Advising student-athletes: Understanding job preparation, roles, and challenges of the athletic academic advisor

The current study was accomplished through a quantitative survey from the perspective of the advisors and covered demographics, preparedness, job roles and the challenges faced by AAAs. This research was taken from a post-positivism viewpoint because the questions within the survey are opinion based (excluding the demographics). Post-positivism is described by Jones (2015) as a style of research that doesn’t conclude with objective results because of the inherent limitations and biases. The advisors that participated in the survey were asked to answer honestly, but the answers are still inherently subjective due to the AAAs’ individual perspectives. To increase reliability, the survey was first piloted by AAAs at Gonzaga University. These AAAs took the original version of the survey and commented on questions they thought were relevant, irrelevant, needed to be changed, taken out, or added. The final draft of the survey took their comments into consideration and made necessary changes.

Population
The targeted population was academic advisors who work with athletes at the NCAA Division I level. All types of academic advisors that work with athletes were included. Email addresses for participants were collected through athletic department websites that had publicly listed contact information. A list of all 347 Division I colleges was obtained through the NCAA website. Contact information was found by searching the athletic faculty directory of each individual Division I college and collecting publicly available email addresses. The collected emails consisted of 510 personnel, and 115 of them partook in the survey. If a school had multiple AAAs than all contacts were gathered. In cases where there was no AAA listed on the directory, the individual in charge of academics for SAs was contacted instead. This was done to assure a high volume of participants and to guarantee all DI colleges were contacted.

Data collection
A 34-item online questionnaire was disseminated and presented to the target advisors using an online survey platform. The survey yielded quantitative and qualitative data, with four different sections. First, the demographic section covered topics that categorized the advisors and their backgrounds; this was accomplished via multiple choice questions. The second section reviewed what prepared the advisors to do their jobs and the level to which they were prepared. This section utilized multiple choice questions, and a Likert scale with 1 being “not prepared” and 5 being “extremely prepared”. These questions were derived from previous research regarding academic background/curriculum/coursework, identifying advisor roles, and asking how they were trained for their profession. The third section asked how much the AAAs agreed with job role descriptions that were generated by reviewing hiring ads for AAAs in the 2017-2018 academic year. This was done by using a Likert scale with 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree. The last section researched the challenges advisors encounter when advising athletes, and was achieved by asking open-ended questions. This was done to eliminate any biases from the researcher. All the questions were grounded in the academic advising constructivist theory.

Data analysis
The multiple-choice questions were analyzed by pulling the data from Baseline SRS, an online service tool, and importing it into Microsoft Excel. Equations were used in Microsoft Excel to find the mean and standard deviation for several questions. Demographic data was used to determine any correlations between the advisor’s background and their preparedness by comparing each question to their self-given score on preparedness. To determine job roles, AAAs were asked their level of agreement on a Likert scale with various roles that were generated through previous studies and observing AAA job hiring ads. The challenges AAAs withstood were determined by searching through the open-ended questions regarding challenges and creating common themes based on their answers. An analytical semantic approach was used to find the themes in the open-ended questions. This approach suggests that as “a progression from description, where the data have simply been organized to show patterns in semantic content, and summarized, to interpretation, where there is an attempt to theorize the significance of the patterns and their broader meanings and implications” (Braun, 2006, p. 13). This format of analytics has been proven effective, and by using this system the research remained quantitative (Braun, 2006; Gartley, 2016; Kim, 2013).

Demographics
The survey was sent to 511 AAAs with 115 responses (108 of which completed every portion of the survey), which yielded a response rate of 23%. The AAAs represented various DI programs in 38 states across the United States. The average age was 37, with 67% of respondents being female. Most held a master’s degree (83%), and the most common degrees were education (35%) and sport management (31%). The advisors were most commonly assigned to 101+ athletes (67%) and had been in the profession 0-6 years (61%).

Job roles
Data was collected to determine if there were any disagreements between the AAAs on their typical job roles as defined by research related to academic advisor job postings (Belcheir, 1998; Chan, 2016; Khalil, 2014; Knox, 2003). There was little discrepancy between each advisor’s answers on job roles. All participants responded agree or strongly agree to all job role questions. Table 1 represents these job roles:

Preparedness
This portion of the survey asked the AAAs questions regarding how they prepared for their jobs. Due to the gap in research on AAA preparation, the questions asked used previous literature regarding general university academic advisors, counselors, and other similar jobs (Brown, 2007; Brown, 2008; Habley, 2004; Knox, 2003).

