The philosophy, organization, delivery, and evaluation of developmental academic advising at American research universities

This study examines the extent to which American research I & II universities in higher education are aware of, practice, and agree with, the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) and The Council for the Advancement of Standards for Student Services/Development Programs (CAS), developmental standards for academic advising.This study has four main purposes: (1) to examine the extent to which the NACADA and CAS developmental standards for academic advising are being met by examining the ways advising services are being provided in relation to the following areas: philosophy, organization, delivery (traditional), and evaluation of advising; (2) to determine if the respondents assess the current NACADA and CAS developmental standards to be valid for the areas mentioned; (3) to determine if there are any significant differences between private and public universities in meeting and agreeing with the NACADA and CAS standards for developmental academic advising; and (4) to gather data that might be used to establish national standards for computer-assisted academic advising.This is a descriptive survey research study. Eighty of the 103 (77.6%) universities completed the survey. The survey was developed by the researcher and consisted of twenty-five multiple part questions.Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to summarize, organize, interpret, and report the data. Results were crosstabulated to examine differences between public and private universities. The results indicated that: (1a) developmental academic advising is still much more espoused than it is a practice; (1b) there are a variety of organizational models being utilized; (1c) a variety of individuals serve as academic advisors, with instructional faculty members being the primary source; and (1d) evaluation of both advising programs and individual advisors is not being widely conducted. (2) The majority of respondents agree that the established NACADA and CAS standards are valid, but are not being practiced. (3) Few significant differences were found between private and public universities in meeting or agreeing with the NACADA and CAS standards. (4) Additional information was gathered concerning the use of computers to support academic advising. Conclusions were drawn, recommendations and implications for future research were made