UNDER & POSTGRADUATES NURSING STUDENTS’ SATISFACTION WITH ACADEMIC ADVISING MANAGEMENT: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Shreen Gaber Mohammed

Nursing Administration Department, Faculty of Nursing, Cairo University, Egypt
Corresponding Author’s Email: Shreen17@cu.edu.eg

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Academic advising is very crucial part of Credit Hours System implementation and have abundant responsibilities for advising, sharing all faculty students' plans of their courses registration favorably and generously. Aim: This study aimed to assess the students’ satisfaction regarding management the academic advising processes and examine the satisfaction difference between under and postgraduates’ levels: Design: A comparative descriptive research design was implemented. Sample: A cross-sectional sample of university nursing students. Tools: student’s satisfaction self-administered questionnaire was used. Results: The main discoveries of this study revealed that there was a statistically significant difference between under and postgraduates’ levels regarding their satisfaction T= (11.024), P = (0.000). Also, the study illustrated that there was a significant difference between their age and their satisfaction F= (6.94), P = (0.001). While there was no difference in their gender and their satisfaction scores T = (0.660), P = (0.50). Conclusion: Based on the results of the current study, it can be concluded that the overall level of satisfaction among students is not enough to be satisfied, there is a difference between under and postgraduate in their levels of satisfaction. Recommendations: The advisor should not be changed frequently as it can be understood that faculty turnover can lead to problems, as well the management must be cautious about this issue and must ensure those good advisors are retained.

Keywords: Academic Advising; Undergraduates; Postgraduates; Satisfaction

INTRODUCTION

Academic advising is a process of interactive communication between organizational representatives’ students that intended to give the student intuition or tracks about an academic, social, or personal matter and addressing high positive behaviors of students’ positive outcomes which countered from faculties’ positive culture and climate. The nature of this direction might be to inform, suggest, counsel, discipline, coach, mentor, or even teach. It could be also explained as: "A rule has been established so that each student shall choose from among the faculty someone who is to be his/her adviser and friend in all matters in which assistance is desired and is to be the medium of communication between the student and the faculty." (Hayes, 2014; Ligon, 2019).

The academic advisor roles are very fundamental parts in Credit Hours System implementation and have abundant duties and responsibilities with regards to advising all faculty students. Academic advisors are expected to share their understanding, prerequisites, facilitate the students' plans of their courses registration, and generally encourage advancement to a degree in a favorable way” (Crisp et al., 2017; Elhabashy et al., 2019).

In the academic environment, the students' satisfaction conveys vital importance for the generation of returns of the university through soundtrack and dispersal a positive word of mouth. Students' satisfaction plays an energetic role in emerging the academic estates long-term economic success since a dissatisfied student is doubtful to recommend it to friends and relatives. There are two traditions of viewing client satisfaction: service concerns and overall gratification. Service satisfaction arises when clienteles are satisfied with a specific service encounter while overall satisfaction is an evaluation based on multiple encounters (Gruber et al., 2010).

Elhabashy & Abdelgawad (2019), stated that one of the important elements in the system is an academic advisor`s role with the students of the faculty, there is some sort of misinterpretation/ misconception outlook regarding the role of the academic advisor for the majority of undergraduate and postgraduate students, this misunderstanding may be disputes generated some sort of dissatisfaction/ disappointment with credit hours system, increased students’ burden and degrade students’ academic accomplishment. Consequently, this inquiry will be directed in an attempt to provide a wide-ranging clear awareness of the academic advisor`s role for the undergraduate and postgraduate students and its effect on their satisfaction, which prospectively affect the students’ progress and try to illustrate if there is a difference in their satisfaction between undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Hakim (2014) and Hassanain, Mathar & Aker (2016) defined Students’ satisfaction as a difference between Students’ expectations and their perceptions about the actual service. Numerous researches concluded that after students have applied and experienced the service, they can evaluate the outcomes of their choice. Student satisfaction whoever under or postgraduate is the desired outcome of a task or job that pleases one's esteem.

