Developing a standardized academic advising instrument to measure students satisfaction in higher institutions in vietnam m a

In this light, services in education, like those in other areas, should be put under the service quality measurement, including the measurement of the satisfaction of students, is one of

A Thesis presented to Educational Leadership and Management Department

Br Andrew Gonzales College of Education

De La Salle University

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements in the Master of Arts

in Educational Leadership and Management

By Pham, Khanh Nhat Student ID: 11287888

Dr Roland Nino Agoncillo, Thesis Advisor

December 2015

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to extend a million thanks to Dr Roland Nino Agoncillo, my enthusiastic advisor whose comments and advice guided me so much in completing this thesis

I am grateful to the Department of Educational Leadership and Management -

Dr Rochelle Lucas and Ms Liberty Santos who have provided me with great coordination under the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia scholarship program

And I should not miss this opportunity to thank the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia for letting me complete a very interesting and life-changing journey with immeasurable support to me

ABSTRACT

Academic advising has been an area of interest in the academic community worldwide The Vietnam higher education system, in its pursuit of perfecting the credit-based system, has been practicing academic advising as a support service for students Thus, educationalists contend that how much students are satisfied with the quality of academic advising should be taken into serious consideration However, there is no standardized instrument for measuring student satisfaction with this support service Therefore, this research study aims to develop a measurement tool that is localized to suit the needs and concerns of Vietnamese students, acknowledging that there are a few tools of such purpose having been constructed by worldwide researchers for use in a different learning environment Within the scope of the researcher, the researcher used mixed methods, qualitative and quantitative, to create the instrument and compared it with the existing tools in foreign literature In addition to the development of an instrument, the researcher will also include a number of recommendations and suggestions for further studies

CHAPTER 4: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 123

Appendix C - Manual of Satisfaction with Academic Advising Instrument 145 Appendix D – Advising Assessment Inventory (AAI), Cuseo (2004) 149 Appendix E – Correlations between the new instrument and the Academic

!

List of Tables

Table 2 - Descriptive and developmental academic advising 21

List of Figures

Figure 5 - Career advising as part of developmental academic advising 34

CHAPTER 1: THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND

Introduction

Background to the study

Academic advising is obviously, according to previous studies, an integral role to the curriculum, in the understanding that many students are facing the difficulty of adapting to university academic activities only a few months after they have finished high schools Not that all, the credit-based system can also pose some unfamiliarity to them, although it brings about academic freedom to university students Grasping the situation of students, the Vietnam Ministry of Education in 2005 called for the wide implementation of academic advising for students that help them deal with the challenges Despite the fact that academic advising has been a topic of interest in many scholarly works, it still needs further attention from educators of different levels Another concern of educators at the tertiary level is the level of effectiveness which academic advising is being operated at universities in Vietnam, particularly how students perceive it

Academic advising should never be saparate from the credit-based system Vietnam is undergoing a few dramatic change in higher education, one of the biggest of which is the enforcement of the credit system at all universities in the country The Government of Vietnam, on their official website, is also determined in reforming the educational system by stating: “We are to plan and implement the shift to credit-based system, allowing students to easily acquire knowledge, change their majors and move forward to higher levels of education, in the country or abroad.” It can be said that most

In reality, the academic advising staff play a significant role in making an advising program successful in that they do not only provide information to students, but also sharpen students’ decision-making and problem-solving skills This means that students will be able to combat their life problems such as financial shortage and the adaptation to the new learning environment In other words, whether a student can be successful in learning considerably depends on the student-school relationship which is facilitated by the advisor

It has been a common belief that education in the new economy can be considered as a type of service, so special that people usually forget that it is also involves students as customers Furthermore, when educators emphasize the learner-centered approach, it entails that students should also be put at the center of all educational services Quality of these services becomes a growing concern of administrators, because a university’s mission is to provide students with the highest educational quality In this light, services in education, like those in other areas, should

be put under the service quality measurement, including the measurement of the satisfaction of students, is one of the top priorities in educational management at the tertiary level Research studies indicate that satisfaction of customers should be evaluated by customers themselves, because any formulas, standards or ratios in management can never fully reflect the reality There has been no guideline from the Ministry of Education regarding the establishment and operation of academic advising

at universities under their umbrella, except a simple mention of the role of an academic advisor in signing the course enrollment form to approve the semester study load of the student

