Everyone is an Alien Somewhere: Investigating the Skills Needed for Effective Learning Advising

Universities in New Zealand often offer a range of student support services, and one of these valuable resources is learning advising. At the university under examination in this study, learning advising is offered as personalised one-on-one appointments with a learning adviser. These sessions are tailored to address the individual needs of students. While students frequently provide positive feedback about these sessions, as reflected in anecdotal accounts and satisfaction surveys, the specific benefits they get from the one-to-one meetings remain unclear. As a result, the necessary skills for learning advisers to excel in their roles have not been clearly defined.

The research involved conducting interviews with twenty graduates who had used the one-on-one appointments to explore their perspectives on the sessions' usefulness in their academic journey. Themes emerged from these interviews, which were subsequently used to inform a survey. The survey was then distributed to current students who had attended one-to-one appointments, aiming to identify which themes resonated the most with them. The survey received nearly four hundred responses.

The most prominent themes that emerged from the survey revolved around support strategies that built the confidence to engage with academic expectations and to develop autonomy and competence. Both Bourdieu's concepts of cultural capital, cultural field, and habitus and Ryan and Deci’s Self-Determination Theory were used in the analysis of the themes. The findings in this research are valuable for Learning Advisers and overall student support. They highlight diverse ways in which students find support beneficial, pointing to potential areas for professional development within student support teams.