What is Academic Advising? An Application of Analytic Induction

Abstract

Nearly 40 years after the creation of NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising and at least as many years after academic advising was recognized as a unique role in higher education, the term academic advising as applied to individuals who work in higher education has been only colloquially defined. Using the analytic induction research method, we arrived at a definition of academic advising created from the words of academic advisors. In this paper, we address the way each word or phrase has been used to create the definition and present implications for policy, research, and practice.