Advisors' attitudes toward developmental placement and the academic performance and perceived success of their underprepared community college advisees

Abstract

Open admissions policies pose a critical challenge to retention at community colleges because, on average, over one third of the students enter unprepared to meet the academic demands. Faced with the shocking first-year attrition rate of over fifty percent at public community colleges (McCabe, 2000), taxpayers, legislators, and college officials have become embroiled in debate over the high cost of remediation and the "human capital" (Shaffer, 1997, 1998) costs of pitting access against excellence. Previous research has established that mandatory basic skills assessment and mandatory placement into developmental courses leads to lower attrition rates and higher grade point averages for underprepared students. Research also has shown that academic advising plays a critical role in improving student retention. This research project examined both developmental placement policies and the advisor/advisee relationship from a new perspective, through the lens of advisors' attitudes. This research explored the possibility that advisors hold preconceived views toward underprepared students and distinct opinions about the responsibility community colleges hold in providing them with access to higher education. It explored whether advisors' attitudes toward both underprepared students and the policies that direct course placement are related to the way the advisors view and carry out their role as advisor and, by extension, whether underprepared students' academic performance and perceived success is related to advisors' attitudes. Attitudes were measured on two researcher-constructed surveys. Two overarching hypotheses guided the study. The first hypothesis (H 1) was that advisors perform their advising duties in accordance with their attitudes or belief systems. H 1 gained statistical support. The second (H 2) was that advisors' attitudes toward underprepared students and toward developmental placement policies are related to their advisees' subsequent academic performance and perceived success. A relationship between advisors' attitudes and students' academic performance, as measured by course grades and completion rates, was not established. However, a small but significant relationship was found between students' perceptions of their advisors' attitudes and their own academic performance. Also, qualitative data indicated that students perceived a positive influence on their success from talking to their advisors.

Exploring faculty changes in science courses at Maryland community colleges in response to the Associate of Arts in Teaching degree option for elementary education majors

“…The answer to this question would be very useful to instructors as they create constructivist learning activities for their students. Data from Bracken's (2004) study on how students' perceptions of their advisors' attitudes toward developmental education affected student performance in developmental courses showed a relationship between perceived advisor attitudes and student success in developmental courses. It would be useful to know if Bracken's findings on the relationship between students'…”