From this broad context, the credit-based system, which has been in use at the many universities in Ho Chi Minh since 2006, appears to be useful in providing students with the selection of their wanted courses to take Following this decision, the role of the academic advisor at this transitional point is of important nature for helping them select the consequence of subjects which make the most sense to students’ learning needs and career objectives At the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City, realizing the need of organizing an effective academic

advising, the university’s President issued a decision on November 14, 2011 an institution-level Panel of Academic Advising, the member of which serves as coordinator at the faculty level to assign the academic advisors from within the faculty The said decision, specifying only faculty members having obtained at least an M.A degree with minimum 2-year teaching experience are eligible for advising students, demonstrates the university President’s determination to uplift the co-curricular activities, hence academic advising in the existing credit-based system, in addition to improving the teaching quality This is an essential step to move towards professionalizing the academic advising system at the institution by clearly identifying the personnel responsible for doing counseling or advising services at different levels, and lastly, which activities being regarded as related to academic advising

Having said that, those two years of applying academic advising over might not

be too long but enough for pertinent people to make a review, or assessment, of their current practices There is an element of “do it now” before it is too late to do a better job for students Only by making students, who are customers in the modern education, satisfied can a university can achieve sustainable development

Current academic advising practices at universities of VNU-HCM

Since 2006, there has been a similarity among the member universities of the Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM) system Moreover, the other public higher educational institutions in Ho Chi Minh City also demonstrate the same practices though the situation might be different at private schools

Currently, all member universities of VNU-HCM allocate academic advisors to students by classes For instance, at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, freshmen of the Department of English Linguistics and Literature are arranged into a number of classes, each of which is headed by an academic advisor who assumes the responsibility for not only academic advising but also following up the academic performance of all the students of the class Usually, the number of students in a class is restricted to no more than 50 The in-charge academic advisor will also assess and report both the academic progress and extra-curricular activities a student may join to the Department management This person will also help students with any concerns regarding administrative procedures, such as scholarship and financial aids or enrollment for the semester, if students would have difficulty in

The academic advisor in charge of a class must be a full-time lecturer at the Department, within at least 2-year experience while non-teaching staff plays the role as assistants to academic advisors Academic advisors work under the supervision of a Head academic advising advisor who is appointed into the position by the Department management The Head academic advisor, who is a richly experienced lecturer, is carefully selected so that he/she can effectively supports students

According to the policy at the universities at VNU-HCM, there are two official academic advising meetings per semester, one at the beginning and the other at the end where academic advisors gather students by classes to introduce them the official university’s documents on everything about academic advising While the first meeting

is usually a chance to provide students with major information about academic advising,

the second meeting is the time for advisors to declare their evaluation of student’s performance as well as the guidance for what is going on in the next semester (there are two semesters per academic year) Because the number of official advising meetings are quite small, the university requests by writing that academic advisors attend to students’ concerns if they have any This means academic advisors must respond to all students’ questions when receiving, and meet them on campus if students would like to see advisors To ensure a well-paved practice of academic advising, the university management introduced guidance on academic advising, stating the functionality of academic advising, the activities in it and finally the job descriptions and responsibilities of academic advisors

In brief, there has been a great deal of attention paid by the university educational managers to the current practice at their institutions

Review of Related Literature

The first part of this chapter aims to give an overview of the definition of service, service quality and some related theories of measuring the service quality as well After that, the second half targets at the documents on academic advising in general and a number of research studies having been done about the satisfaction of students towards academic advising in the United States

Review of theories

Basic concepts

In this part, the basic concepts are defined, and explanation about their roles in the research is given The relationship between service quality and the other concepts, expected service and perceived service, is taken into discussion so that a comprehensive map can be presented

Definitions of service

The definition of the term “service” has sometimes been mistaken for “product”, although they are two different concepts Different authors have shared views on service from different perspectives Kotler and Keller, 2006 define service as “any act

or performance that one party can offer to another that is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything.” Kotler and Keller quoting the American Society for Quality Control’s customer-centered definition, stated: “Quality is the totally features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs.” Taking another perspective, Zeithaml, Bitner and Gremler (2009) believe “All economic activities whose output is not a physical product

or construction, is generally consumed at the time its is produced, and provides added value in forms (such as convenience, amusement, timeliness, comfort, or health) that are essentially intangible concerns of its first purchaser.” The commonest remark about services, “intangible” and “non-transferrable ownership”, is confirmed by Lovelock, Wirtz and Chew (2009) in their definition of service as: “Services are economic activities offered by one party to another Often, time-based performances are used to bring about desired results in recipients themselves or in objects or other assets for which purchasers have responsibility In exchange for their money, time and effort, customers expect to obtain value from access to goods, labor, professional skills, facilities, networks and systems However, they do not normally take ownership of any

of the physical elements involved.” In short, services are different from products in that they never take the tangible form, but they obviously are created to satisfy human needs Socially, services always exist in any society and in any period of history

