STUDENT SATISFACTION WITH ACADEMIC ADVISING EFFECTIVENESS AND UNIVERSITY EXPERIENCE

Student satisfaction is an important student variable that is of compelling interest to post-secondary educational institutions as they continually seek to meet the expectations of legislative bodies, accreditation agencies as well as other constituent groups. Academic advisement is an important factor in student satisfaction research, an essential element of a successful postsecondary educational experience, and a powerful supportive resource for assisting in the retention and satisfaction of diverse student populations. Administrators and educators have found that student satisfaction with academic advising effectiveness is likely to differ for subgroups such as older students, women or ethnic minorities at different types of post-secondary institutions. This quantitative correlation study employed secondary data to investigate the statistical relationships between student satisfaction with academic advising expectations and overall satisfaction with university experience within a diverse student population. The geographic location for this research study was a small liberal arts, regionally accredited historically Black college and university (HBCU) in the southeastern United States. While the educational institution is geographically located in the southeastern United States, the student population is globally geographically dispersed. The assessment instrument utilized in this research study to measure student satisfaction was the Student Satisfaction Inventory (SSI) (1989). The participants in this study consisted of (187) traditional age students and (313) nontraditional age students who had completed the SSI questionnaire on the website during spring 2008. Correlation analysis (Pearson Product moment correlation coefficient) and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) demonstrated statistically significant relationships among student satisfaction with academic advising effectiveness, overall satisfaction with university experience, and demographic characteristics. The findings of this study will provide educational leaders with valuable insights into which quality of academic advising (knowledge, competence, approachability, and personal concern for student success) need to be emphasized or improved to more effectively serve a diverse groups of students in terms of ethnicity/race, age/cohort, gender, class load, class level, enrollment status, and employment.