Remote online academic advising during the Covid-19 pandemic: A Malaysian public university experience

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic forced academics worldwide to quickly shift to online classes. In the Malaysian context, this shift invites diverse reactions from students concerning the cost of high-speed data plans, poor connectivity, and instability of learning platforms which eventually affected the psychological and emotional state of the students. Reacting to these issues, one university in Malaysia rendered students with three options: to continue studies online, continue studies online with minimum credit, or defer their studies. While residing in remote areas and in reaching a decision, students turn to their academic advisors for advice. This remote online advising, however, posed challenges to the academic advisors. This study explored the challenges experienced by the academic advisors in rendering remote online advising and proposes suggestions to cater to those challenges. Assisted by the interview protocol, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 10 academic advisors. Each interview session was recorded and transcribed verbatim, and then emailed to the participants for verification. The transcripts were analyzed thematically with the assistance of Nvivo12. The findings revealed that academic advisors faced four main challenges in performing remote online advising. This study is significant in enhancing remote online academic advising for students’ satisfaction.