mediated by its positive association with students� level of college satisfaction and its negative (inverse) association with students� intent to leave the university.
National surveys of student retention practices provide additional evidence for a link between institutional improvement made in the quality of advising delivered to students and improvement in student retention. For instance, in a national survey of 944 colleges and universities, college administrators identified �inadequate academic advising� as the number-one characteristic linked to student attrition on their campuses; the same administrators reported that �improvement of academic advising services� was the most common retention strategy adopted by their institutions (Beal & Noel, 1980). The effectiveness of this institutional strategy is suggested by other national-survey data indicating that institutions which make improvements in their academic advising programs experience substantial gains in their student retention rates (Cartensen & Silberhorn, 1979).
Consistent with the foregoing survey findings are the on-site observations of Lee Noel, a nationally recognized student-retention scholar and consultant, who reports: �In our extensive work on campuses over the years, [we] have found that institutions where significant improvement in retention rates has been made, almost without exception, give extra attention to careful life planning and to academic advising� (Noel, 1985, p. 13).

2. Effective Educational & Career Planning/Decision-Making, Academic Advising, and Student Retention
Retention research suggests that student commitment to educational and career goals is perhaps the strongest factor associated with student persistence to degree completion (Wyckoff, 1999). Thus, effective advising can exert appreciable impact on student retention through its salutary influence on students� educational and career planning and decision-making. The need for student support in the academic planning and decision-making process is highlighted by research findings, which indicate that (a) three of every four students are uncertain or tentative about their career choice at college entry (Titley & Titley, 1980; Frost, 1991), (b) only 8% of new students feel they know �a great deal about their intended major� (Lemoine, cited in Erickson & Summers, 1991) (c) over half of all students who enter college with a declared major change their mind at least once before they graduate (Foote, 1980; Gordon, 1984), and (d) only one senior out of three will major in the same field they preferred as a freshman (Willingham, 1985). This degree of student uncertainty and propensity for changing educational plans has been reported at all institutional types, including selective private universities (Marchese, 1992), large research universities (�What We Know About First-Year Students,� 1996; What Do I Want to Be,� 1997), and small liberal arts colleges (�Alpha Gives Undecided Students a Sense of Identity,� 1996).
Such findings strongly suggest that students� final decisions about majors and careers do not occur before entering college, but typically materialize during the college experience. Thus, it is not accurate to assume that students who enter college with �declared� majors are truly �decided� majors; instead, it is more accurate to conclude that 75% of all students entering college are actually undecided about their academic and career plans, and at least half of all declared majors are �prematurely decided� majors, who will eventually change their minds.
Naturally, some of this indecisiveness and changing of direction about majors is healthy, reflecting initial exploration and eventual crystallization of educational goals that naturally accompany personal maturation and increased experience with the college curriculum. It is unrealistic to expect first-year students to make long-term educational commitments until they have gained experience with specific courses and academic programs that comprise the college curriculum, some of which they may have never encountered in high school (e.g., philosophy or anthropology). As Vince Tinto, nationally recognized scholar on student retention, points out:

Among any population of young adults who are just beginning in earnest their search for adult identity, it would be surprising indeed if one found that most were very clear about their long-term goals. The college years are an important growing period in which new social and intellectual experiences are sought as a means of coming to grips with the issue of adult careers. They enter college with the hope that they will be able to formulate for themselves, not for their parents, a meaningful answer to that important question. Lest we forget, the college experience is as much, if not more, one of discovery as one of confirmation (Tinto, 1993, p. 40).

While acknowledging this healthy trial-and error process of discovery, it is also true that some of the student vacillation underlying the major-changing phenomenon reflects confusion, procrastination, or premature decision-making�due to students� lack of knowledge about themselves and their compatibility with their initial choice, or lack of knowledge about the relationship between college majors and future careers. Upcraft, Finney, and Garland (1984) also note that some of the confusion about majors and careers may result from, �Students [being] pushed into careers by their families, while others have picked one just to relieve their anxiety about not having a career choice. Still others may have picked popular or lucrative careers, knowing nothing of what they�re really like or what it takes to prepare for them� (p. 18).
The relationship between effective educational decision-making and student retention is empirically documented by Astin (1975), whose research indicates that prolonged indecision about an academic major and career goals is correlated with student attrition. Lenning, Beal, and Sauer (1980) also report that students� goal motivation/commitment correlates positively with persistence to graduation, and this correlation has been found to hold true for both men and women (Anderson, 1988). In addition, Willingham (1985) reports �poor sense of direction� to be one of the most frequently cited reasons identified by students as a factor that detracted from their experiencing a more successful and satisfying college career. In fact, Levitz and Noel (1989) found �lack of certainty about a major and/or career� to be the number-one reason cited by high-ability students for their decision to drop out of college. The implication of these findings for academic advising is suggested by survey data gathered from 947 institutions by Beal and Noel (1980), who found that, �Many students transfer�or sometimes drop out�simply because they do not know that a particular course of study is available at their college, or because they think they cannot have a particular option in their program of studies� (p. 103).
College students clearly need support from effective academic advisors to negotiate the challenging and sometimes confusing process of educational planning and decision-making. As Tinto emphatically states:

It is part of the educational mandate of institutions of higher education to assist maturing youth in coming to grips with the important question of adult careers. The regrettable fact is that some institutions do not see student uncertainty in this light. They prefer to treat it as a deficiency in student development rather than as an expected part of that complex process of personal growth. The implications of such views for policy are not trivial [because] unresolved intentions over an extended period can lead to departure both from the institution and from the higher educational enterprise as a whole. When plans remain unformulated over extended periods of time, students are more likely to depart without completing their degree programs (Tinto, 1993, p. 41).

Viewed collectively, the research reviewed in this section point directly to the conclusion that students need support from knowledgeable academic advisors to engage in effective educational planning and decision-making, and if this support is received, they will more likely persist to degree graduation.
Moreover, if this support is delivered proactively to first-year students, they may make more thoughtful, more accurate, initial choices about majors and careers. This may serve not only to promote student retention, but also reduce the probability of prolonged student indecisiveness and premature decision-making, which can eventuate in changing of majors at later stages in the college experience. Student indecisiveness and late major-changing may result in delayed progress toward degree completion by necessitating the need for students to complete additional courses to fulfill specific degree requirements for their newly chosen major. This may be one factor contributing to the extended length of time it now takes college students to complete their graduation requirements (U.S. Bureau of Census, 1994); for example, the number of students who take five or more years to graduate from college has doubled since the early 1980s (Kramer, 1993). It is reasonable to anticipate that receipt of proactively delivered developmental advising will promote earlier and more complete crystallization of college students� major and career plans, thereby reducing their average time to degree completion.

3. Student Utilization of Campus Support Services and Academic Advising
One way in which colleges can improve both the academic performance and retention of first-year students is by increasing their utilization of campus support services, because research clearly suggests that there is a positive relationship between utilization of campus-support services and persistence to program or degree completion (Churchill & Iwai, 1981; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991). In particular, students who seek and receive academic support have been found to improve both their academic performance and their academic self-efficacy�that is, they develop a greater sense of self-perceived control of academic outcomes, and develop higher self-expectations for future academic success (Smith, Walter, & Hoey, 1992). Higher levels of self-efficacy, in turn, have been found to correlate positively with college students� academic performance and persistence; this is true for Hispanic students in particular (Solberg, O�Brien, Villareal, & Davis, 1993) and underprepared students in general (Lent, Brown, & Larkin, 1987).
Unfortunately, it has also been found that college students under-utilize academic support services (Friedlander, 1980; Walter & Smith, 1990), especially those students who are in most need of support (Knapp & Karabenick, 1988; Abrams & Jernigan, 1984). At-risk students, in particular, have trouble recognizing that they are experiencing academic difficulty and are often reluctant to seek help even if they do recognize their difficulty (Levin & Levin, 1991). These findings are especially disturbing when viewed in light of meta-analysis research, which reveals that academic-support programs designed for underprepared students exert a statistically significant effect on their retention and grades when they are utilized, especially if these services are utilized by students during their freshman year (Kulik, Kulik, & Shwalb, 1983).
Taken together, the foregoing set of findings strongly suggests that institutions should deliver academic support intrusively�by initiating contact with students and aggressively bringing support services to them, rather than offering services passively and hoping that students will come and take advantage of them on their own accord. Academic advisors are in the ideal position to �intrusively� connect students with academic support professionals, who can provide students with timely assistance before their academic performance and persistence are adversely affected by ineffective learning strategies.
Another major way in which advisors may promote student retention is by connecting students to student development services and co-curricular programs. The importance of student involvement in campus life for student retention is documented by findings demonstrating that students who are more socially integrated or involved in campus life, and feel they are part of the campus community, are more likely to persist to graduation (Terenzini, 1986; Tinto, 1987). Academic advisors are well positioned to promote student persistence by educating students about the value of co-curricular participation and encouraging their involvement with student development services. Roger Winston (1994) argues that this is the way in which developmental advising exerts its greatest impact:

Developmental advising has the greatest impact through supporting and challenging students to take advantage of the multitude of learning opportunities outside of their formal classes and to use the human and programmatic resources designed to promote development of their talents and broaden their cultural awareness. Developmental advising has a multiplier effect that increases students� involvement in institutional programs and services; this positively influences retention for the institution and increases the overall impact of educational experience for students (p. 114).

4. Student-Faculty Contact Outside the Classroom, Academic Advising, and Student Retention
In a national report on higher education, the Education Commission of the States included out-of-class contact with faculty as one of its 12 essential attributes of good practice claiming that, �Through such contact, students are able to see faculty members less as experts than as role models for ongoing learning� (1995, p. 8). This assertion is supported by a broad base of research, which demonstrates that student-faculty contact outside the classroom is strongly correlated with student retention (Bean, 1981; Pascarella 1980; Pascarella & Terenzini 1979, Terenzini & Pascarella, 1977, 1978; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991).
Drawing on data generated by a longitudinal study of 200,000 students at 300 institutions of all types, Astin (1977) reports that, �Student faculty interaction has a stronger relationship to student satisfaction with the college experience than any other variable [and] any student characteristic or institutional characteristic� (p. 223). Consistent with Astin�s quantitative findings is the following observation made by Lee Noel (1978), based on his extensive consulting experiences with colleges and universities interested in promoting student retention:

It is increasingly apparent that the most important features of a �staying� environment relate to the instructional faculty. Students make judgments about their academic experience on the basis of such factors as quality of instruction, freedom to contact faculty for consultation, availability of faculty for consultation, and faculty involvement outside the classroom (pp. 96-97).

Vince Tinto offers a similar observation: �Institutions with low rates of student retention are those in which students generally report low rates of student-faculty contact. Conversely, institutions with high rates of retention are most frequently those which are marked by relatively high rates of such interactions� (1987, p. 66).
Tinto (1975) also reports that out-of-class contact between faculty and students has particularly powerful effects on the persistence of students who are �withdrawal prone.� After conducting interviews with especially high-risk students who overcame the odds and succeeded in college, Tinto found that, �In every case, the students cited one or two events, when someone on the faculty or�less commonly�the staff had made personal contact with them outside the classroom. That�s what made the difference� (quoted in Levitz, 1990). Pascarella and Terenzini (1979) also found that the frequency of non-classroom contact between students and faculty to discuss academic issues had its most positive influence on the persistence of students with low initial commitment to college, and students whose parents had relatively low levels of formal education. It is noteworthy that student-faculty interaction outside the classroom has been found to exert a direct effect on student retention that is independent of other potentially influential or confounding variables (e.g., students� level of involvement with college peers, academic preparedness, or educational aspirations at college entry). As Pascarella (1980) concludes, after critically reviewing and synthesizing a large number of studies investigating the relationship between student-faculty contact and educational outcomes:

The significant associations between student-faculty informal contact and educational outcomes are not merely the result of covariation with individual differences in student entering characteristics or with college experiences in other areas, such as peer culture. Rather, various facets and quality of student informal contact with faculty may make a unique contribution to college impact. In turn this suggests the possibility that colleges and universities may be able to positively influence the extent and quality of student-faculty contact, and thereby faculty impact on students, in ways other than the kinds of students they enroll (pp. 564-565).

One way that colleges and universities may be able to positively influence the extent and quality of student-faculty contact is through high-quality academic advisement�delivered by faculty through out-of-class interaction with students. Given the direct empirical association between student retention and student-faculty contact outside the classroom, especially when such interaction involves discussion of students� academic and career plans (Wilson, 1975; Terenzini, 1986), it is reasonable to predict that high-quality advising will have a significant impact on student retention in general, and the retention of at-risk (withdrawal-prone) students in particular. In fact, academic advisement may be the institution�s only structure that ensures that students have personal, one-to-one contact with a faculty member. The need to ensure such personal contact is underscored by national survey research conducted by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which reveals a substantial decline in the percentage of undergraduates who agree with the statement, �There are professors at my college whom I feel free to turn to for advice on personal matters� (Boyer, 1987).