Heterogeneity: there is always a heterogeneity in all services, meaning that no two services are exactly the same because service is performance of an

activity, and thus it cannot be duplicated like a product Also, during the interaction of customer and service provider, the demands of customers may vary from time to time The heterogeneity in services, affected by many variables, causes the unpredictability in the service delivery

Simultaneous production and consumption: while products are produced

in a time and consumed by customers in another time, services are produced and consumed at the same time This feature offers two benefits customers: firstly, they can get involved in the production process to observe it and follow up the production; secondly, the service producer can become a part of the whole process from the beginning to the end, he/she can adjust the service in accordance with the customization

Perishability: due to the fact that services cannot be stored, saved or resold to another party, an unhappy customer is unable to return a displeasing service Perishability also leads to some difficulties in catering services to customers to maximize the capacity of service provider to the fullest Another concern stays with the customer care in that we cannot replace a frustrating service with a better one if a customer feels dissatisfied

Definitions of service quality

Quality has been the topic of many studies of service management, with many suggested definitions According to ISO 8402 (1986), quality as “the totality of features and characteristics of a product or a service that bears the ability to satisfy stated or implied needs.” The implication from this definition we draw out a simple map – a

service aims to satisfy a need of a customer, and expectation about a service has a close relationship with the service quality As the SERVQUAL model mentions, Perception

of service quality = Perceived Service - Expected Service, so there are three scenarios:

- PS < ES: Service quality is not assured as promised

- PS = ES: Service quality is assured as promised

- PS > ES: Service quality is excellent

Figure 1: Perception of service quality

From the above understanding, Zeithaml and Bitner (2000) define “service quality

as the delivery of excellent or superior service relative to customer expectations” which gives an implication that perceived service should, or must, be excellent or superior to the expected service in order to be regarded as service quality in its idealized meaning,

as the following diagram summarizes

The SERVQUAL model (1985)

Parasuraman, Berry and Zeithaml (1985) introduced this model upon the improvement of Gronroos’s model created a year earlier SERVQUAL model is a tool that allows researchers to evaluate the customer perceived quality towards the service

Perceived service qualityExpected

The two central concepts, expected service and perceived service are measured separately, and the final results will give the researchers the idea of the gap between the expected service and the perceived service, thus formulating the perception of service quality as: Customer’s perception of service quality = Perceived service – Expected service The value of service quality demonstrates how much the service provided by the company meets the expectations of customers about the service quality, that is to say, how narrow/wide the gap To help identify the width of that gap, Parasuraman, Beery and Zeithaml created 22 statements to measure five dimensions namely: reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles, each of with is of two types of questions; first, question about expectations in general in the industry and second perceptions of the company being researched The SERVQUAL model can quantify “expectations” and “perceptions” over a 5-point Likert scale, it makes the data analysis easier to produce concrete results, explaining why SERVQUAL has been widely applied in a variety of contexts, including hospitals, businesses, airlines, etc In the research, Parasuraman and the co-authors were able to discover the 10 determinants that have an effect on the expected service and perceived service, namely reliability, responsiveness, competency, access, courtesy, communication, credibility, security, understanding/knowing the customers and tangibles, later shortlisted to the above-mentioned five dimensions However, SERVQUAL poses a big challenge to be conducted because of complications in the construction of the questionnaire and the data collection

Figure 2 - The SERVQUAL model

The SERVPERF model (1992)

Cronin and Taylor (1992) introduced a new model of measuring service quality, based on the SERVQUAL model by Parasuraman, Berry and Zeithaml (1985) Different from the SERVQUAL model which formulates customer’s perception of quality = perceived service – expected service, the deriving model more simply suggests Service quality = level of perceptions When introducing this model, the authors view service quality as not the difference between the perceived service and the expected service SERVQUAL model requires the customers to evaluate both the perceptions and the expectations during two separate phases, thus making the evaluating process lengthier and dependent very much on the individuality of customers However, SERVPERF maintains the 21 observable variables, obviously because it is a

streamlined derivation from SERVQUAL The most prominent problem lying in these frameworks is that it the five dimensions pose some sort of difficulty in replicating over diverse organizational contexts (Aldin, Al Gawyshneh and Albkour, 2013) Research by Adil, Ghaswyneh and Albkour (2013) has confirmed that superiority of SERVPERF to SERVQUAL, because it allows researchers to easily to capture customers’ perception

of service quality, though both the models share many similarities It is also worth noticing that in the reality of doing research, SERVQUAL and SERVPERF have been used in different business contexts, including education and training Due to the fact that this model covers a large number of descriptions of what quality is in general, there are some resulting complexities when developing a pool of satisfaction indicators with many unqualified items As such, it is more likely that the final instrument does not really tap the prominent concerns students actually have

