Toward Institutionalizing Academic Advising: A Needs Assessment at a Korean Private University

Abstract

Self-designed curricular pathways are expanding across Korean higher education, increasing the complexity of students’ academic, major, and career decision-making. This study examined student and faculty perspectives on institutionalizing a professionalized Academic Advisor (AA) role through a needs assessment at a private university in South Korea. Data were collected from a non-probability sample of 407 undergraduate students, concentrated primarily in health-science and education-related departments, and 10 full-time faculty members through a cross-sectional student survey and semi-structured faculty interviews. Students reported difficulty establishing criteria for deciding among options; 62.9% preferred a single, continuous advisor, and 64.6% indicated greater willingness to seek consultation after developing trust. Students also showed endorsement of proactive, data-informed support, although human-mediated interpretation was not directly tested as a condition of acceptance. A significant but small grade-level difference was found in advisor-relationship perception (F(2, 394) = 3.27, p = 0.039, η2 = 0.016). Faculty interviews identified role overload, demand for proactive intervention, and a need to differentiate emotional mentorship from professional advising. Integrating the findings informed a preliminary dual-track advising framework combining faculty mentoring, professional AAs, competency-based quality assurance, and a hybrid Early Alert process. Rather than representing an implemented or validated model, the framework provides a preliminary direction for institutional development and future evaluation. From a sustainability perspective, the findings highlight the need to build institutional advising capacity while reducing reliance on discretionary faculty labor.