AAAs were asked what training or instructions they received at the start of their employment that aided them in their jobs. The most common themes are listed in Figure 1 below.

The advisor was then asked if they had ever worked with SAs in their previous job, to which 68.42% responded that they had. The next topics related to preparedness covered seminars, college courses, and workshops attended. Of the responding AAAs, 18% had never attended a workshop that focused on academic advising, while 48% of AAAs had been to 4 or more. The results showed that more than half of advisors (53%) had never researched any advising strategies specifically related to working with SAs. AAAs were asked how prepared they felt when they first began their career. The average self-given score was a 3.18, using a Likert scale with 1 being not prepared, and 5 being extremely prepared. Table 2 provides the layout of the scores.

The self-given scores of how prepared the AAAs felt were then compared with various background details to look for any correlations. The correlations are in Table 3 below.

Challenges for athletic academic advisors
Two open-ended questions were asked related to the challenges the AAAs encountered when working with SAs. These topics were not pre-determined; themes were created based on the popularity of each topic being mentioned within the answers. To keep the analysis consistent, if a single AAA mentioned the same topic multiple times, it was only tallied once. However, if the AAA mentioned something in more than one topic area, they were tallied in all relevant topics. After reading through and categorizing all the answers, several themes emerged and were then grouped into categories. For example: faculty, athlete and coach communications were categorized together under “communications issues”. Class offerings, practice times, travel schedules, and fitting in major specific classes were all categorized under “Class scheduling and availability”. The results of the two open-ended questions regarding AAA challenges are listed below in figure 2 and 3.

Both open-ended questions resulted in several common themes, including scheduling/class availability, lack of academic desire and preparedness, NCAA eligibility issues, and athlete attitude/attendance issues. While scheduling and class availability was the most mentioned theme it cannot be controlled or changed due to SA practice schedules and when classes are offered. Because of these uncontrollable factors, the discussion will stray from this topic. The other results will be discussed further in the next section.

The following discussion is broken into the three topics of the study: preparation, job roles, and challenges. It was formatted to reflect that the current study took a broad approach to study the career of AAA.

Athletic academic advisor preparation
The results provided qualifications that may aid AAA job preparation. Previous research suggested that advising workshops, researching advising practices, individual advisor training programs, risk assessment tests, being trained by previous advisors, and goal-oriented outcomes were key factors in preparing academic advisors (Brown, 2007; Brown, 2008; Habley, 2004; Smith, 2004). However, according to Brown (2008) only 33% of advisors felt they had been properly trained. The current study found that most AAAs responded that they were self-taught, which goes against the format of training Brown (2008) found that advisors most suggested, which was being taught through a training program. A small percentage of advisors responded that they were put through a mentor/training program, which previous studies suggested was not sufficient (Brown, 2008). AAAs showed that they were unprepared by their response to the current survey. This suggests that AAAs are not prepared, therefore the system of how they are trained was not accomplishing its purpose. According to the survey, AAAs that were self-taught or learned through a manual scored lower on preparedness than those who were personally trained. Again, this is congruent with the style of training previous literature suggested (Brown, 2008), and shows the importance of putting AAAs through a training program.

Education also played a factor in the preparedness of AAAs. Most obtained their master’s degree, and these advisors also generated the highest preparedness score, while advisors with only a bachelor’s degree scored significantly lower. The additional education appeared to further prepare AAAs, likely by gaining more relevant academic and field experience (Goodman-Scott, 2015). Another education factor was the type of academic degree that AAAs received. The most common answers were sport management, education, and other. The advisors that answered “other” most commonly had a more specific degree such as Higher Education or Counseling. When the AAAs score on preparedness was combined with their degree focus, certain focuses correlated with a higher score. The answers on degrees that ranked high were other, psychology/sociology and sport management, and the degrees with a lower ranking were education and administration. This data represents how academic backgrounds can have an impact on the preparedness for AAAs, similar to what Goodman-Scott (2015) found with school counselors. When topics taught in academics align with real job roles, AAAs are more likely to feel prepared (Goodman-Scott, 2015). The previous research, combined with the current data, suggests that degree programs in specialized topics, such as counseling, higher education, sport management, and psychology/sociology, provide academic courses and experiences that give AAAs the information needed to be better prepared.