Figure 3 - The SERVPERF model

SERVPEFF shortlists the 10 elements from like SERVQUAL into a group of 5

ones, which are called the perception model, leaving out the qualitative section of

asking customers’ expectations about the service The five elements are as follows:

! Reliability: the service provider is able to perform the offered service precisely and responsibly

! Responsiveness: the willingness of employees to assist customers and to deliver

a prompt service

! Assurance: employees’ knowledge and courtesy and the ability to inspire trust and confidence among customers

! Empathy: the employees provide individualized care and attention to customers

! Tangibles: the appearance of facilities, equipment, staff and the communication materials, based on the customers’ views

These five elements in the SERVPERF model contain 22 statements that characterize the attributes for service quality, which become a useful resource for researchers to build the quality-exploring questionnaire In any study of satisfaction using the SERVPERF quality service model, there is a zone of tolerance where customers find the service quality acceptable, or satisfactory Typically, customers determine the zone of tolerance by comparing their expectation of service delivery to the minimum level of acceptable service delivery (Kotler and Keller, 2006)

Table 1

SERVPERF model descriptions

Providing service as promised;

Dependability in handling customers’

service problems;

Performing services right the first time;

Providing services at the promised time;

Maintain error-free records

Giving customers individual attention; Employees who deal with customers in

Keeping customer informed as to when

services will be performed;

Prompt service to customers;

Willingness to help customers;

Readiness to respond to customers’

requests

Modern equipment;

Visually appealing facilities;

Employees who have a neat, professional appearance;

Visually appealing materials associated with the service

Employees who have the knowledge to

answer customer questions

The use of SERVQUAL and SERVPERF is not uncommon among the academia In India, a research paper on measuring the quality of educational services provided by the Business Administration Department at King Abdul-Aziz University – Jeddah recently proved the popular use of SERVQUAL in educational settings For this paper, Nasseef (2014), who conveniently sampled 166 university’s students as respondents, adopted 22 statements making the SERVQUAL scale as the instrument to measure the gap between students’ expectations and the service quality they were receiving

For the Vietnam context, Long Nguyen (2006) employed this framework to assess student satisfaction with educational quality He sampled 650 students, of which 18% was senior ones, 41% juniors and another 41% sophomores The researcher found out lecturers was the most important factor having effect on student satisfaction, followed by facilities and equipment, and lastly the reliability of the university as a whole According to Long Nguyen’s remarks, the elements in SERVPERF may vary in line with the type of organization being researched, which is an essential consideration when applying this model into a specific research setting

Definitions of customer satisfaction and its relationship with service quality

Discussing customer satisfaction, Kotler and Keller (2006) claimed that satisfaction is “a person’s feelings of pleasure or disappointment resulting from comparing a product’s perceived performance in relation to his or her expectations.” As such, if the performance of the service is under the level of expectation, the customer will be dissatisfied; on the contrary, if the performance matches the expectation, the

customer will feel satisfied; and in the best scenario, the customer will be highly satisfied if he or she thinks the performance of the service is beyond the expectation From another approach, customer satisfaction is viewed as a process rather than a mere

mental state, which researchers agree on as expectancy disconfirmation, Erevelles and

Leavitt (1992) (as cited in Rust; Oliver, 1994), said: “in which satisfaction is viewed as largely based on meeting or exceeding expectations.” Restating Cronin and Taylor (1992), they also shed light on the relationship between quality and satisfaction, a topic for debate having received a large amount of attention from scholars: “satisfaction is superordinate to quality – that quality is one of the service dimensions factored into the consumer’s satisfaction judgment” and also the role of service quality in making a customer satisfied or dissatisfied: “we view service as affecting service satisfaction at the encounter-specific level Later, separate encounter experiences can be aggregated into overall perceptions of quality.” According to this viewpoint, service quality is the key factor leading to customer satisfaction, but the satisfaction may depend of other sources of influence or variables, such as emotion, or attribution; meanwhile, researchers agree that service quality and customer satisfaction are two distinctive concepts Zeithaml and Bitner (2000) once again confirmed Cronin and Taylor’s idea

