The Professionalization of Academic Advising in China: From the Perspective of Culture Diversity Free

This study utilizes a case study approach.

With this well-accepted definition in mind, we began by delineating our study. First, we limited our study to the PAA process in Chinese higher education, thereby excluding comparative examples (i.e., the United States). Bounding the study in this way was consistent with exploratory qualitative case study designs. Using a constructionist convention, this study mixed the paradigm assumptions of an emerging design, a context-dependent inquiry, and an inductive data analysis. Researchers also bounded the study case by time (2009–2022) and by a single case (the PAA in the Chinese community). Consistent with case study design, we identified colleagues who visited the Center for Student Learning and Development at a Chinese university for initial interviews (see  Appendix A). Later we expanded interviews to include attendees of the 2019 National Symposium on Academic Advising in Higher Education (see  Appendix B). Finally, we gathered different types of information shown in Table 1, including observational data (see  Appendix C), documents, and archival records.

The researchers first explore the existing theoretical framework for the PAA to establish a common knowledge foundation for the case study. Next, the researchers describe the context of the case. Lastly, they explore the characteristics of PAA in China, providing implications for research and practice.

Professionalization remains a hotly debated topic among academic advising scholars. Trombley and Holmes (1981) first argued that academic advising faced marginalization because of misunderstood roles, organizational mismanagement, and a lack of properly trained personnel. However, the Advising Movement (e.g., The First National Conference on Academic Advising in 1977) allowed advisors to engage in student retention efforts. In the years that followed, scholar practitioners investigated the role of academic advising even further (Trombley & Holmes, 1981). Since then, debates over professionalization have continued (Kuhn & Padak, 2008; Schulenberg & Lindhorst, 2008). In summarizing three decades of scholarship, Habley (2009) suggested actions necessary to expand the quantity and enhance the quality of advising as a field of inquiry. In 2010, Shaffer, Zalewski, and Leveille—citing sociological theorists—claimed that academic advising had not met the typical sociological standards for a profession; therefore, enhancing advisor education and credentialing were necessary next steps to enhance advisor recognition. That same year, Scholarly Inquiry in Academic Advisory was published by Hagen, Kuhn and Padak (2010) and included more scholars from different disciplines. Twelve years later, the book’s reprint includes emerging new schools of thought, such as appreciative advising (He et al., 2020), narrative advising (Hagen, 2018), and new interest-based communities (e.g., the LGBTQ advising community). Academic advising scholarship is becoming truly interdisciplinary.

In the existing literature, there are mainly two different perspectives. One is represented by schools of thought from a sociological perspective, which posits that academic advising is not a true profession. For example, McGill (2019) analyzed professionalization scholarship from 1981 to 2016 and identified three common themes: issues with scholarship, expansion of graduate programs, and community. Future scholar practitioners had to grapple with five obstacles: (1) an unclearly-defined field; (2) the unclear role of professional associations; (3) a lack of training and education in the field; (4) a need for personal and occupational autonomy; (5) the lack of a consistent administrative home for advising. In response, scholars investigated professional association leaders' phenomenological perceptions of PAA (McGill, 2018), administrator perceptions of academic advisor tasks (Menke et al., 2020), advisors’ perceptions of the profession (Couture & Tyson, 2022), and graduate education in the field (McGill et al., 2022).

The other perspective argues that because it has irreplaceable value in student academic success, teaching services, research, and other aspects, academic advising is a profession. For example, the philosophy that “advising is teaching” gained popularity in the first decade of the 21st century (Lowenstein, 2005). More recently, scholars began to stress that achieving the moniker of “professional” may not be so important:

The endeavor to professionalize does not grant academic advising respect, nor does it enable the field to claim its critical role in institutions. In the future, the academic advising community should engage in teaching, research, and community service (White, 2020).

Previous scholars tended to overlook the influence of government recognition in the process of professionalizing academic advising. Although scholars from the United States contributed to the field, they ignored government influences. In Chinese history, government recognition at all levels is omnipresent. This recognition includes national higher education policies issued by the Ministry of Education and related policies of various provincial departments or the Municipal Education Commission. In support of these policies, universities and colleges can obtain funding and resources.