Other researchers as Raewf &Thabit, (2015) defined it as the willful and enthusiastic state coming from accomplishment which results in one's satisfaction. Satisfaction is the student's fulfillment response, the extent to which the level of fulfillment is appealing or disagreeable (Higazee, 2017). So the study was aimed to address and compare the satisfaction level among under and postgraduate nursing students in response to the provided academic advisor responsibilities. The Questions of the current study were“Q1: What is the level of students’ satisfaction in response to the role of an academic advisor in the faculty? Q2: Is there a difference between under and post-graduates’ students in relation to satisfaction level?

METHODOLOGY

Study design

A comparative descriptive research design was implemented in this study and to answer the research questions, this design was employed to identify problems practice, to give a picture of situations as they obviously occur, justifying the current practice, making a judgment, or determining what others in similar situations are doing (Hennink et al., 2020). In the current study our Variables: The independent variable of the study is academic advising management while the dependent variable is the students’ satisfaction level. Sampling: A cross-sectional sample of (193) academic nursing students; who were in the different under and postgraduates’ levels.

Data Collection

Based on the literature review the following Self-administration students’ satisfaction questionnaire was constructed by the researcher to collect data relevant to the current project study. Self-administration students’ satisfaction questionnaire was divided into two parts the first part is: Socio-demographic data and the second part is students’ satisfaction questionnaire regarded to the advisors’ role.

1. Socio demographic data sheet: It includes student demographic data such as age, gender, academic level, place of residence during the study, working during the study, pre-university education and others.

   
   

2. Students’ satisfaction questionnaire: (students’ satisfaction with the academic advising management) which consists of 26 Question. The participants check the answer against 3 points of Likert scale as follows: 2= strongly agree, which, means that satisfied with the academic advising management.1= agree to some extent, which means that he satisfied to some extent.0= disagree; which means that he dissatisfied. Reliability test was performed by Cronbach's alpha test and the result was (85%) which means that the result of the current study is almost reliable and the items included in the questionnaire are internally consistence.

The highest total score of the tool was 52 divided into different levels as follows: from 0 to 16 considered as low level. From 17 to 33 considered as moderate level. From 34 to 52 considered as a high level of satisfaction. The current study was performed through defined process started with an official permission and approvals were granted to carry out the current study, the researcher started to collect the pertinent data. The researcher interviewed the students who enrolled in all academic levels from 1st level up to the doctorate level, who studied the entire under and postgraduate program in the faculty. 10% of the study participants (20 student) were invited to participate in the study after explaining the nature, aim, and significance of the study to assess the feasibility, objectivity, and applicability of the study tools. Besides, to estimate the time needed to fill the data collection sheets.

The student satisfaction self-administration questionnaire was filled individually. The investigators gave the questionnaire by the hand to the students who accepted participation, explained it to them, and how to fill it. The researcher waited with the participants when they filled the questionnaire for answering any question or clarification if they need. Then, the researcher took the filled questionnaire at the same time after has been filled. The participants took from 6-8 minutes to fill the self-administered sheet after that Reliability test was performed by Cronbach's alpha test and the result was 85%. And there was no modification so that the 20 student who shared in the pilot study were involved in the actual total study sample. After one week the researcher started to collect the rest of the sheets from the students (80%) for one hour on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday weekly. This process of data collection started from September 2019 to January 2020. The collected data were tabulated and analyzed by SPSS.

Data Analysis

Upon accomplishment of data collection, the data were recorded, tabulated, and analyzed by computer using the “statistical package for social science” (SPSS. version 21). Descriptive statistics and frequency distribution of data were accomplished. Also, the needed inferential statistics analysis was performed using ANOVA, person correlation, and t-test. A significant value was considered p < 0.05.