Another key factor that correlated with AAAs giving themselves a high preparedness score was previous work with SAs. This can be connected to a past study by Smith (2004), which found that further understanding the specific population aided in advisor preparation. Previous experience working with the SAs helps to further understand the population, which helps AAAs easily relate and develop connections with the SA (Smith, 2004). Going forward, it is important for AAAs to have former involvement with SAs, as this allows the advisor to feel better prepared for their line of work.

The most distinguishing preparedness topic was whether the college had a known written set of job roles. AAAs that had a written job role ranked themselves higher on preparedness, which was congruent with the previous study by Smith (2004). Smith’s research found that academic counselors who had outcomes and written goals had more success. It would prove useful to AAA’s preparedness for colleges and universities to have written expectations.

Challenges dealing with student-athletes
The challenges encountered during job-related activities has been researched previously for professions comparable to AAA, but there was a gap in research for this career. According to the current survey, multiple themes emerged that were challenges specific to the AAA and their relationship to the SA. The most common theme was class scheduling and availability, however this has too many unmanageable factors to allow for stable conclusions to be drawn. The following discussion is set up to cover the other common themes individually.

Student-athlete lack of academic desire or preparation
A common theme was SA lack of academic desire or preparation. One response that illustrated this was: “The biggest challenges I have been encountering lately is the lack of independence and the level to which our student-athletes are independent learners.” In previous research, academic advisors discussed a similar challenge by explaining that freshman students had a lack of willingness and lacked adaptation to the new collegiate academic level (Chan, 2016). The rationale behind why SAs lack academic preparedness could vary. Some SAs come from at-risk backgrounds, while others may have been accepted to the school even though their previous academics were not up to standard. An example of this was shown in the following survey response: “Most of our male student athletes are minority and from lower socioeconomic backgrounds which presents confidence issues, learning disabilities and general college preparedness.” While the cause of the academic preparation for SAs cannot be extensively defined, it was evident that it exists.

The AAAs commonly expressed a lack of academic desire by the SAs, highlighted in comments that the SAs were more focused on athletics than academics, looked for the easiest classes, or simply were not prepared academically. One AAA responded, “They are less focused on their academic career and focused more on their professional career in athletics.” These types of challenges cause difficulties for AAAs. SAs that are not engaged in academics will not seek the help from AAAs that they might need, similarly to what Watson (2005) found when researching student compliance. This can create a large difficulty for AAAs, especially when attempting to help SAs take and pass classes that will help them in their future careers outside of athletics. Chan (2016) found that students become more passionate about academics when they have a grasp on their future careers, but in this case, SAs have a focus on an athletic career, which generally creates a lack of passion for academics. Literature suggests that if the SA was made aware of careers outside of professional sports, it would help them gain academic desire, which would relieve some of the challenges AAAs face (Chan, 2016).

NCAA eligibility rules
Another common challenge for AAAs was navigating through the NCAA eligibility rules. The rules cannot be controlled by the school or advisors, but AAAs expressed difficulty in keeping up with rule changes and keeping the SA eligible for sports competition, while also still helping them academically. The eligibility rules include keeping a SA’s GPA above the school’s standards for graduation, commonly a 1.8, completing 40% of coursework within their major by the end of the second year, and 60% of the coursework within their major by the end of the third year (NCAA, 2018). While a non-SA must also typically keep a minimum GPA, the percent of coursework completed applies exclusively to SAs. AAAs expressed that the degree completion rule was hindering their advising services. They explained that there were multiple SAs that had academic aspirations and wanted to switch the major they were currently in; however, letting the SA switch majors would sometimes cause them to fall below the 40% or 60% rule, and therefore make them ineligible. This rule also applies to transfer students, as one AAA mentioned: “Transfer students…come in unprepared for their new school, especially in not knowing majors that they can complete and retain their eligibility”. Another AAA commented, “Working with student-athletes that decide to change their major late in the process – it is difficult for some of them to meet the % rule in the new major.” According to the current research, AAAs typically did not have difficulties with the GPA requirement, but the degree progress was often recognized as the larger challenge.

