Comments on Academic Counseling Matters

• CC Counseling Study
• Posted by Ralphinjersey on August 28, 2009 at 10:00am EDT

• So, what they've apparently proven is that if you pay students to do something, they're more likely to do it. For $150 bucks a semester, I'd have been taking my counselors to lunch.

• Good study
• Posted by David Shupe , Chief Innovation Officer at eLumen Collaborative on August 28, 2009 at 10:30am EDT

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  This study confirms what we have been learning – 1) that the principles for good practice in undergraduate education (Chickering and Gamson, 1987) that have conventionally been understood as applying only to classroom instruction apply equally to student support services and 2) that everyone gains when student support services and instructional support services have the same organizational and technological capabilities of attending to a defined set of students that course instructors have. Some of the colleges working with us are beginning to see what difference this makes; when we have data to show, we will make it available.

   

• Acadmic Counseling Matters? Unproven!
• Posted by Keith Johnson on August 28, 2009 at 10:45am EDT

• The "experiment" in this article falls far short of a scientific experiment, which requries a control group, the same in ALL WAYS to the experimental group, except for the one variation you want to test, in this case, Academic Counseling.

  The true experiment is to take a random sample of community college students and form groups as alike as possible, perhaps with matched pairs, triplet, etc, pay them ALL $150, and then try your Counseling for one of the groups. A control group is simply paid to spend the same aount of time in an office or the library that the experimental group spends for counseling. You could find that, as in many community colleges today, giving a student $150 alleviates significant obstances to studying and remaining in school. Not great effects, but perhaps as great as the tiny improvements found in this study.

  What would happen if you simply offer students $150 to remain in school, or complete their current courses? How about giving students the additional money otherwise spent on counselors and offices to provide counseling? It may be that spending money (including salaries for counselors) on counseling is a great waste of resources that would be more effective used for financial aid! The "experiment" described in this report will never answer such a basic question, because it was not designed to do any such measurement. How sad!

• Academic counseling matters!
• Posted by Hadass Sheffer , Executive Director at Graduate! Philadelphia on August 28, 2009 at 11:30am EDT

• This reminds me of a study done some years ago about PhD students' time to degree - if memory serves me, it was at the University of Michigan's Graduate School, perhaps by Earl Lewis who is now at Emory. In any case, they found that PhD students who met with their advisor at least once a semester significantly cut their time-to-degree.

  Anyone's who's ever taught at any level knows the positive value of ongoing, periodic, almost intrusional academic counseling. While researchers will surely, and with good cause, continue to measure in order to prove this to the skeptics, isn't it high time to start acting and increase academic counseling support and help more students stay in college and finish their degrees? We all lose every time a student drops out.

• Still Unproven!
• Posted by Keith Johnson on August 28, 2009 at 12:15pm EDT

• In answer to Hadass Sheffer's remarks, there is no real answer to the absence of a true scientific study, which could be easily done to test the proposition that academic counseling is effective. Whether or not it is an effecive use of resources is another matter.

  In regard to completion time to a Ph.D., it is simply not possible to state (logically) that candidates who saw their advisor every semester significantly shortened their time to a degree, because we have no measure of how long those particular candidates would have taken without seeing an advisor every semester. Instead, we have a comparison, other candidates, living under different circumstances, who did not see their advisor every semester. And who are those people? ABD's who are working full time off campus? A candidate (as in my case) whose advisor went on sabbatical and could not be reached (and couldn't approve or comment on my draft dissertation?) This does not sound like a valid experimental study, and in the absence of same, we have only testimonials (useless for scientific conclusions), the belief of people working in the field that they are doing a lot of good (likewise), and half baked "studies" oriented to prove what people already believe.

  Contrary to the impression that I left with my polemic, I happen to conjecture that academic counseling can do a lot of good, under the right circumstances. But we will never find out who is most likely to need counseling, and how to match a particular type of counseling to a particular student's need, without studies with scientific measures. The belief that counseling is an unmitigated good, backed up with this kind of study, does a lot of harm, in preventing the kind of study that would bring about basic knowledge about how counseling works, and for whom. 'Nuf said.

• Counseling or Advising?
• Posted by Judy Harmon , Student Success Center Cross-Campus Advising at New Mexico State University on August 28, 2009 at 12:45pm EDT

• The words academic counseling are used in the article. What is academic counseling? Is it the same as academic advising? Does academic counseling require license to counsel? I am unclear what service is being studied and commented on here.

