The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the students' perception of the College Advisory Program and its relation to his personality patterns. A secondary purpose was to investigate the Faculty Advisors' perception of the College Advisory Program. An additional outgrowth of the study was an attempt to obtain descriptive data for improving or altering existing Advisory Programs.

The subjects were 69 graduate faculty advisors, 187 foreign graduate students, and 184 American graduate students who were enrolled at North Texas State University in the Spring Semester, 1984. Statistical techniques used for data analysis include frequency distributions, percentages, means, and Mann-Whitney U test. Significant differences were determined by the two-tailed test of significance at or beyond the .05 level.

This study examines what characteristics of schools and advisers have the most effect on fostering free student press practices as reported by advisers. Advisers' perceptions were measured based on three scales: one that measured student practices, one that measured administrative practices and one that measured adviser practices. Data suggested that existence of student free expression laws and open forum policies, number of years of teaching and advising, licensure and certification to teach journalism, and membership in professional journalism organizations are among the characteristics that have the greatest effect on fostering freer scholastic press practices. Recommendations were made to scholastic media organizations to use this data to help prioritize the initiatives to best free press practices in school newspapers. / Department of Journalism

The field of Foreign Student Advising has undergone significant change over the last 25 years, outpacing the seminal guidance in the field provided in The Handbook of Foreign Student Advising by Gary Althen, first published in 1983 and revised in 1995. Foreign Student Advisors (FSAs) are professionals employed at institutions of higher education or nonprofit organizations, who work with nonimmigrant students (primarily those in F and J nonimmigrant status). Their essential function is to ensure the student's legal status and help promote adaptation to and academic success in the U.S. The field of Foreign Student Advising is inherently complex and intercultural, more so today due to the ever-present and increasing federal government parameters following 9/11/01. This thesis addresses these changes by providing a compendium to supplement The Handbook. The steps taken prior to writing the compendium include: consultation with Althen, a critical analysis of what does and does not work in The Handbook for today's FSA. a survey of a select group of international education leaders to determine what topics should be included in the compendium, and a review of the literature and research about FSAs with a focus on what has been written since 1995. In order to secure the most meaningful feedback on the major developments in the field, a survey was conducted with fifteen past presidents of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, who had a Foreign Student Advising background and were still active in the field. This information, in combination with the current literature from the field, reflections from my twenty-plus years of FSA experience, and guidance from Althen was used to prepare a compendium to The Handbook. The Compendium provides updated guidance, addressing some of the major changes in the field of Foreign Student Advising.

The purpose of this study was to examine students' preferred methods of academic advising services and whether they related to their individual learning styles. The first objective of the study was to determine each participant's learning style. The second objective of the study was to determine which method of academic advising each participant preferred. The third objective of the study was to determine whether a relationship existed between the participants' learning styles and preferred methods of academic advising. Additionally, the moderating effect of gender, ethnicity, college major, high school grade point average (GPA), location, and employment on the relationship was considered. Students' learning styles were measured by the Barsch Learning Style Inventory (BLSI). Academic advising preference and demographic information were gathered through a researcher-designed questionnaire. All students (N=1,184) who completed the Online Advising & Registration System (OARS) were cont acted via e-mail and received a web link to the BLSI and student questionnaire. Data from the students (n=172) who completed the BLSI and student questionnaire were analyzed. Correlation and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze the quantitative data. A qualitative analysis of four open-ended survey questions was completed. The results found no relationship between participants' learning styles and their preferred methods of academic advising services. Additionally, gender, ethnicity, college major, high school GPA, location, and employment did not moderate the relationship between participants' learning styles and their preferred methods of academic advising services. The findings suggest that a student's learning style is not associated with his or her preference for type of advising. / Furthermore, this lack of relationship did not change as a function of gender, ethnicity, college major, high school GPA, location, and employment.Recommedatations are provided for researchers and practitioners to further contribute to the literature and practice concerning academic advising preference and learning style. / by Jess Everet Tuck. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

The purpose of this study was to assess the perceptions of academic advising needs by faculty advisors and students at Ramkhamhaeng University, Bangkok, Thailand, using the Academic Advising Needs Questionnaire developed by Thomas H. Burke. The assessment is based on age, sex, education level, academic rank, years of advising, and number of advisees. The questionnaire consisted of 15 items, using a four-point rating scale. The population consisted of a total of 280 faculty members and 700 resident students at all seven faculties at Ramkhamhaeng University, Bangkok, Thailand. A total of 230 faculty members or 82.14 percent of the sampling and a total of 561 students or 80.14 percent of the sampling participated in this study. The t-test, Spearman s Coefficient of Rank Correlation, and Kendall's Coefficient of Concordance W were used in the follow-up assessment, with the level of significance at .05. Data were collected by means of two Academic Advising Needs Questionnaires for this study. Questionnaires were distributed to faculty advisors and students. While students revealed some degree of need in all advising areas, the five highest ranked items were: (1) serve as a student's personal reference for prospective employers and/or graduate goals, (2) assist students in obtaining part-time work experiences (paid or unpaid) which complement their career and/or educational goals, (3) assist students with career/vocational planning, (4) help students explore possible graduate/professional school study, and (5) provide students with academic advice and suggestions for scholastic improvement. Faculty responses indicated student need in all advising areas; the five highest ranked items were: (1) assist students with career/vocational planning, (2) help students explore possible graduate/professional school study, (3) assist students in selecting a major, (4) inform students of the employment opportunities in the students' intended fields of study, and (5) assist students in obtaining part-time work experiences (paid or unpaid) which complement their career and/or educational goals.