by saying that service quality is a specific assessment that shows the customer’s perception of the five dimensions of service, while satisfaction is more comprehensive, because it is affected by the perception of service quality, price as well as situational factors and personal factors Other scholars, Wong and Sorooshian (2013), asserted this inseparable cause-effect relationship between the two concepts as: “Consumers who are satisfied with the perceived service quality eventually will lead to customer

satisfaction.” Drawing out the similarity in all of these discussions, we are confident to conclude if service providers want to cultivate customer satisfaction with their services, they first and foremost have to improve the service quality, for quality serves as the foundation on which customer satisfaction and loyalty can be built up

Academic advising as a service and the service resources

A higher education institution should provide students with student-support services that aim to enhance the learning outcomes as part of the development approach This belief has been confirmed in a variety of research works in the United States and in Vietnam setting as well It is no longer uncommon to view universities/colleges as service providers who serve an array of students: full-time, part-time or short-term students Different functions of a university focus their resources on specialized services, for instance, career consulting, canteen, psychology consulting, physical exercise, social skills training etc.; therefore, it is reasonable to consider academic advising as one of those student-support services

According to Phan Nguyen (2006), a service operation requires a number of resources, including customers/students, facilities and equipment, employees/staff and service products Other scholars, Johnston, Clark and Shulver, M (2012) suggest that:

“ensuring that resources such as materials, staff, equipment and technology are utilized

to the right level has a major impact not only on the efficiency, and therefore the costs,

of the operation but also upon customer satisfaction.” Consequently, resources and management of those resources become the key factor in deciding the success of service operation

Literature on academic advising

Definition of academic advising

Academic advising has been drawing a lot of attention from various researchers who have proposed a variety of definitions According to Winston and Sandor (1982), it

is known as "a developmental process which assists students in the clarification of their life/career goals and in the development of educational plans for the realization of these goals It is a decision-making process by which students realize their maximum educational potential through communication and information exchanges with an advisor; it is ongoing, multifaceted, and the responsibility of both student and advisor The advisor serves as a facilitator of communication, a coordinator of learning experiences through course and career planning and academic progress review, and an agent of referral to other campus agencies as necessary."

Later, another educationalist, Crockett (1987), in his research, maintained that:

“Academic advising is a process of information exchange that empowers students to realize their maximum educational potential The advising process is student-centered and will result in the student gaining a clearer understanding of himself/herself, and the experience of higher education.” This view was one of the earliest notions of academic advising that emphasized its relevance to the student-centered approach

When discussing the definition of academic advising, we should not miss the view of academic advising from the universities themselves because they are where advising is practiced According to the University of Maine, Machias (n.d.), academic advising “is the process between the student and an academic advisor of exploring the

From these conceptions, academic advising can be seen as one of the most useful services for students, with a very relevant emphasis on academic advisors who carry out the duties of connecting students to the university and deliver all the advising benefits to students The theories of academic advising have been evolved throughout the whole course of educational development and innovation The newer approaches to academic advising distinguish its inter-personal nature, as part of the learner-centred paradigm, differentiated from the traditional view of academic advising as merely a form of treatment to students’ problems.

Current theories of academic advising: the developmental approach against prescriptive approach

Developmental academic advising, a modern approach to academic advising, has been developed against the traditional prescriptive approach Early advocates of the developmental view, among whom Crookston (1972) denoted the different attributes of

a student receiving developmental advisement – as a method of building up student capability in full extent, though we cannot deny some values in the descriptive approach

as it was the earliest academic advising theory

Table 2

Descriptive and developmental academic advising

In terms of Descriptive Advising Developmental Advising

Abilities Focus on the limitation of

students

Focus on the potentialities of students

Motivation Students are lazy Students are active and striving

fulfillment

Maturity Students are immature,

irresponsible, and must be supervised closely

Students are growing, maturing, and capable of self- direction

Initiative Advisor fulfills duty by signing

forms and giving advice; the remainder is up to student

Either student or advisor may take initiative—who does what is a matter of shared decision- making

Responsibility Advisor has primary

responsibility for outcomes

Clearly negotiated as to who does what (not the same with every student)

