Optimizing Academic Advisor Roles Via E-mentoring At English Department of Universitas Negeri Makassar
Nurul Azizah Iqbal1, Kisman Salija2*, Samtidar3
1,2,3English Education Department, State University of Makassar, Indonesia E-mail: 1[email protected], 2[email protected], 3[email protected]
*corresponding author
Abstract
This research examines the Optimizing Academic Advisor Roles Via E- mentoring at English Department of Universitas Negeri Makassar. The researchers applied descriptive qualitative method. The subject of this research was the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th semester students from English Education class Pare-Pare. The subjects consist of 10 students which were taken by using purposive random sampling technique. The data obtained through interview which were analysed qualitatively in several stages, namely data reduction, data display, and drawing conclusion and verification to find accuracy data. The result of data analysis showed that based on the interview which had been taken via WhatsApp, it can be said that this study demonstrates that e- mentoring has promise as a vehicle for preparing study plans, giving consideration in choosing courses programmed, guiding in approving the study plan, solving personal, social, and career problems via E-mentoring during Covid-19 pandemic such as WhatsApp.
Keywords— Academic advisor roles, E-mentoring.
INTRODUCTION
Learning English as a foreign language in Indonesia requires an important role of advisor or academic advisor in directing and fostering mastery in the foreign language learning process.
The roles and responsibilities of the Academic Advisor are combined in the form of mentoring.
Mentoring comes from Greek mythology, the word mentor has the meaning of acting as someone who provides advice, role models, as well as guidance or direction (Roberts, 1999).
Mentoring is also a learning process, where a mentor is able to make the mentee (mentoring participant) learn to be more independent or accustomed to being independent. Mentoring is the hidden "offline help" provided by mentors to mentees to provide significant additional knowledge (Mc Kimm, Jolie & Hatter, 2007).
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Mentoring is a relationship between two people that facilitates discussion that will result in reflection, carrying out activities, assignments and good learning based on support, constructive criticism, openness, trust, appreciation and a desire to learn and share (Ali &
Panther, 2008; Anderson, 2011).
Mentoring is a mutually beneficial relationship from someone who has more experience to less experienced individuals to identify and achieve common goals (Ali & Panther, 2008;
Anderson, 2011; Dadge & Casey, 2009; McKimm, Jolie & Hatter, 2007).
Related studies reveal that the term mentor is recognized internationally in the literature;
On the other hand, the accompanying terms are replaced with alternatives such as apprenticeship, student, or student at that time (Kahraman, 2012). According to Ismail and Arokiasamy (2007), the reason for assistance is expanded by social constructivist learning theory. Landsberg (2015) states that mentoring is a role that includes guidance and counseling.
Homitz and Wadia- Fascetti (2008) argue that a mentor serves to help students achieve their goals through questions and thinking independently. It is known that the classical mentoring practice where experienced and specialized mentors provide guidance to individuals by supporting and encouraging students to be better.
The university uses family mentoring to maintain standards, such as new employee orientation and career advancement. Formal mentoring depends on the mentor, planning until goals are determined by the mentor. Formal mentoring is valued more by universities.
Recognition from universities is more common than informal mentoring. Informal mentoring is spontaneous mentoring within a certain period of time according to the needs of being assisted and does not require preparation for the mentoring process. Informal mentoring does not require a formal contract and is not compatible with university goals. Informal mentoring occurs on a voluntary basis, and relationships are formed based on trust between mentors and mentees. Informal mentoring can increase satisfaction and motivation. The informal mentoring referred to here is a situation or condition in which students and lecturers discuss.
This situation begins when a Students asks a lecturer and the lecturer provides a complete explanation of what the students is asking. The suggestion is using E-mentoring to cost reduction, equitable status, notes of teaching materials, demographic emphasis, and achievement and media to compare the success of face to face and e-mentoring. Based on the explanation above, this study tries to reveal a phenomenon on how “optimizing academic
advisor roles via e-mentoring in English department, universitas Negeri Makassar Parepare campus based Academic Year 2020/2021.
LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Academic Advisor
Academic advisor is somebody in a proficient position at an institution who may direct imminent and current understudies through the confirmation handle, course enrollment and determination, program arranging, degree completion, grants and more. Advisors offer assistance understudies discover arrangements to course or degree- particular necessities or they may interface understudies to particular administrations as required.
According to Flatley R, Weber MA, Czerny S, Pham S (2013), Academic advisor is an individual who is interested in the students' development and success, he is not only responsible for course schedules but he is also a skillful person who clarifies goals and values for the students in universities and help them to achieve higher goals, continue education, and get proper jobs. In addition to promoting professional and social skills, academic advisors create grounds for the students to help them establish the communication and make use of available resources in the society.
2. The Roles of Academic Advisor at Universitas Negeri Makassar
in Universitas Negeri Makassar context, the roles of academic advisor refer to academic advisor Regulation Chapter 4 Article 15. These Regulation serve so that academic advisor has guidelines when consulting students. The regulation are as follows;
a. Directing understudies in planning their ponder plans, giving thought to understudies in choosing courses modified for one semester, and endorsing the KRS that has been filled in by understudies some time recently filling out the online KRS.
b. Giving suggestions around understudy victory rates for student's particular purposes.
c. Making a difference understudies in creating their demeanors and identities towards the realization of entire Indonesian who have knowledge, think, and carry on as researchers in agreement with appropriate standards, morals and rules.
d. Directing understudies to decide their learning objectives through all encompassing, logical, and collaborative learning prepare.
e. Making a difference understudies to have delicate abilities and difficult abilities based on
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f. Giving exhortation counsel to understudies in cultivating inventiveness, both related to their information and exterior their field of information, which are considered as potential to create themselves.
g. Making a difference understudies to have delicate abilities and difficult abilities based on the requests of learning accomplishment in college.
h. Going with understudies in fathoming individual, social, and career issues amid their consider.
i. Giving counsel to understudies in cultivating imagination, both related to their information and exterior their field of information, which are considered as potential to create themselves.
3. E-Mentoring
Mentors and mentees can use e-mail, teleconferencing with the mentor in accordance with the mentor and mentee's agreement to conduct long-distance communication. This sort of mentoring happens when the tutor and mentee are isolated a few times
During the Covid-19 pandemic, meetings between Academic Advisors and students are conducted online or it could be said through the e-mentoring application. During the Covid-19 pandemic, activities that are usually carried out face-to-face is disallowed due to the fact that we were in the stage of coping with Covid-19 transmission. As a result, schools and universities in Indonesia do online learning methods as well as meetings between students and Academic Advisors which are conducted online. In this case, Academic Advisors use e-mentoring applications such as WhatsApp and Zoom which are very useful in controlling students, both academic and non-academic for the progress of their students. By using e-mentoring applications, can be said that it reduces the cost of students whenever they would like to conduct face-to-face meetings especially for students who are far from the city where the universities located. However, meetings with academic advisors through this e-mentoring application also have several drawbacks, including the absence of development and direct emotional relationships between academic advisors and students.
In accordance with era, e-mentoring application are very useful for the advancement in information and communication technology in the future because in fact, technological are growing rapidly from year to year, therefore, all learning methods carried out online and offline have their advantages and disadvantages.
E-mentoring has weaknesses, that is, media which are used for mentoring like e-mails do not have cues related to proper communication such as expressions face, posture, social status indicators and other vocal cues. This weakness in turn will have a negative impact on communication and learning done. One way to overcome the lack of direct communication is by dividing e-mentoring into electronic meetings and meetings directly. Therefore, the e- mentoring system must not be seen as substitute for traditional mentoring, but rather to complement and extend (Fairman, Miceli, Richards, Tariman, 2012).