In China, academic advising is seen as a kind of teaching, which aligns with landmark publications (Crookston, 2009; Lowenstein, 2005). A 2019 survey revealed that 67% of the 39 total universities of the “985 Project”—meaning the Chinese government’s initiative to develop world-class universities—included centralized staff, with full-time academic advisors. The remaining 33% had no institutional level unit and therefore relied on undergraduate mentors for academic advising (Geng et al., 2017). Therefore, regardless of structure—decentralized or shared—teachers, counselors, and undergraduate mentors remain the most important forces in supporting China’s students. They are generally responsible to teach classes, advise students, carry out research (usually with postgraduate students) and undertake public services.

In China, most universities follow the Educating-Students-with-All-Forces model, so there are four types of advisors who are involved in academic advising (see Figure 1). Unlike the western world, Chinese university students are appointed to a class with about 20 to 40 students. To develop Chinese-communist universities after World War II, the Chinese government established the class counselor system. Each class counselor was responsible for up to five classes. Therefore, a class counselor was the first person students turned to for help when needed. This system, which has evolved for decades, proves to be an effective personnel mechanism for implementing academic advising in China.

Over the years, class counselors’ job responsibilities have been clarified. Academic advising remains their primary role, with other responsibilities, including ideological education, team building in class, student affairs, psychological education and counseling, online ideological and political education, campus crisis management, career planning, and research. In most universities, full-time counselors manage a student-counselor ratio of 1:200, whereas part-time class counselors have a 1:60 ratio. Statistics in 2014 showed that there were 127,000 full-time class counselors in China (Ministry of Education, 2014), 70% of whom held Masters degrees. Additionally, a teacher assigned to each class is also involved in academic advising, but mostly regarding academic affairs (see Figure 1).

In Chinese universities, the main force of academic advising service is actually a class counselor. Then a class teacher, who is fully responsible for students’ thinking, learning, health and life, works as a liaison to other teachers and reports to the associate dean of the department in charge of teaching. Undergraduate mentors advise students how to perform research, in addition to some acquisition of study skills. In China, students do not assume that a full-time academic advisor is the best person to help them. Instead, full-time advisors engage in coordinating and managing campus advising programs. In sum, China’s academic advising model differs greatly from the U.S. model in that advising in China involves four different roles and these four roles have many responsibilities other than advising (see Table 2).

Academic advising is more than just teaching and is enriched with more complicated tasks. It is a guide or support provided by an institution for its students with information on academic and non-academic issues, curricular and extra-curricular activities, learning and life-long learning practices and concepts, and career planning. Such information is intended to provide some specific help on understanding learning goals, academic program requirements, learning styles and methods, personal development and ethical development. It is hoped that with such information, students can maximize their efforts in widening their college experience, developing their learning styles, and completing their college education successfully (Higher Education Evaluation Center for the Ministry of Education, 2010). Regardless, the Chinese definition of academic advising is far too broad. Professionals in academic advising not only require specialized knowledge, skills, and values related to student academic affairs but also a general understanding of student learning and development. This is why advisors need specialized knowledge and formal training to truly become professionals.

In the past 15 years, academic advising activities in China have increased. In 2009, a large comprehensive university in China established the Center for Student Learning and Development and became the first Chinese institution to provide all students with high quality, professional academic advising services at the institutional level. The establishment of this center symbolized the moment when academic advising in China became distinct from moral education, psychological counseling, and career counseling. The chart below (see Figure 2) lists the historical events related to professional academic advising.

Since 2014, government departments at all levels have advocated for academic advising, thereby increasing exchanges and cross-institutional activities. On May 21, 2017, the Academic Advising Research Branch of Beijing Association of Higher Education was founded. The university mentioned above alone hosted 300 participants for a national symposium on academic advising between 2017 and 2019. That same year, that same university and NACADA jointly launched the first cross-cultural training program on academic advising in China. As its importance is increasing, academic advising has become an indispensable indicator of undergraduate education and teaching quality evaluation. In 2022, the Academic Advising Research Branch of Beijing Association of Higher Education launched a “1 + 5” Co-construction Program on Excellent Centers for University Academic Advising to promote achievements in theory and practice and improve the general standard of academic advising. Chinese practitioners witnessed the rapid development of academic advising and experienced a considerable growth in their professionalization, albeit one with characteristics unique to China.

Passing on a 4,000-year tradition of educational culture, Chinese universities have laid a path to professionalization in academic advising that differs from Western countries.

