This study examined the academic advising experiences of students in undergraduate interdisciplinary majors at a private research university and observed whether these students engage in advising in ways that are different from those of students whose primary academic majors are not interdisciplinary.
The data consisted of responses to a student survey of advising at the university
(n = 2,461, or 48% of the undergraduate population). Overall, interdisciplinary students were more engaged in advising than the others. Compared to noninterdisciplinary students, they visited their advisors more often, they contacted their advisor for a wider range of reasons, and their sense of the overall quality of advising received was higher. They also placed greater importance on certain advisor competencies (such as guidance in noncurricular opportunities) and personal characteristics than did noninterdisciplinary students.
In addition, the noninterdisciplinary students were divided into their eight areas of study (business administration, computer science, engineering, fine arts, humanities, natural & physical sciences, social sciences, and undecided). Each area was compared to the interdisciplinary students for the same variables. Interdisciplinary ranked in the top half for all of the nineteen variables.
This study also found that engagement with advising may be significantly influenced by the type of advising model used by individual academic departments and programs. Since data were used from just one institution, the characteristics of this institutions advising models likely have more of an effect on students responses than their fields of study.
Observations from this study may be used to enhance advising effectiveness in interdisciplinary programs. With students in these programs having higher expectations for advising than students in other programs, advisors need to be well-prepared. Training should ensure that advisors are well-informed of the learning outcomes of interdisciplinary study and can communicate them to students.
Further research on student experiences with advising models may contribute to understanding factors affecting advising quality. As for interdisciplinary programs, further study from other institutions with such programs can contribute to understanding how to serve their students with advising. Researching what kinds of students seek enrollment into interdisciplinary programs may also effective.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-12132006-083310 |
| Date | 29 January 2007 |
| Creators | Pajewski, Stephen G. |
| Contributors | Indira Nair, Glenn M. Nelson, John L. Yeager, John C. Weidman II |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-12132006-083310/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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