5. Student Mentoring, Academic Advisement, and Student Retention The number of colleges offering mentoring programs is on the rise (Haring, 1997), and mentoring is increasingly being viewed as a tool for promoting student retention (Walker & Taub, 2001), particularly the retention of first-year students (Johnson, 1989). Mentoring has the potential to reduce students� feelings of marginality, increasing their sense of personal significance�that they �matter� (Schlossberg, Lynch, & Chickering, 1989), and can provide an important �validation� experience for first-generation students, for whom the transition to college is not a normal or routine rite of passage (Rendon, 1994). The importance of mentoring for contemporary college students is well expressed by the indefatigable leader of the first-year experience movement, John Gardner:

Students need mentors and facilitators. They need, in the words of Carl Rogers, authentic professional human beings who are worthy of emulation. They need models who exhibit professional behavior, a sense of commitment and purposefulness, and a sense of autonomy and integrity in a world that generates enormous stress. Students cannot be told how to do this; authenticity cannot be transmitted through lectures� (1981, p. 70).

The availability of exemplary, caring role models is valuable for all students, but may be especially critical to the retention and success of underrepresented, first-generation college students who do not have college role models at home. Vince Tinto notes that, �While role modeling seems to be effective in retention programs generally, it appears to be especially important among those programs concerned with disadvantaged minority students� (1987, p, 161).
Research on mentoring indicates that it has a positive impact on the personal and professional development of young adults (Levinson, 1978). There is also a growing body of research in higher education that suggests an empirical link between student mentoring and student retention (Campbell & Cambell, 1997; Wallace & Abel, 1997). For instance, Miller, Neuner, and Glynn (1988) used an experimental research design in which students were randomly assigned to either an experimental group�who received mentoring, or a control group�who did not. It was found that students who received mentoring evinced higher retention rates than non-mentored students with similar pre-enrollment characteristics.
Despite the retention-promoting promise of mentoring, one of the major logistical stumbling blocks for implementing mentoring programs on a large-scale basis is the fact that mentoring is traditionally delivered via dyadic (1 to 1) relationships, thus making it difficult to find a sufficient number of mentors to sustain a mentoring program that reaches a significant number of students (Redmond, 1990). However, the results of one recent study reveals that �network� mentoring programs, in which multiple students are mentored by one college faculty or staff member, are comparable in effectiveness to traditional �dyadic� (1 to 1) mentoring arrangements�as measured in terms of student satisfaction with the quality of the mentoring relationship and the frequency of contact with their mentor (Walker & Taub, 2001). This finding suggests that traditional academic advisement programs have the potential to co-function as mentoring programs, because a ratio of multiple mentees (students) to one mentor (advisor) may also enable the advantages of mentoring to be realized. While advising and mentoring have been traditionally deemed as distinctly different programs, even a cursory look at some of the criteria cited in the scholarly literature for effective mentors appear to be very compatible with the characteristics of effective advisors. For example, Johnson (1989) identifies the following characteristics as qualities of effective mentors: (a) more mature than the mentee, (b) interpersonal skill, (c) willingness to commit time, and (d) knowledge of the campus. Certainly, these are qualities that also characterize effective advisors.
Research on from the perspective of students, as advisees, repeatedly points to the conclusion that they value most highly academic advisors who serve as mentors�who are accessible, approachable, and helpful in providing guidance that connects their present academic experience with their future life plans (Winston, Ender, & Miller, 1982; Winston, Miller, Ender, Grites, & Associates, 1984; Frost, 1991; Gordon, Habley, & Associates, 2000). Given the similarity of desirable qualities cited for mentors and advisors, in conjunction with the research suggesting that mentoring may be effectively delivered by networking multiple mentees with one mentor, it appears as if the retention-promoting potential of mentoring programs may be achieved as effectively (and more efficiently) through advisement programs, particularly if advisors are well prepared and adequately rewarded for this role. Since advisement focuses on an issue so central to the personal lives of students�the connection between their present collegiate experience with their future life plans�and is delivered by an experienced person who has already navigated a similar course, it appears that mentoring is an integral and inescapable element of academic advisement. As such, advising programs should be viewed and pursued with the same enthusiasm for promoting student retention as mentoring programs.

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