Transition into Higher Education:The Structure and Practice of Academic Advising

• In Event: Poster session III
  In Poster Session: Poster session 3

Proposal

Academic advising has great significance for students’ personal, academic, and social lives in the U.S.A. and advisors impact the first-year students’ social integrations (Robbins et al., 2009) and retention (Gordon et al., 2011), although the ratio of advisor to student remains not high, “one to 100” (Brock, 2010, p. 119).
Gordon et al. (2011) asserts that if the advising programs succeed, they not only positively impact students’ retention but also increase the number of graduates. Uhlik (2004) emphasizes positive influence of academic advising on students’ persistence, skill acquisition and development, students’ aspiration and satisfaction of both academic and career decisions as it is a “road map to completion” (Tinto, 2006, p. 2).
Bailey et al. (2015) highlights, “Colleges must undertake a more fundamental rethinking of their organization and culture” (p.12) and offer academic programs, services, and academic advisor assistance that will enforce student success, retention, and completion.
In Azerbaijan the education system is centralized, and the educational leadership is executed based on “the top-down authority” (Boer et al., 2017, p.3). Higher education “system remains essentially unchanged since Soviet times” (Petrov & Temple 2004, 89).
The four-year institutions do not provide undergraduate students, including freshmen, with academic advising. Students oftentimes struggle during the first year because of missing academic support. Students are not ready for the space and community; they do not know where to go to get support or help of any kind. Instruction alone does not help students grow in the ways that will help them to be successful. 70 percent of 160.000 students enrolled in HE is placed in self-paying seats. Tuition fee is higher than in some world universities. The quality of education is a few times lower (Asadov 2018, p. 2). From1992 to 2014, 6098 students dropped out from universities due to the poor performance, 13307 were expelled because of poor attendance, 4689 were expelled as the education entities were terminated by the Ministry of Education, 7943 changed majors, 1463 changed majors and transferred, and 4178 changed the type of education (Asadov, 2018, p. 2). HEIs do not provide any academic advising to direct those students to resources and guide them so that they can succeed. Missing academic advising structure is still creating similar problems.
Azerbaijan government launched reform initiatives on presidential decrees to address the issue of quality in education and expands access to higher education. I argue that academic advising as a missing social structure needs to be established in HEIs. I am doing a qualitative exploratory interview-based study to understand academic advising system in the four-year public institution in U.S.A. and developing an academic advising model to be embedded in HEIs in Azerbaijan. Academic advising will help students gain clarity of expectations and get ready to achieve academic, personal, and career goals. Academic advising structure and practice will also contribute to sustainability of capacity building in HEIs.

Author

• vafa yunusova, Michigan State University