Relationship Advisor demands respect based

on status and position

Relationship is formal and guarded

Relationship is based on the nature

of the tasks, situation, and high trust Position and status are de-emphasized

Based on the above-mentioned differences in the beliefs of developmental

advising and the prescriptive advising, Ender, Winston, and Miller (1984) went deeper

into the discrepancy, claiming developmental academic advising as

“…a systematic process based on a close student-advisor relationship intended to aid students in achieving educational, career, and personal goals through the utilization of the full range of institutional and community resources It both stimulates and supports students in their quest for an enriched quality of life Developmental academic advising relationships focus

on identifying and accomplishing life goals, acquiring skills and attitudes that promote intellectual and personal growth, and sharing concerns for each other and for the academic community” (p.19)

The developmental approach has been widely adopted in almost all evaluation tools available nowadays, across higher education institutions in the United States

Aspects of developmental academic advising

With the advent and the widespread of the developmental view, many others began to frame a set of objectives which aim to address to all the aspects of academic advising, including three elements: academic advising relationships, advising activities, and the frequency of advisor-advisee contact (Brown and Sanstead, 1982) Interpersonal and sustained advisor-advisee contact was especially again highlighted by Winston and Sandor (1984) as the principal aspects deciding the success of academic advising and the student satisfaction as a result from it When researchers have full understanding of these aspects, they can grasp the operational definition of advising (Winston, 1984) and thus, from this starting point, a measurement tool can be developed

to evaluate an advising program; in other words, all the tools should be theoretically grounded, based on the knowledge of goals and objectives of the subject in question

• Component 1: the nature of advising relationship including Personalizing

Education; Academic Decision-making; Selecting Courses

• Component 2: the Advisor-Advisee Activity Scale, including Personal

Development and Interpersonal Relationship; Exploring Institutional Policies; Registration and Class Scheduling; Teaching Personal Skills; Academic Majors and Courses

• Component 3: student satisfaction with academic advising, including the

overall satisfaction; accuracy of information provided; adequacy of notice about important deadlines; availability of advising when desired; amount of time available during advising sessions

This is very much research-based information about the different aspects of academic advising, and therefore a lot of authors have used it into their own pieces of research Acknowledging its global reference value, during my research I will find out and compare the Vietnam aspects of academic advising with the above list to see how university students in the two countries, Vietnam and the United States, differ in perceiving academic advising

Functions of academic advising

Finding a common understanding of the functions across different universities and colleges is necessary for administrators before they can initiate an advising

program, because academic advising is quite a broad concept to many The most popular literature of this issue, the purpose or the functions of academic advising, is published by UNESCO, with the following statements

3 To assist students in understanding academic policies and procedures

4 To help students with accessibility to campus resources that will enhance their ability to be academically successful

5 To assist students in overcoming educational and personal problems

6 To identify systemic and personal conditions that may impede student academic achievement and developing appropriate interventions

7 To review and use available data about students academic and educational needs, performance, aspirations and problems

8 To increase student retention by providing a personal contact that students often need and request, thereby connecting them to the institution

Furthermore, the typical activities included in academic advising are also clearly stated, and the are taken as the framework for many higher education institutions to build their own activities adapted to the local needs UNESCO frames 9 activities described in the statements below

Table 4

Activities in academic advising

1 Assisting students with decision-making and career direction

2 Helping students understand and comply with institutional requirements

3 Providing clear and accurate information regarding institutional policies, procedures and programs

4 Assisting students in the selection of courses and other educational experiences (e.g internships, study abroad)

5 Referring students to appropriate resources, on and off campus

6 Evaluating student progress towards established goals

7 Collecting and distributing data regarding student needs, preferences and performance for use in refining or revising institutional/agency decisions, policies and procedures

8 Interpreting various interest/ability inventories that provide students with information related to their career choices

9 Utilizing a variety of supplemental systems such as online computer programs to deliver advising information

Attributes of quality of academic advising

When we have all the aspects and the functions of academic advising, another issue would come to us is what constitutes good academic advising; that is to say, how

we can define the quality of academic advising at a university Quality in higher education differs from quality in business world, and therefore needs different approach and investigation into research Several experts in the discipline of quality in higher

education, Fieldstein and Lammers (1992) and Poole (1992) (as cited in Arnold, Fisher and Glover 1998), so far have indicated the two influencing attributes including the

accuracy, or correctness, of advising, and the availability of the advisor In this light,

the quality of advising is very much dependent on the level of correctness in the information given by advisors It is also important to remember that the availability of the advisor may be related the number of students which the advisor has to be in charge

of in a definite time If there are too many students for the teaching staff to take care of, the quality of availability will minimize, thus causing dissatisfaction among students The importance of satisfaction with academic advising is obvious; Mehta (1997, as cited in Arnold, Fisher and Glover, 1998), claimed that the “satisfaction with advising was one of the major determinants in the overall level of satisfaction with the college.” Nevertheless, there is another point of interest among scholars – how satisfaction with academic advising can be achieved in comparison with the perceived quality of service