Student-athlete attitude and attendance issues
The third theme was SA attitude and attendance issues. This can best be described in a response to the current survey when an AAA mentioned “(student-athletes) identity issues, and sense of entitlement make them MORE challenging.” This is congruent with previous research done by Tinsley (1982) and Watson (2005). Both studies found that SAs had lower help-seeking attitudes towards counseling or development programs (Tinsely, 1982; Watson, 2005). Watson (2005) took this a step further and found that SAs scored significantly lower on behavior and willingness to seek help from counselors. Data from the current study showed that this was also true for AAAs. A lack of SA attendance at meetings with the AAAs prohibits them from doing their job.

SAs having attitude issues was a unique discovery in the present study. AAAs suggested the SA have issues with identity, being entitled, and being mentally and physically exhausted from their daily routine, which can cause poor attitudes. Typical responses from the AAAs included that the SA seemed entitled, which caused them not to respect the AAA or have any intentions of listening to them. Two responses on the written section of the survey that highlighted this, stated “many student athletes are entitled and have things handed to them at a high level” and “the stereotype threat of being a ‘jock’ (internal and external)”. This entitlement challenge is unique to SAs likely because of the recognition and glorification SAs receive as Division I athletes. However, the specific cause of their entitlement has not been fully researched.

Stressed student-athletes
The fourth theme was athletes being stressed. When this was expressed, AAAs generally seemed worried about the well-being of the SA, as one such advisor commented: “Time constraints and high expectations academically and athletically create a lot of anxiety for student-athletes.” They commonly expressed the toll of the physical activity needed for sport preparation and competition as something overbearing that caused the SAs stress. Another issue causing SAs to be stressed was a negative outside influence, such as negative parents, coaches, or teachers. More research needs to be accomplished to determine the specific cause of SA stress, but AAAs understand that the SA is indeed stressed, which negatively impacts their services.

Communication issues
The last common theme was communication issues. This topic was also found as a challenge among advisors that deal with athletes in a previous study done by Thompson (2011b). The previous research focused on communication privacy dilemmas and challenges on dealing with sensitive information (Thompson, 2011b). The current survey, however, found that AAAs mentioned this topic occasionally, but more often talked about a lack of proper communication between the faculty, coaches, and SA themselves. This is a currently under-researched topic when specifically looking at AAAs. The most common challenge discussed regarding communication was a lack of the coach’s understanding. Within this theme, nearly half of AAAs mentioned something about having to work with difficult coaches, or the coach not being understanding of the players’ academic pursuits. The second most common sub-theme was teachers not being understanding of the SAs schedules. These two challenges, based on communication, makes it difficult for AAAs to fulfill their jobs because the faculty and coaches they attempt to work with were not always understanding.

Job role congruence
Previous research has focused on academic advisor’s job roles (Belcheir, 1998; Chan, 2016; Khalil, 2014; Knox, 2003), but this topic was unexplored for AAAs. The AAAs were asked their agreement level with various job roles. Some of these roles were pulled from recent research on academic advisors, and others were found through hiring listings. Previous literature suggested job roles for academic advisors including being a mentor, navigating programs, supporting students, and creating a trusting relationship with students (Chan, 2016; Knox, 2003). There were some discrepancies on roles for advisors in previous literature, which included if they should help with career plans, professor conflicts or working with another faculty, information disclosure, and the amount of communication that should happen with students (Chan, 2016; Khalil, 2014; Knox, 2003).

The data from the present research was unexpected. AAAs answers averaged “strongly agree” on every job role presented in the study (see table 1). A previous study by Knox (2003) suggested that academic advisors take on too many job roles and tasks, which makes it difficult to define what they truly need to accomplish. AAAs strongly agreeing with all job roles listed examples that their roles are extensive, and shows they are willing to take on nearly any tasks that are plausible in their position. The current data shows that AAAs likely have a written set of job roles; however, research suggested that they are expected to go beyond those roles (Knox, 2003). AAAs frequently go beyond their job duties, even if there was a different campus department designed for that duty. One example of this was that AAAs strongly agreed that their job including helping students with careers, even though most Division I colleges have career counselors. This suggests it is possible that the current written set of job details is not sufficient to meet the needs of SA and should be re-adjusted. As Brown’s (2008) research suggests, there needs to be new research to identify what the advising needs are for students, or in this case SAs.

