Donald A. Biggs

The dynamics of undergraduate academic advising

This study describes job activities, role expectations, and jobs satisfactions of academic advisers. The sample consisted of 452 faculty and staff academic advisers in five colleges at the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities). Seventy-two percent of the sample completed the questionnaire.The work of the academic adviser can be classified into four clusters of job activities. Three involve helping students: (1) with special academic, social, or financial problems, (2) with emotional or psychological problems, and (3) with academic and career guidance problems. The fourth involves administrative activities. Results from this study also suggest that advisers spend most of their time approving registration cards and providing information about academic requirements. Most advisers view themselves as appropriate sources of help in academic and vocational guidance areas rather than in personal or social ones.In general, most academic advisers are satisfied with their work as an adviser. A substantial percentage is dissatisfied with the amount of recognition they receive. Finally, those advisers with more advanced degrees and those with larger numbers of advisees tend to be more dissatisfied.

The student counsellor as a team member

Abstract Describing the future roles and services of British counsellors in higher and further education must not be done in professional isolation. We need to consider how the future roles of professional counsellors will positively affect the counselling done by academic staff Furthermore, rather than making generalisations about counselling needs, it may be better for working parties or task forces to develop counselling models which are appropriate to particular institutions. Such task forces should address some of the pressing issues confronting academic institutions: for example, (1) the revitalisation of the curriculum; (2) the improvement of the out-of-classroom relationships between academic staff and students; and (3) the development and maintenance of effective systems of academic government. If counsellors are to develop services which will help to resolve some of the problems associated with these issues, they will have to be increasingly clear about their own values.

Recreational Effects of Marijuana and Alcohol: Some Descriptive Dimensions

Effect-orientation and relaxation are singled out as potentially useful concepts for social research on the recreational effects of marijuana and alcohol. Factor analyses of questionnaire data from a large study of marijuana and alcohol users reveal that these concepts coherently describe independent dimensions of recreational effects. Relaxation is generally characteristic of the effects of both drugs, but the effect-orientations of marijuana and alcohol differ considerably. The effects of both drugs change predictably along the two dimensions as drug-using situations change. These findings are related to important problems for further social research on recreational drug effects.

Perceived Risks of Marijuana and Alcohol Use: Comparisons of Non-Users and Regular Users

Survey data on various risks attributed to drug use are analyzed through two-way comparisons of non-users and regular users of marijuana and alcohol. For both drugs, non-users perceive considerably greater risk in use than do regular users. For most kinds of drug-related risks, alcohol use is perceived as involving the same or greater degrees of risk than is marijuana use. The findings suggest that young people will not attach a great deal of credibility to propaganda emphasizing the risks of marijuana use.

Moral Judgment Development of Freshmen and Their Precollege Experiences.

This study examines the relationship between precollege experiences and moral judgment development of freshman students. The sample consisted of 767 freshmen at the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities). Freshmen with low Principled Morality scores compared to those with high scores had lower mean Contemporary-Cultural, Artistic, Literary, and Academic-Conceptual Precollege Experience scores. Females had higher mean Contemporary-Cultural, Artistic, and Literary Precollege Experience scores. Males had a higher mean Jobs Precollege Experience score. For males, the Literary measure had the highest correlation with Principled Morality scores, while for females, the Artistic measure had the highest correlation.