The conclusion is that e-mentoring in the digital era is essential because the era has become more sophisticated over the time. Not to replace traditional mentoring or face to face but to complete the lack of direct communication between mentors who are constrained by distance or things that are still unclear when they do a face to - face meeting and also to ease the burden of mentees who have to go back and forth Parepare - Makassar to consult about academic as well as non-academic subjects such as those subjects which being studied in order to give satisfaction to the mentees concerned.
METHODS
1. Research Design
This study uses descriptive qualitative methods that describe in a manner of holistic aspects under study, Gay (2006: 9) revealed that qualitative research is the process of collecting analysis and interpretation of non-numeric data for gain insight or knowledge of the phenomenon under study. This research was collected data holistically about the use of e- mentoring in optimizing the roles of Academic Advisor in the scope of Faculty of Languages and Literature, Universitas Negeri Makassar.
2. Research Setting
This research was conducted on August 2021 in English Department, Faculty of Languages and Literature in academic year 2021/2022.
3. Data Source
The data Sources of this research are student in English Education Parepare class in academic year 2021/2022. Purposive random sampling was used in this research. In general, purposive random sampling is one of the non-random sampling techniques in which the research determines sampling by determining specific characteristics that are appropriate to
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Arikunto (2010) reveals that purposive sampling is the process of selecting the sample by taking the sample based on a specific purpose, not based on the level of the area. As the result of the purposive sampling, the research was conducted in English Education Department class Pare-Pare Universitas Negeri Makassar and the subject is the 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th, semester students who always consult with their Academic Advisor. The data taken was the experience of students in their interactions by using e-mentoring tools like WhatsApp, Zoom, E-Mail, SMS, Facebook and other social medias. The study will use online interviews to answer the question of this research.
4. Research Instrument
To collect data on optimizing the roles of the Academic Advisor English Language in communicating, transferring pedagogical knowledge and moral messages to students majoring in English. Online interviews were used for this study because all information could be obtained clearly and all misunderstandings could be avoided.
5. Data Collection Procedure
Data collection procedure used to answer research question is interview. Interview is guided by the research using online interview with respondents. The data was recorded during the interview for data collection in order to make it easier and avoid misunderstanding and miscommunication.
The first is data reduction which refers to the process of selecting, focusing, simplifying, abstracting, and written transcription (Miles and Huberman, 1994). The summarized data is not only for management but must also be transformed so that it can be adapted to the problems that arise. In starting the data reduction process, one needs to pay attention to adjusting the data obtained with what different groups of respondents will ask about the activities to be carried out that aim to share knowledge. So, after getting data from other groups, it can be taken into consideration and measuring tools to compare and look for similarities and add new information or knowledge related to data or related data information.
Data display is the second element in qualitative model data analysis by (Miles and Huberman 1994). After reducing the data, the next step is displaying the data, this process is more important than data reduction because in this process it provides and collects compressed and organized information that allows it to be used on the next element. Data views can be snippets of text or diagrams, charts, or matrices providing new ways to build about more textually embedded data. Data displays, whether in diagrams or words, allow the analyst
to extrapolate sufficient data to distinguish systematic and related patterns. At the display stage, additional, higher themes or categories may emerge from the data first discovered during the initial data reduction process.
Drawing conclusions and verification is the third stage of qualitative analysis, it is an interesting process to assess available data and look back at the data to consider what data to analyze. Requires a review of related data to check the accuracy of a data or report that appears.
Information or conclusions arising from the data must be tested for plausibility, robustness, 'confirmability' - that is, its validity "(Miles and Huberman, 1994, 2014). Validity means testing the degree of accuracy of the research against the real. Validity is also a special technical term.
Whether a development can degree what it implies incorporates a broader concern approximately the conclusion drawn from the information, can be maintained, justified and can withstand elective explanation.
FINDINGS
The research findings cover the result of interview to answer research questions in the first chapter about (1) What the Academic Advisors do to guide students in preparing their study plans, giving consideration to students in choosing courses programmed for one semester, and approving the KRS that has been filled in by students before filling out the online KRS via WhatsApp, E-Mail, SMS, Zoom? (2) How do Academic Advisors help students in solve personal, social and career problems during their study via WhatsApp, E-Mail, SMS, Zoom?