The current research determined that AAAs are not adequately prepared, in congruence with what Brown (2007, 2008) found with academic advisors. However, the findings contribute to the current literature by suggesting that the most prepared AAAs are those who have worked with SAs previously, obtained a master’s degree, had a defined set of job roles, and were mentored. While having a defined set of job roles was important to AAA preparation, the findings established that AAAs often accept all job roles that could be remotely close to their position (see Table 1), even roles out of their scope of practice. This was congruent with previous research on academic advisors’ job roles, which found that few agreed on what the defined job tasks should entail (Belcheir, 1998; Chan, 2016; Khalil, 2014; Knox, 2003).
Lastly, the current study generated the common themes that AAAs mentioned as difficulties specific to advising SAs. Previously, Watson (2005) reviewed differences between SAs and normal college students on help-seeking attitudes and found that SAs scored lower. The previous research aligned with the two of the top themes found in the current research: lack of academic desire and preparedness of SAs, and athlete attendance and attitude issues. The survey also found new findings on AAA challenges through the themes of struggles with NCAA eligibility issues, communication problems, and stressed athletes.
This paper makes a considerable contribution to the previous literature, with the first aspect being job preparation. While non-SA advisors and AAAs have similar jobs, the differences between the two suggest other means of preparation might be in order. The current research provided the necessary information on what impacts the preparation of AAAs. Another contribution is the challenges AAAs face. As mentioned, there are multiple tactics previously studied that are thought to aid AAAs in their challenges, but nothing has defined the challenges themselves. The current research defined these challenges, which accompanies previous literature and informs the public which tactics may be relevant according to the AAA perspectives.

Research surrounding AAAs has only scratched the surface, particularly considering it is a rising profession in collegiate athletics. This research was a wide scope study of their position, but more research is needed to further understand their job and challenges. The first limitation correlated to the AAAs that had worked with SAs previously. The current research showed that AAAs who had worked with SAs previously recognized themselves as more prepared, but the extent to which they worked with SAs was not documented. Further questions about the amount and the arrangement they worked with SAs would have produced a further understanding. The second limitation pertained to the job role section of the survey, which listed roles generated by looking at hiring athletic directors for AAAs and drawing from previous research. Survey respondents were asked about their level of agreement with each job role on a scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree, and each question averaged strongly agree. While these findings are significant, further insight could have been accomplished through utilizing more open-ended questions. Using this format could have led to uncovering more aspects of the job tasks AAAs take on.

The most prevalent area of future research resides in the challenges AAAs undertake. Several common themes were found within the current research findings, but to get a deeper understanding each individual theme should be researched. For example, a common theme was lack of SA academic desire and preparation to succeed academically. This theme was also similar in other studies from the point of the SA or various faculty, but no research exists on how AAAs are dealing with this challenge or if there are any current strategies being used that are effective. Future research could aim to develop ways to combat the challenges AAAs manage. The findings from future research related to these challenges could prove instrumental to AAAs and continue to improve their services.

The second area of future research relates to the aforementioned limitation on job roles. It is important to develop a standard definition of job roles for AAAs. Since this is a newer and rising career field, it is important to look at how their job aligns with other services offered to college athletes, and what AAAs need to accomplish to align with those other services. This paper highlighted that these advisors manage a wide range of roles, which leads to the question, what roles are essential for them to fulfill their job responsibilities? According to the survey, the more job roles are defined for AAAs, the more likely they are to be prepared for each of those roles.

Administrators looking to hire AAAs will also benefit from the research by understanding what a AAA needs to be prepared. Multiple topics were found that correlated to a higher score on preparation, so hiring administration could use these criteria as they employ AAAs. They will be able to also create more accurate job postings by using the preparation research, job descriptions, and roles developed in the present research. The combination of these factors should lead colleges to hire AAAs that will provide better services to SAs. This leads to the last beneficiary of the current research, the SAs themselves. With AAAs being more prepared and knowledgeable on challenges, they will be able to provide a better service. This will likely lead to SAs being more accepting of advising services, and the outcome will be a better relationship between the two. With this stronger relationship, the SA will be able to benefit greater from the use of their services.

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