It is widely accepted that a student will be satisfied if the perceived quality is higher than performance standard Otherwise, if the perceived quality is lower than the standard, the student will be dissatisfied Previous studies have divulged the performance standard, according to customers, may be pinned to the expectations, idolization, the industry standards, the performance of competitors in the same field, and all the promises about the product/service quality that are claimed by promotional campaigns and communication media (Woodruff & Gardial, 1996)

These two aforementioned attributes should be put in comparison with the group

of three dimensions, with each component starting with ‘A’, espoused by Winston and

Sandor (2002) – accuracy, adequacy of information and availability of advising It is

refers to the same notion as that of Arnold, Fisher and Glover (1998); however, the

‘knowledgeable’ and ‘approachable’ advisors should be understood in a narrower meaning, compared with the same labels which are created by another well-known expert in the field – Cuseo (2004), with the details explained in the next paragraph Harrison believed communication skills of an advisor make the message clearer to the listeners, and the advisor can listen empathetically to student’s problems Another component of good advisor, fostering and nurturing, shares many similarities with Belcheir’s (1998) ‘encouraging’ component, both indicating how effectively an advisor can induce the advisees into the conversation so that they can feel the advisor’s care and support, starting out speaking out in order to explore their goals, interests and values The ‘virtue’ of an advisor means more than professional behavior, including an advisor’s “truthfulness, honesty and being trustworthy.” Being organized contributes to the image of an effective advisor who is prepared for every meeting with students, reviewing the documents and organizing the advising content in line with student’s development; this implies the academic advisor’s understanding of student’s advising needs Authenticity tells us about the academic advisor as a model of the mélange of

qualities of advisors, namely availability, approachability and helpfulness While

availability of advisors refers to how easily the advisor can be reached and how frequently he/she communicates with students despite of the settings, or how fast he is responsive to student queries, approachability is not limited to friendly mannerism of advisors, but how much empathically they listen to students in an advising meeting More than that, approachability also calls for advisor’s personalization of advising, whereby the advisor “takes personal interest in student learning experience, progress and development” Helpfulness, the broadest quality, should be understood how efficient an advisor is when he/she provides timely and accurate information about resources; when he/she helps students appreciate and make sense of the academic requirements and co-curricular activities; when he/she refers the inquiring student to appropriate resources; and when he/she connects students with their future plans by supporting them with guidance and direction

It is recognizable that the three dimensions, with detailed description, produced

by Cuseo (2004) contain the conceptualizations of Winston & Sandor, as well as that of Arnold, Fisher and Glover (1998) They also include some of the ideas of Harrison (2009)

The instruments for evaluating academic advising

There have been several ready-made tools that attempt to provide institutions across the United States a standardized measurement tool to help administrators assess the on-going academic advising programs

The early measurement tool to assess student satisfaction dates back to as early

as 1998 when Arnold, Fisher and Glover published a theoretically grounded questionnaire with seven statements, based on the literature of what constitutes good academic advising Despite the simplicity of this tool, it was a reliable source of student’s satisfaction assessment when the reliability of most the in-house developed assessment tools at the time was not checked (Arnold, Fisher and Glover, 1998)

Following the above development, nowadays we can find more tools to evaluate satisfaction, including two most commonly used ones: first, the Academic Advising Inventory (AAI) and second, the ACT Survey of academic advising (American College Testing) There is a marked difference in the use of these two instruments The Academic Advising Inventory aims to provide a well-prepared instrument based on a conceptualized set of aspects of academic advising, allowing colleges and universities

to use it to evaluate a variety of dimensions in academic advising The ACT Survey of Academic Advising, however, has been widely adopted by researchers as a tool that will help schools find out the underlying concerns of students about the practice of academic advising on campus In fact, a number of schools have been using this powerful tool since 1980s when it was first introduced

