Bruin Brief 2021-11-19: Advising students

Student Advising

“A mentor must always guide, never push. It was my job to listen to them, offer my perspective, and encourage them to pursue the ideals they believed to be true.”
― John Wooden, A Game Plan for Life

Every year in late June, we send out a lengthy survey asking recent UCLA School of Nursing graduates about their just-completed degree program at UCLA School of Nursing. This survey is called the EBI Skyfactor Survey. One component in the survey addresses satisfaction with advising from both a faculty advisor and student services. Here is 2021 data.

What do the red boxed questions mean?

The survey responses are from 1-7 with the below satisfaction scale. The EBI mean score of 5.5 or greater corresponds to our 75% performance benchmark in the School of Nursing. The red boxes around the questions regarding advising signify we are below our mean goal of 5.5. And that is concerning.

Differences between BS, MECN, and APRN questions

The EBI survey is sent out to our undergraduate students and our masters prepared students. Since MECN is a master’s program, they receive the same questions our APRN students receive even though they are a pre-licensure program. The survey questions are developed by EBI and used as a standard by many schools of nursing so we are able to compare how we are doing with other nursing schools offering undergraduate and graduate nursing programs.

Current process for student advising.

The program directors have been working to beef up the advising models we’re using. At this point, we’re moving ahead with the following models to begin to address flagging scores.

DNP students are assigned to an advisor during the first year. This seems to be working.
PhD students have an advisor assigned at admission, and that person often becomes their dissertation chair. The students constitute a 4-person dissertation committee for team-based advising as well. This seems to be working
APRN: In Year 1 of their program, new students are paired with a second year student. There is group advising at scheduled intervals in the year, sponsored by the program director with breakout rooms for smaller advising sessions. In year 2, group advising continues and champions for each specialty are available to students. Stay tuned for more information as the MSN-APRN program directors refine this model with faculty.
Prelicensure: BS and MECN students: We have laser-focused attention on advising for PL students right now. Faculty and program directors are thinking through all the ways that advising can be strengthened. At this point, faculty are informed of their advisees in September each year. Lecturers get up to 10 advisees but other faculty are assigned approximately 20 advisees. Faculty meet with students individually or as a group quarterly to check in. But it just doesn’t seem to be working. Please share your ideas for improvement with Anita Bralock and Emma Cuenca, and look for discussion items at upcoming pre-licensure program meetings.

Each one of us can identify and address students’ academic and personal needs. We can link students with resources. Our colleagues in Student Services are expert in many of these areas, so together we can build a strong disciplinary and professional mentoring approach. For a variety of reasons, our collective commitment falls short of students’ expectations, with low scores reflecting their discontent and disappointment in our advising. We can do better.

“If it wasn’t documented it wasn’t done”-said every RN charting on their patient

When you advise a student, make it real by documenting it. Faculty advisee forms can be easily found on the new Student Affairs Office website under the Faculty tab in the upper right hand corner. You must be logged into your UCLA google account using your bruin online credentials in order to access the site https://sites.google.com/g.ucla.edu/sonstudentaffairsoffice/home . Reach out to @Kang, Janet if you are having difficulty accessing the site.

Why does all this matter?

From our EBI survey data regarding student satisfaction with advising, we see that we have room for improvement. We all have a special role in helping our students thrive, and student advising is just one way we can make a lasting impact.

In customary Bruin fashion I shall end with…GOOOOOOOOO BRUINS, FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!!!!!!

This week’s Bruin Brief was written by Brenda Yeung, Policy Analyst in Academic Affairs

Brenda Yeung MSN, OCN, CMSRN, CBCN

Project Policy Analyst

Office of Academic Affairs

UCLA School of Nursing