RESULTS

193 students participated in this research: 113student enrolled in different undergraduate levels. The Mean of their age was (21.8+1.03), and 80 students enrolled in the postgraduate levels. The Mean of their age was 28.8+0.98. 30% of the total sample was males and the rest were females (70%). Only 4% of the study group was married and the rest were single (96%). About (77%) of the studied sample had graduated from secondary school, and about (23%) had graduated from nursing institutes. Also, table (1) showed that the highest number of the undergraduate's student enrolled in the second level (31) and the lowest enrolled in the fourth level (23), while in the postgraduate level, the highest number was in the master level and the lowest was in the doctorate level (36), (12) respectively.

Moreover, the study result illustrated that there was a significant difference in the Mean ±SD between undergraduates’ levels, while in postgraduates the difference in the Mean ±SD present in the diploma level by the lowest mean but the master and doctorate are higher similar (41.3±6.08) (44.7±7.1) (44.1±8.5) correspondingly. Also, there was a difference in total Mean ±SD between two groups (under and postgraduate) (36.699±11.235) (42.793±7.109) respectively. Furthermore, table (1) showed that there was a statistically significant difference between under and postgraduates’ students regarding their satisfaction withthe management of the academic advising T= (11.024), P = (0.000).

Table 1: Mean, Standard Deviation and Difference Between All Students’ Satisfaction and their Numbers Distributed on their Academic Levels (N=113)

Sttistically significance value = 0.05

Also, the study illustrated that there was a positive statistically significant difference between students' last semester GPA and their satisfaction scores F= (42.024), P = (0.000) (Table 2).

Table 2: Differences in total students’ Satisfaction Scores about Academic Advising and Last Semester GPA (N=193)

The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level

Additionally, table (3) showed that there was no statistically significant difference between male and female students' regarding their satisfaction with the academic advising T= (0.667), P = (0.52).

Table 3: Differences in Total Students’ Satisfaction about Academic Advising Among Male & Female Students (N=193)

The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level

Also, table 4 illustrated that there was a statistically significant difference between students age categories and their satisfaction scores F = (6.09), P = (0.001), this difference in their age category was highly statistically difference among group1 (Less than 26) and group 2 (26-less than 35) and between-group 1 (Less than 26) and group 3 (35 and more) as highlighted by the post hoc tests in (table 5).

Table 4: Difference in Students’ Satisfaction and Their Age Categories (N=193)

Table 5: Post Hoc Test

The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level

DISCUSSION

The present section covers the interpretation and discussion of results obtained from the current study representing sociodemographic characteristics, students` satisfaction with the academic advising. This study showed that the mean students` general satisfaction regard the academic advisingwas different completely from one level to another as perceived by the undergraduate students but according to the postgraduate students this result not similar to the undergraduate level of satisfaction, their mean of satisfaction was highly satisfied in contrast with undergraduates students. Also, there is a highly significant correlation among students’ satisfaction scores and their last GPA and their age categories whilethere was no significant difference among students’ satisfaction scores and their gender.

From the researcher's point of view, the rationale for the difference between and within groups might be related to lack of knowledge about the academic advising system and the less awareness of the advisor`s role, process and responsibilities for both the academic advisor and students who are enrolled in the first academic level.Although this difference in the satisfaction may be due to: although the academic advising is not a recent implied system in Egyptian Universities, many people always resist change even if it is scientifically based. Somewhere the obligatory behavior fromthe administration to manage some problems of the credit hours registrationwith exception to the policy-related rules of the credit hour registration system, the further rationale is, majority of students and advisors believe that the relationshipbetween them started and ended at the 1st 2 weeks from the study plan (after registration time).

According to the difference between undergraduate and postgraduate satisfaction maybe, the majority of undergraduate students live far from their family and are from outside Cairo making it difficult to access the academic advisor during the registration period of the courses before starting the semester, the further rationales for this difference were, postgraduate courses are limited than undergraduate, majority of postgraduate students have pre-experience about credit system and academic advisor relation, the ratio of professors( advisors) and postgraduate studentsis radically different (1: 3) than the ratio between the number of undergraduate students and their advisors (1: 35).