The purpose of this study was to determine and compare the academic advising needs of students as perceived by students and faculty advisors through faculty advising functions in the six teachers' colleges in Bangkok, Thailand. Fifteen faculty advising functions were included in a questionnaire validated by a panel of three judges. The questionnaires were distributed to students and faculty advisors in the six teachers' colleges by two selected research assistants. A total of 180 faculty advisors and 540 junior and senior teacher training students at the six teachers' colleges in Bangkok, Thailand, were selected using stratified random sampling. The usable and complete questionnaires received included 109 from faculty advisors (60.56 per cent) and 350 from students (64.81 per cent). The t-test, the Kendall's Coefficient of Concordance W, and the Spearman's Coefficient of Rank Correlation were employed to determine and compare the differences, the agreements, and the relationships of academic advising needs of students as perceived by students and faculty advisors, respectively. Analyses of the data revealed that students and faculty advisors in the six teachers' colleges in Bangkok, Thailand, perceived a mismatch between student advising needs now being fulfilled and student advising needs that should be fulfilled. Apparently, the academic advising programs in the teachers' colleges were not meeting the student needs. However, for student advising needs which should be fulfilled, both students and faculty advisors ranked personal, vocational and career, and academic areas very high. Overall, students and faculty seemed to agree on the advising needs which should be fulfilled.

Not available / text

The environment in which higher education institutions operate is changing, and these changes are impacting on all aspects of higher education, including postgraduate levels. Changes wrought by globalisation, heralded by rapid advances in technology have inaugurated a new era in which there are long term consequences for higher education. The shift towards more quantitative and measurable "outputs" signifies a fundamental change in the educational ethos in institutions. Effectiveness is now judged primarily on numbers of graduates and publications rather than on other aspects. The drive is to produce a highly educated population, especially through increasing postgraduates who can drive national innovation and improve national economies. This affects academics in a range of ways, not least in the ways in which they engage in teaching, what they are willing to do and how they do it. Such changes influence the kinds of research done, the structures and funding which support research, and thus naturally shapes the kinds of postgraduate programmes and teaching that occurs. This study, situated in the field of Higher Education Studies, adopting a critical realist stance and drawing on the social theory of Margaret Archer and the concepts of expert and novice, explores the experiences of postgraduate supervisors from one South African institution across a range of disciplines. Individual experiences at the level of the Empirical and embodied in practice at the level of the Actual allow for the identification of possible mechanisms at the level of the Real which structure the sector. The research design then allows for an exploration across mezzo, macro and micro levels. Individuals outline their own particular situations, identifying a number of elements which enabled or constrained them and how, in exercising their agency, they develop their strategies for supervision drawing on a range of different resources that they identify and that may be available to them. Student characteristics, discipline status and placement, funding, and the emergent policy environment are all identified as influencing their practice. In some instances supervisors recognise the broader influences on the system that involve them in their undertaking, noting the international trends. Through their narratives and the discourses they engage a number of contradictions that have developed in the system with growing neo-liberal trends and vocationalism highlighting tensions between academic freedom and autonomy, and demands for productivity, efficiency and compliance, and between an educational focus and a training bias in particular along with others. Especially notable is how this contributes to the current ideologies surrounding knowledge and knowledge production. Their individual interests and concerns, and emergent academic identities as they take shape over time, also modifies the process and how individual supervisors influence their own environments in agentic moves becomes apparent. Whilst often individuals highlight the lack of support especially in the early phases of supervision, the emergent policy-constrained environment is also seen as curtailing possibilities and especially in limiting the possibilities for the exercise of agency. Whilst the study has some limitations in the range and number of respondents nevertheless the data provided rich evidence of how individual supervisors are affected, and how they respond in varied conditions. What is highlighted through these experiences are ways pressures are increasing for both supervisors and students and changing how they engage. Concerns in particular are raised about the growing functional and instrumental nature of the process with an emphasis on the effects on the kinds of researchers being developed and the knowledge that is therefore being produced. As costs increase for academics through the environments developed and with the varied roles they take on so they become more selective and reluctant to expand the role. This research has provided insights into ideas, beliefs and values relating to the postgraduate sector and to the process of postgraduate supervision and how it occurs. This includes the structures and cultural conditions that enable or constrain practitioners as they develop in the role in this particular institution. It has explored some of the ways that mechanisms at international, national and institutional levels shape the role and practices of supervisors. The effects of mechanisms are in no way a given or simply understood. In this way the research may contribute to more emancipatory knowledge which could be used in planning and deciding on emergent policies and practices which might create a more supportive and creative postgraduate environment.