Academic advising in China follows its own core values. Chinese education dates back 4,000 years. Throughout the ages, fostering a student to be like Jun Zi, who is a man of great virtue, is and has always been of the highest value. In Chinese traditional culture, the education is divided into two stages: Xiaoxue and Daxue. Xiaoxue refers to education received before the age of 15; everything after 15 is called Daxue. As Biyong (The Royal School) of Baihutong (Virtuous discussions of the White Tiger Hall) recorded, children entered the national university at the age of 15 to study classics. Western philosopher Jean Jacque Rousseau (1712–1778) happened to refer to “the age of 15” seven times in his work Emile. Confucius had devoted himself to learning since fifteen, and he was not simply learning knowledge but the way of being human. (Tu, 2014)

The classic works on the history of Chinese education include four books: The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, The Confucian Analects, and The Works of Mencius. There are also five classics: The Classic of Poetry, The Book of Documents, The Book of Changes, The Book of Rites and The Spring and Autumn Annals. These works all demonstrate that the goal of education is to enlighten one’s moral consciousness and to enhance one’s level of value pursuit. The opening of The Great Learning, for example, states that “The teaching of the great learning is to manifest one’s illustrious virtue, love the people, and rest in the highest good.” These have been seen as the three “main cords” and “rest in the highest good” is considered the ultimate goal of learning. One should make contributions and be a person who “ordains conscience for Heaven and Earth, secures life and fortune for the people, continues lost teachings for past sages, and establishes peace for all future generations” (Zhang, & Zhang, 2012). Therefore, moral courses were the main curriculum in ancient universities; science was rarely taught (Shi, 2007). As Fan Wenlan (1953) said, the Zisi Mencian school, represented by Zengzi, Zisi, and Mencius, taught human-heartedness and righteousness first and the astronomical calendar next.

The tradition of “Fostering Virtue through Education” remains today. Whether in the imperial university in the Han Dynasty (202 BC–9 AD, 25–220), under the imperial examination system established in Sui and Tang Dynasties (581–907), in the Song Dynasty’s academies (960–1279), or in the Imperial University of Peking during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), which was established under the influence of western thought after the First Opium War in 1840 year, the most important pursuit was cultivating a spirit of “governing the state and pacifying the realm” (Feng, & Zhao, 2015, p. 334). Even now, class counselors, class teachers, undergraduate mentors, and full-time academic advisors all share this same pursuit. Professor Xie Weihe (2017) expressed that moral cultivation should be the ultimate learning goal, that one should develop their character and virtue through learning and training, especially via students’ inner learning mechanisms.

Social value education dictates academic advising in Chinese colleges and universities. This is similar to the concept of moral development (Kohlberg, 1984) or “social responsibility” in U.S. universities. American universities attach importance to graduation rates, dropout rates, and levels of academic success. Chinese universities also follow these metrics but emphasize developing students’ social and moral values. In other words, in China, a student should enhance morality and contribute positively to society, as a person’s virtue is the foundation of their talent. For example, college students need to attend group activities two to four times every semester, such as political discussion groups, career development fairs, or exam preparation sessions. Both class teachers and counselors are required to participate in group activities, sharing their insights on these topics and discussing how to align social needs with students’ personal career plans. In these meetings, class counselors usually work with student leaders to design activities and engage in one-on-one advising, where they discuss the social value of learning and students’ personal life values, while assisting students with course selection and academic studies. Overall, Chinese educational culture holds that students who integrate personal and societal expectations are more likely to achieve academic success. The Chinese government reinforces this social value recognition through policy, financing, and human resource support.

To promote the professionalization of academic advising, the Chinese government has established a robust personnel system, which includes class counselors and class teachers to ensure the proper implementation and operation of PAA. Policy support is an important government strategy for promoting academic advising professionalization. Figure 3 lists the policies related to college academic advising, which have been revised or promulgated by the Chinese government in recent years. It also displays the keynote speeches by key officials and important historical events such as nationwide academic advising conferences and the establishment of regional academic advising associations. Among them, there are two important regulations that highlighted the importance of academic advising and showed that the Chinese government would invest more resources on academic advising in the future. One regulation, Provisions on Building the Teams of Counselors of General Institutions of Higher Learning, embodies the importance that the government is attaching to the construction of undergraduate academic advising system. It clearly stated that counselors should be required to be familiar with students’ majors, stimulate students’ learning interests, help them develop some good learning habits and strategies, encourage them to carry out scientific activities and practices and create a rich study atmosphere (Ministry of Education, 2017). The other regulation is the Guideline on Strengthening the Reform of Undergraduate Education and Teaching to Nurture Higher Quality Talents. In this guideline, the Ministry of Education put forward clear requirements to establish and improve the undergraduate academic advising system, assign qualified mentors to oversee students’ learning, and develop personalized training programs and academic career planning. Without a series of government policies, academic advising in China would not have gone so far. Strong government support and recognition is a unique quality in the professionalization of academic advising in China (see Figure 3).