• counseling
• Posted by steve on August 28, 2009 at 3:15pm EDT

• Counseling is a money maker for colleges! every irreplaceable student who stays because he was helped and continues to pay tuition provides more money to the school. Also that student is more likely to be happy, get a job and promote the college in the community. When a student drops out the college has failed in its mission, counselors provide a great buffer between bad teachers and students and minimize failure.

• Posted by reader on August 28, 2009 at 4:15pm EDT

• "What is academic counseling? Does academic counseling require license to counsel?"

  Gawd, no! We don't need any more "Certified Counselors" and we don't need any more M.Ed.'s in Education. They are a plague on schools, colleges, and universities at all levels. Students need advice, support, friendship, and encouragement from their *teachers*, not from the army fuzzy-headed M.Ed. therapists (generated in the thousands by universities that discovered they could make money by selling certificates).

• Consistent with Webber and Ehrenberg (2009)
• Posted by Gavin Moodie at Griffith University on August 28, 2009 at 8:30pm EDT

• This is consistent with Webber and Ehrenberg (2009: 14) who show that simulating the effect of reallocating $500 per student from teaching to student services increases the graduation rate of universities which have low entry scores by 1.3%. Webber, Douglas A and Ehrenberg, Ronald G (2009) Do expenditures other than instructional expenditures affect graduation and persistence rates in American [US] higher education? http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/upload/cheri_wp121.pdf (accessed 1 August 2009).

• Can you say Hawthorne Effect?
• Posted by frankly speaking on August 29, 2009 at 11:30am EDT

• Study proves nothing. It was thoroughly contaminated by the surveyers.

• Good and Bad
• Posted by Mike Miller , Counsleor at College of the Redwoods on August 29, 2009 at 8:15pm EDT

• I agree that this study proves nothing other than students are willing to meet with someone to collect a nice stipend. What I do hear is that not everyone agrees with the role of a counselor. Want to know the difference between those athletic academic programs and the counseling offices on a two year campus?
  Athletics - may have qualified people in the positions or not and those that are not follow the lead of the director of the program, who may or may not be qualified. One thing can stand loud and clear, the athletes on your campus probably graduate at a higher rate than your general population. Those programs meet weekly with at risk students, ONE ON ONE STUDENT CONTACT MATTERS.
  Counseling offices- qualified people with masters degrees in counseling, with some being licensed therapist (none of this certified counselor garbage), at least in the states I have worked. The 1,000 to 1 ratio is the problem because the same one to one contact is not offered as in the athletic programs. The perfect scenario would be a counseling office that can meet with students at about 300 to 1, this is the ratio I had when working in athletics.

  Good or bad faculty is not necessarily the issue but instead the students need for a confidential environment. I have met too many faculty that are either unprepared or do not have the time to meet with a student that divulges they have been raped, is pregnant, has to take care of bothers and sisters, or as I just worked with a father that is going through a divorce who could not see how he was going to meet his responsibility as a father while completing his required course work.

  While you will not hear me disagree that this study does not provide the validity necessary for promoting a service I think is vital to all students but I will not stand by while educators insinuate a devaluation of this profession. To make counseling really work there should be a collaborative relationship between faculty and the counselors to identify the students that would benefit. That is the true meaning of Student Centered, which by the way has become the most misused term in higher education.

• Impact on Academic Decisions
• Posted by Jill Bernaciak , Owner at What's Your Major? Career and College Advising on August 30, 2009 at 11:15am EDT

• This study is a great start. As a practitioner in Northeast Ohio, where there are so many access and affordability issues for students, I'd like to see this research extended to show the impact of advising on the choice of a major and the eventual career path, as well as the overall satisfaction with the investment in a college education. Who could sponsor such a tracking study on a broader scale? I'd be interested in participating in making that happen.

• Because counselors COUNSEL and teachers TEACH
• Posted by Ann Gastier , College Access Advisor at Holmes County Education Foundation on August 31, 2009 at 12:15pm EDT

• Is this such a difficult situation to imagine? I often see students that come with a teacher who mumbles "um,,,,,,,,she's crying" and leaves ASAP, or the teacher who says "He's failing chemistry and wants to teach it-help him find something else" or "His parents have cut off funding and he seems suicidal" I am certain I am onot alone-counselors listen, support, encourage, explain, and ease the transition for many students. Perhaps a day with a counselor could help you appreciate all that we do.