Navigating the path to academic success: The impact of student academic advising at a university of technology

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-134-0_31How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Academic Advising; Student improvement and success; Mixed methods

Abstract

The significance of student academic advising and its contribution towards student success cannot be overemphasised. Yet the conceptualisation, implementation and impact of academic advising have not been rigorously researched in most South African Universities, particularly Universities of Technology. Given the poor throughput rates in most of these universities, this paper sought to investigate the role and the impact that academic advising could potentially have in enabling conditions for students to navigate their academic paths for success. The paper used the concept of academic advising as an engaging educational process where the focus is not just advising students on the information that students need to learn in the form of content but, more importantly, on the learning that focuses on outcomes for student learning. The potential for this conceptual framework is to promote student success. Data was sourced from the selected cohorts of students who enrolled for academic advising practices at a university of technology. The data was sourced through a qualitative methodology to understand how many students from the enrolled cohort experienced academic advising as an enabling or constraining environment for their success. It also obtained descriptive data on students’ perceptions of academic advising. Preliminary findings reveal that the concept of academic advising mentioned above could be a useful intervention in assisting struggling students to navigate their academic paths. However, there is also a challenge associated with an inadequate understanding of the academic advising concept and its importance towards contributing to students’ academic success. This challenge is attributed to the limited number of students that attend academic advising. The implication for this is a serious hindrance in enabling the success of academic advising initiatives.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Siduduzile Lizzly Ndlovu
AU  - Sindiswa Nomzamo Mkhize
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/11/06
TI  - Navigating the path to academic success: The impact of student academic advising at a university of technology
BT  - Proceedings of the 10th Focus Conference (TFC 2023)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 466
EP  - 473
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-134-0_31
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-134-0_31
ID  - Ndlovu2023
ER  -