However, according to Cuseo (2004), it is dependent on the college itself whether to use a ready-made instrument or develop a homegrown, or internal, one The most obvious advantage of all the commercial instruments is, on one hand, that they

have been checked about the reliability and validity, to assure the standardization, before being pushed to the public use On the other hand, Cuseo (2004) also marks the advantage of the internal instrument, or home grown, instruments, that lies in the adaptability to the very uniqueness and the specific campus-concerns of your institution,

it would be better to adopt a locally developed tool Another reason supporting the choice of the local instrument is it can be designed to generate more qualitative data rather than the quantitative data as easily seen in the ready-made tools In this regard, Cuseo (2004) has produced his own instrument for effective academic advisors as the only cause of quality advising, and many American universities have been adopting this instrument as the official tool for the purpose of knowing how students are satisfied with their academic advisors

From this expert’s view, to measure the satisfaction of students at a Vietnamese higher education institution with academic advising, we should develop a standardized tool, given that the reliability and validity are carefully checked

The academic advising process

Academic advising, a process traditionally being thought as advisement of a course of study, is now no longer a new term so that researchers can find a great deal of existing literature on the process of advisement, the needed skills, the involving components and the effects of academic advising over the study persistence Literature may as well state the change in academic advising from the early date to the future trend, which aims to provide students with more flexibility and freedom in designing their own program of studies in line with their academic interests In fact, dating back to the 1970s, the academics began to feel an importance to integrate career planning into

academic advising to formulate a comprehensive advising process, the typical work of

which was initiated by O’Banion (1972) in his journal article An Academic Advising Model suggesting the presence of career planning during the academic advising process – i) exploration of life goals, ii) exploration of vocational goals, iii) program choice, iv) course choice, and v) scheduling courses Elaborating the ground-breaking ideas of

O‘Bannion, Drake (2011), restating Erroll Davis- former Chancellor of University System of Georgia, claimed one of the principal missions of academic advising is about the retention and success of students:

“…To guide students to make academic and life plans consistent with their interests and abilities Little has been identified as more connected to the academic, career, and personal success of students than academic advising The end goal of higher education must be the retention, persistence, and graduation of students; as such, academic advising is the key to engagement

in their educational careers” (p.34)

Likewise, Drake (2011) enlists what quality academic advising can do for students as “It helps students to value the learning process, to apply decision-making strategies, to put the college experience into perspective, to set priorities and evaluate events, to develop thinking and learning skills, to make choices, and to value the learning process.”

Figure 4 - O'Bannion's academic advising process

Integrating career advising into academic advising has become one of the latest breakthroughs in the advising services as this fact is reflected by Gordon and Habley

(2008) in the book Academic Advising: A Comprehensive Handbook: “The necessity for

integrating academic and career advising is apparent in today ’ s colleges because of the overwhelming number and scope of academic and career choices that students confront and the complexity of the changing work world they are preparing to enter.” As such, another point to ponder is how higher education institutions can secure a number of academic advisors who can also play the role as career advisor to materialize the developmental approach of academic advising In fact, this holistic advising approach can be successful at higher education institutions where academic advisors are trained skills in combining the academic and career advising service

The importance of integrating academic and career advising is reinforced by Gordon and Habley (2006, as cited in the work of McCalla-Wriggins, 2009), due to its double benefits to college students: first, it can clarify the academic and career goals of students, either undecided or the pre-major ones, as to how to relate their skills and

1 •  Exploration of life goals

2 •  Exploration of vocational goals

3 •  Program choice

4 •  Course choice

5 •  Scheduling courses

abilities, personal values, and their up-to-now academic pursuits to their career endeavors; second, it assists students in exploring the career requirements, opportunities, the challenges as well as informing students of what is changing in their targeted profession The inclusion of career advising in academic advising is confirmed

by another researcher – Carroll McCollum (1998) who views academic advising as a tool for student’s full development than merely a tool for academic achievement, insisting that developmental academic advising only become fulfilled when advisors realize the uniqueness in career planning prevailing in a group of students To do his responsibilities, an academic advisor commits himself/herself to acquiring knowledge

of the higher education institution’s career orientation programs, the career resources, the available decision making supportive tools Having similar proposition towards the integration of career counseling into academic advisement, Jerry Wilder (1982)

reinforces in his journal article Academic and Career Advising: Institutional Commitment and Program Recommendations about the fourteen recommendations

concerning steps for improving academic advising programs at a higher education institution Step 2 tackles a common formality that most tertiary schools lack is the policy statement reflecting the university’s concern for academic and career-related needs of students and the appreciation of academic advisor’s work Wilder’s further suggestion includes the selection and assignment of an academic advising coordinator at departmental level who is responsible for developing close working relationship between the academic advisors and administrative staff in terms of financing, office hours, records and registration, etc Wilder, however, fails to specify who should be