Abstract
As colleges and universities around the world grapple with the continuing impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it is necessary for research to not only focus on student academic learning issues, but also test for maintained support of needed student resources such as Academic Advising and Professional Development Centers. Using the Senior Student Satisfaction Survey, two separate samples of graduating business undergraduates at a Mid-Atlantic University in the United States of America were surveyed, in late Spring 2019 (pre-pandemic) and late Spring 2020 (early pandemic). The goals of this study were two-fold. The first was to test for changes from pre-pandemic to early pandemic in seven student-related perception measures: attendance motivation, coursework challenge, professional development engagement, academic advising ease/quality, professional development ease/quality, business degree satisfaction, and perceived market value to potential employers. The second goal was to test for changes in the perceived relationships of five “independent variables”, i.e., attendance motivation, coursework challenge, professional development engagement, academic advising center ease/quality, and professional development center ease/quality, to two “dependent variables”, i.e., business degree satisfaction and perceived market value to potential employers. Comparing pre-pandemic (2019) to early pandemic (2020) perceptual change data, this study found that both the Academic Advising and Professional Development Centers handled these student-based perception variables from the surveys quite well. When the campus was suddenly closed due to the pandemic, both Centers successfully made quick adaptive changes to virtual models to handle initial student needs.
Highlights
1.1 Introduce the ProblemDespite recent vaccination advancements, virus variants of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to bring health, economic and social upheaval, and continued cause for concern, to millions of lives around the world (Plater, 2021)
The purpose of this study is to extend Blau et al (2021) by examining graduating student perceptions to the early pandemic response of academic advising and student professional development at a Business School in the United States
This study expands the scope of prior empirical work of Blau et al (2021), who demonstrated the importance of internship support to business students during the early pandemic period
Summary
1.1 Introduce the ProblemDespite recent vaccination advancements, virus variants of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to bring health, economic and social upheaval, and continued cause for concern, to millions of lives around the world (Plater, 2021). As part of their closure process, e.g., Concordia College (New York) students were allowed to finish their degrees at nearby universities/colleges (Aspegren, 2021) This upheaval in higher level education was felt across the world (Bozkurt et al, 2020). Studies of college students in the early pandemic stage revealed experienced panic with greater COVID-19 fears and increased depressive mood (Hasratian, Nordberg, Meuret & Riz, 2021), and the need for tailored prevention intervention strategies to recognize student perceived barriers and self-efficacy (Tam, Li, Li, Wang & Lin, 2021). Highlighting the need for agility and adaptability McCormack et al (2021) made several general recommendations, including the need for global higher education institutions to: focus on long-range planning over crisis management, and increase awareness/monitoring of http://journal.julypress.com/index.php/jed
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