Student Support and Transition Through a Buddy Programme to Foster Social Integration

The University of Pretoria (UP) began offering formal academic student support in 2011 when the first faculty student advisor (FSA) was appointed. Although many more FSAs were subsequently appointed, assistance to all the students in need of support remained insufficient. However, financial assistance through the collaboration grant received from the Department of Higher Education and Training in 2018 made it possible to explore new areas of support. The UP was able to pilot four innovations due to the availability of additional funds. These included generic workshops across faculties; the creation of a hub in the library, which served as a common contact point for students requiring assistance; the appointment of peer advisors; and a Buddy Programme for first-year students. This article explains the Buddy Programme as perceived by the senior students who mentored the first-year students. The mentors are known as “big buddies”. Our work on this programme is based on Tinto’s (1975) ideas about social integration. The Buddy Programme was introduced to assist first-year students in their transition from school to university life. This paper highlights the challenges that first-year students faced and it explains how the concepts could become institutionalised once university activities have been normalised in the post-pandemic future.

Advisors’ Perceptions of the Value of Advising Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study at a South African University

Traditional advising responsibilities are shifting to include a holistic, learning-based and developmental approach that favours advising of the entire university experience. A dearth of systematic empirical evidence exists on advisors’ perceptions of the value of advising students during the COVID-19 pandemic in the South African context. The purpose of this study is to elucidate advisors’ perceptions of the complexity and challenges inherent in their responsibilities during the pandemic. This case study draws on a qualitative research design; it is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews undertaken with nine advisors in 2020. The central research questions posed in this study are: how do advisors describe their perceptions of their responsibilities within the COVID-19 pandemic, and how might these contribute to future practices? The findings indicate that advising during the pandemic has transcended the typical transactional dissemination of information to include addressing contextual environmental and resource challenges, social justice imperatives, emergency remote learning, asynchronous advising challenges and data-informed advising. These responsibilities have encompassed a holistic approach to advising and to getting to know students as ‘whole people’. Adjustments and transitions to emergency remote learning have highlighted social inequalities in access to data, to internet and electricity connectivity, which have served as impediments to students’ learning, and to educational experiences. Some home environments were not conducive to studying but necessitated doing household chores and herding cattle. The findings also indicate that an institution’s advising delivery model should enhance advisors’ abilities to perform their responsibilities. A network of cascaded responsibilities that incorporates greater involvement of lecturers in advising could contribute to a shared responsibility between lecturers and central, faculty and peer advisors. Insights gained may lead to a more nuanced understanding of advisors’ responsibilities as they relate to student learning and to the overall educational experience to promote retention and student success in a post-pandemic era.

A Reflection on the Two-year Progress of Peer Advisor-led Events for Promoting Collaboration among Students

The authors work in the Self-Access Learning Center (SALC) at our university as student staff. Specifically, our role is as Peer Advisors (PAs), and we have supported students by having advising sessions and events related to self-directed learning. In this article, we focus on an event that PAs have organized for two years and reflect on the progress. In particular, differences between the physical and online versions of the event are mainly discussed in terms of the number of participants, topics for each session and the method for event promotion. At the end of the article, each of our personal reflections is introduced.

Emergency Remote Support at the Self-Access Learning Center: Successes and Limitations

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 has influenced many aspects of tertiary educational institutions in Japan. Many Self-Access Learning Centers (SALCs) at universities are also required to change their operation and support systems. This paper introduces how the SALC at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU) has supported students during the COVID-19 pandemic and discusses successful points and limitations of the online support system, which is characterized as emergency remote support (ERS). The research analyzes survey and interview data collected from five Japanese peer advisors (PAs) who work at the SALC. We find that ERS at the SALC can sufficiently provide students with individual support in learning and practicing languages as well as some psychological support via a videoconferencing tool. However, we also identify that ERS cannot create an environment for socialization and social learning compared to the usual SALC in which students gather and socialize with others freely while developing their language and communication abilities.

In-Training Advising Sessions for New Peer Advisors: Impacts and Benefits

This paper will describe the impact a series of advising sessions had on two university students being trained as peer advisors during the first half of a peer advising training course conducted at a self-access center in the Republic of Turkey. The author provides the rationale for developing the peer tutoring program, the selection procedure, and aspects of the training course. The paper will then focus on the learner development that occurred as a result of the trainees experiencing three advising sessions. The paper explores key training experiences, including insights and observations made by the trainer and trainees to illustrate how the development of the peer advisors was affected.