1. What the Academic Advisors do to guide students in preparing their study plans, giving consideration to students in choosing courses programmed for one semester, and approving the KRS that has been filled in by students before filling out the online KRS via WhatsApp, E- Mail, SMS, Zoom?
As a result, there are fifth categories of question number one. 9 of 10 students are guided by their Academic Advisor prepare their study plans via WhatsApp, 1 of 10 students are not guided by their Academic Advisor prepare their study plans via WhatsApp, 9 of 10 students are given consideration by their Academic Advisor in choosing courses programmed for one semester via WhatsApp, 1 of 10 students are not given consideration by their Academic Advisor in choosing courses programmed for one semester via WhatsApp, 10 of 10 students are guided by their academic advisor in approving KRS that has been filled before filling out the online KRS
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2. How do Academic Advisors help students in solve personal, social and career problems during their study via WhatsApp, E-Mail, SMS, Zoom?
As a result, there are fifth categories of question number two. 8 of 10 students are helped by their Academic Advisor solve their personal problems via WhatsApp, 2 of 10 students are not help by their Academic Advisor solve their personal problems via WhatsApp, 9 of 10 students are students are helped by their Academic Advisor solve their social problems via WhatsApp, 1 of 10 students are not students are helped by their Academic Advisor solve their social problems via WhatsApp, 10 of 10 students are students are not help by their Academic Advisor solve their career problems via WhatsApp. This is strength by the previous extracts.
Discussion
The discussion part reveals the findings interpretation about optimizing academic advisor role via E-Mentoring. It can be concluded from the results based on interviews that have been conducted with 10 students. Based on the interview which had been taken via WhatsApp, it can be said that this study demonstrates that e-mentoring has promise as a vehicle for preparing study plans, giving consideration in choosing courses programmed, guiding in approving KRS, solving personal, social, and career problems via E-mentoring in this Covid-19 pandemic such as WhatsApp. Wright (1999;2000) has done a number of ponders looking into social back in colleges environment. He has found that those who are higher clients of the web tend to be more fulfilled with the levels of social bolster accessible on the web. More specifically, Wright (1999) reveals that satisfaction of this online mentoring support inversely correlates with one’s level of stress. Based on the interview which had been taken via WhatsApp, it can be said that this study demonstrates that e- mentoring has promise as a vehicle for preparing study plans, giving consideration in choosing courses programmed, guiding in approving KRS, solving personal, social, and career problems via E-mentoring in this Covid-19 pandemic such as WhatsApp. Wright (1999;2000) has done a number of studies looking into social support in universities environment. He has found that those who are higher users of the internet tend to be more satisfied with the levels of social support available on the internet. More specifically, Wright (1999) reveals that satisfaction of this online mentoring support inversely correlates with one’s level of stress.
CONCLUSIONS
Numerous of the understudies were offer assistance by their Scholastic Advisors get ready their consider plans, giving thought in choosing courses modified for one semester, and favoring their ponder plans that has been filled in by them some time recently filling out the online think about plans through WhatsApp, Email, and Zoom. But less of the understudies were not offer assistance by their Scholastic Advisors plan their consider plans, giving thought in choosing courses modified for one semester, and approving their study plans that has been filled in by them before filling out the online study plans via WhatsApp, E- Mail, and Zoom. E- mentoring as a computer interceded, commonly useful relationship between a guide and a mentee which gives learning, exhorting, empowering, advancing, and displaying that's regularly boundaryless, libertarian, and subjectively distinctive than conventional face-to-face mentoring.
Many of students were help by their Academic Advisors in solve personal, social and career problems during their study via WhatsApp, E-Mail, and Zoom. But less of the students were not help by their Academic Advisors in solving their personal, social, and career problems during their study via WhatsApp, E-Mail, and Zoom.
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