Besides, the research conducted by Wlazelek & Coulter (2011) was congruent with our study result.The authors tested the influence of an academic advising attitude and styles, stated that this advising systemically by special staff employed in the advising center in the campus for students with academic vulnerabilities. Participants were 414 undergraduate students who were experimented on academic cautioning and conducting tests. Their result concluded that Students who contributed to the advising system demonstrated significantly higher scores average than did students who had not received the advising system.

This result was approximatly similar with the study conducted by Al-asmi, K. (2014) agreed with our study result in a study they have conducted in Modern college of business and science, Muscat, Oman entitled “Student satisfaction with advising systems in higher education” which showed dissatisfaction with (44%) of the sample. Also, our study outcome was congruent with the study conducted by Delaram & Houseini (2014) which stated that the implementation of advisor project could not provide satisfactory characteristics for students.

Another study was congruent with our study result of students` dissatisfaction was carried by Al-Ansari et al., (2015) in the College of Dentistry at the University of Dammam. This study showed that only (17.2%) of students were very or somewhat satisfied with the academic advising system while the majority of students were dissatisfied with the academic support system (82.8%). Furthermore, the result of our study was incongruent with Mahfouz & Farag (2015) stated in a study was done in Nourah University, KSA.

Additionally, Young‐Jones et al., (2013) conducted a study asking about the probability of Academic advising impact on student academic performance and attempted to detect further variables that anticipated a higher GPA in the participants. Advisor accountability, advisor empowerment as a dependent variable are positively correlated with the dependent variable (current GPA). The author's strength that there are further variables that contributed to this significant correlation such as learner study skills and student self‐efficacy and advisor empowerment.

O`bryan, Severtis & Wasson (2014) Study carried out an Academic Advising Survey in Indiana University,U.S.A which finally showed incongruency with our result of study as the students' satisfaction was High 62.5% in 2013 and 66.1% in 2014. Disagreement with our study result is in Eduljee & Michaud (2014) study that is carried out in Saint Joseph's College of Maine found that over (60%) indicated a high level of satisfaction among students. Soria (2012) study was in congruent with our study result, carried in Minnesota University, where satisfaction was near to half of the students attending faculties (45.1%).

Also, Stolar & Steven (1996) study carried out in Cumberland county college was incongruent with our study and found that the students are generally satisfied with the academic advising system and services. Besides, the study conducted by Belcheir, 1998 in Boise State University, where the results concluded that 75% of the students were satisfied with the academic advising performance.

CONCLUSION

Based on the results of the current study, it can be concluded that there is a difference between all students’ levels under and postgraduate students in their level of satisfaction. Also,there was a positive statistically significant correlation between students’ last semester GPA and their satisfaction scores r = (0.719), P = (0.000). The implementation of the advising system needs to be more clear enough to achieve the goals of the organization. Student advising is the key to student& institution improvement and empowerment. With this difference among under and postgraduate with their advising system satisfaction, this calls for attentive management of the institutions should emphasize creating a better advising system for the better benefits for the students.Based on the result of the present study, the following recommendations were deduced:The advisor should have an idea of his/her advisees’ courses and program of study to give effective advice, the faculty should regularly provide orientation to the students/advisorsabout the academic advisorrole,the advisor should not be changed frequently from 1st level to the last level as it can be understood that faculty turnover can lead to problems as well, finally it is recommended to publish an academic advising guide book and make it easier to the hands of the students and the advisors.

Conflict of Interest

Before data collection, endorsed permission gained from faculty members to convey the study .contributions in the study was charitable/ voluntary and based on the student accepting to fill the sheet where it should be full by contributors after reading all its particulars. The ethical considerations issues include explaining the purposes and nature of the study, starting the possibility to withdraw from the study at any time. The confidentiality of the information will be assured. Their names did not appear on the study and will not be revealed in any reports.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We would like to thank all learners who contributed in this study for their effort and their consumed time.

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