Peer Advisors for Veteran Education (PAVE): Implementing a sustainable peer support program for student veterans on college campuses

Student veterans have been attending college in greater numbers since the passing of the Post/9-11 GI Bill. Although similar to other nontraditional students, student veterans face unique transition challenges that can impact their pursuit of higher education. Many student veterans could benefit from dedicated programs to help them succeed in college, which in turn would enable them to secure employment in the civilian world. Facilitating the success of student veterans also makes wise use of the financial and institutional resources invested in their education. Peer support programs can help by providing an established community of other student veterans who can normalize transition experiences, offer social support, reduce stigma associated with help-seeking, and connect to useful services on and off campus. This paper describes the iterative development of a nationwide peer support program for student veterans, Peer Advisors for Education (PAVE), which uses trained peers to provide outreach, support, and linkage to resources to assist student veterans. Through a hybrid technology platform for training and program management, PAVE has been delivered on 40 college campuses nationwide and is well-positioned for larger scale national rollout.

Near, far, and online: small business owners’ advice-seeking from peers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine small business owners’ informal advice-seeking from peers, with a focus on the opportunities afforded by the internet for owners to acquire assistance from other owner-managers outside their local community. Design/methodology/approach – Over 600 owner-managers in a rural US state were surveyed about their advice-seeking during the previous year from peers in the same community, from non-local peers they had met in person, and from peers known only online. Mixed effects logistic regression analysis was used to test both main effects of business and owner characteristics on advice-seeking and interactions with type/location of peer advisors. Findings – Most owners had received advice from peers, and one-third had received advice online from a peer whom they had never met in person. Business performance was not associated with overall use of peer advice, but did interact significantly with source; the use of online-only advisors was associated with business growth, suggesting the possible benefit of weak ties. Over two-thirds of respondents reported having used social media and/or online forums to access advice or support from other owners (both those met in person and those not), with women and younger owners more likely to rely on such tools. Originality/value – This study shows that entrepreneurial research needs to consider peer advisors beyond local networks as potential resources for small business owners. While previous research has examined entrepreneurs’ use of social media for marketing, this study shows its utility for accessing advice.

An examination of the study abroad advising process in a university context

For this qualitative case study, the aim was to better understand what informs study abroad advising practices from the perspective of the advisor and to examine these practices for evidence of developmental advising using Crookston's (1972) developmental advising framework. This study significantly contributes to the very limited research that is available on advising for study abroad. Because of its limited nature, much of the review of the literature for this study centers on research in the field of academic advising, a closely related field, rather than study abroad advising. Five study abroad advisors at the University of Missouri participated in this study. The data were collected through interviews, written reflections, and video recorded advising appointments. There are four distinct themes that inform study abroad advising practices: relevant experiences, formal training, resources, and professional experience. Additionally, there are elements of developmental advising practiced by the advisors in this study, including abilities, rewards, maturity, responsibility, and relationships. The implications for future research include studies related to the student perspective on developmental advising, longitudinal studies, student outcomes, and evaluation of study abroad advising practices. As for practical implications, this study can help inform training of study abroad advisors as well as student peer advisors; potentially increase the diversity of the study abroad population by having advisors utilize personal identity to build relationships with students; and, may serve to justify curricular changes within student affairs degrees to include student advising, which is currently lacking in many master's level programs.

Assessing the Quality of Online Peer Feedback in L2 Writing

This chapter reports on an instrument that was developed to formatively assess the quality of feedback that second language students give to one another in an online, anonymous, asynchronous learning environment. The Online Peer Feedback (OPF) Assessment was originally developed for a peer online writing center in Japan where student peer advisors jointly compose feedback for a client-writer. The OPF Assessment is composed of two rubrics: (1) a rubric that evaluates the initial feedback drafted by a peer advisor, and (2) a rubric that assesses the contribution that individual peer advisors make to the interactive process of constructing the final feedback for their client-writer. The chapter describes the assessment and discusses its potential uses in a variety of contexts as a formative tool to improve the quality of peer feedback and, ultimately, the writing proficiency of both givers and receivers of the feedback.