Academic Advising Evaluation: A Review of Assessment Instruments.
The results of various reports indicate that there is very little evaluation of academic advising. More consistent evaluation, however, could help delineate advising factors critical in producing some of the positive results attributed to good advising. To facilitate the use and development of instruments and to promote evaluation, this article reviews student, advisor, and administrator surveys in terms of their length, content, format, and use. The importance of choosing evaluation instruments appropriate for specific assessment purposes is discussed.
A Comparison of Factor Dimensions in Revised Scales for Student Client Evaluation of Counselors in a University Counseling and Testing Center
For a sample of 146 student clients who judged the effectiveness of their counselors in a university counseling and testing center on a modified form of the Evaluation of Counselors Scale (EOC), a factor analysis of the intercorrelations of student responses to 19 items provided four orthogonal dimensions portraying perceptions of satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with the counseling experience: (a) Personal Growth, (b) Atmosphere or Environment of the Counseling Center, (c) Trust or Confidence in the Counselor, and (d) Competence in Test Interpretation and Academic-Career Counseling Skills. A formerly identified factor of Counselor Effectiveness appeared to merge with Personal Growth—a circumstance that might have been associated with the rewording of one item and omission of another that had been considered somewhat ambiguous. It would appear that in general the modified form of the EOC reflects essentially the same constructs as those found in earlier versions.
The Factor Dimensions of a Revised Scale for Student Client Evaluation of Counselors in a University Counseling and Testing Center
For a sample of 241 student clients who evaluated their counsel ors in a university counseling and testing center on a revised form of the Evaluation of Counselors Scale (EOC-R), a factor analysis of the intercorrelations of student responses to 20 items yielded 5 or thogonal dimensions reflecting their perceptions of satisfaction (dis satisfaction) with the counseling experience: (a) Personal Growth and Improved Self-Understanding, (b) Experience with Counseling and Testing Center (Primarily with Support Staff Members and with Atmosphere), (c) Counselor Effectiveness, (d) Distrust in and Lack of Understanding by Counselor, and (e) Career and Academic Plan ning. The factors identified were essentially the same as those found with an initial form administered to a different sample of student clients two and one-half years previously at the same institution. It was concluded that the factorial validity of the new form was basi cally not different from that of the earlier form.