The Ministry of Education has gradually attached increasing importance to academic advising practices in universities and strengthened its policy guidance. According to a 2021 government publication, there were two types of evaluation. The first type is aimed at general undergraduate universities with world-class educational goals, first-class teaching staff, and educational platforms, cultivating top-notch innovative talents and serving major national strategic needs. The second type is tailored to the different orientations and historical backgrounds of universities and focuses on the orientation of practical undergraduate talent cultivation goals, resource conditions, cultivation processes, student development, and teaching effectiveness. Whether or not a school carries out student development and academic advising was included as an important evaluation indicator for both types. To obtain stable government funding, all universities in China must pass this review conducted by the Ministry of Education. Therefore, almost all institutions are striving to meet these criteria on academic advising (Ministry of Education in 2021).

This paper exposes Chinese academic advising culture. For scholars, the impact of government on the professionalization of academic advising from different cultural perspectives deserves attention. Topics, such as the role of government recognition, how it takes effect, and its relationship among universities, markets, and related associations, demand more study. Scholars from similar cultural backgrounds should conduct interdisciplinary research to apply theoretical frameworks and methods from the government management discipline; doing so could bring valuable insights that would contribute to the field’s development. To fulfill its mission of “bringing together perspectives from around the world” and the strategic goal of expanding external partnership globally (NACADA, 2024), NACADA might propose a collaborative program by inviting one U.S. institution to work with one in China or another nation.

Academic advisors, with cross-cultural perspectives, can understand why Chinese students care so much social values when deciding majors. Therefore, advisors suggest that students refer to government reports and the latest government policies in various industries to determine if there are any new employment opportunities encouraged by the government. Furthermore, Chinese students grow up in a relatively fixed large class group, so it might be effective for advisors to design group advising situations and create an inclusive peer advising community. This pedagogy could well connect with their previous learning and communication habits in China’s collectivist culture.

For advising administrators, they could consider inviting related government representatives to share opinions when designing new academic advising programs. In terms of program evaluation, administrators should include the government as an important stakeholder and set indicators to see if the government's initial goals have been achieved.

This study only assesses the PAA in Chinese higher education and does not include multiple case comparisons or international perspectives. In the future, researchers could enhance the study’s depth by incorporating a comparative analysis of the historical development of PAA in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. Examining commonalities and differences across various cultures, as well as gauging the strengths and weaknesses of their development styles, would also offer valuable insights. Such studies could help NACADA collaborate with more global members to promote the PAA worldwide, such as two international advising organizations—UKAT (United Kingdom Advising and Tutoring) and LVSA (Landelijke Vereniging van Studieadviseurs).

Also, this study excludes Chinese vocational colleges. In 2023, there were a total of 3,074 higher education institutions in China. This number included 1,242 ordinary undergraduate schools (with 164 independent colleges among them), 33 undergraduate level vocational schools, 1,547 vocational (polytechnic) schools, and 252 institutions for adult higher education. There are 233 research institutions in China that are also involved in the training of graduate students (Ministry of Education, 2024). This study’s interview sample featured participants from ordinary undergraduate institutions only. In the future, researchers can include a thorough analysis of academic advising program implementation in vocational and adult higher education institutions; they might also examine policy documents issued by relevant government departments. In this way, researchers can gain a more inclusive and holistic understanding of PAA in the broader context of Chinese higher education.

This paper describes the professionalization practice of academic advising in Chinese higher education. In doing so, it clarifies its characteristics on philosophy, personnel, and history. Based on the comprehensive case analysis of status quo in academic advising in China, the authors conclude that prioritizing social value and government recognition are two important characteristics that influence the professionalization of academic advising in China. In particular, government recognition needs to become a fully discussed research area by scholars, advisors, and administrators in the academic advising global community in the future.

Academic advising is not yet recognized as a profession in China. Despite the existence of national professional associations and full-time job positions, the establishment of specialized education training programs, and the identification of core professional ethics standards, PAA still remains uncertain in China. In attempting PAA, Chinese colleagues have faced similar obstacles to those that McGill found in the United States: a) the need to define the field further; b) the role of the professional association; and c) training and education required to perform the advising role (McGill, 2019).

However, the other two challenges (personal and occupational autonomy, lack of a consistent administrative home for advising) are not quite applicable in the cultural context of China. Personal and occupational autonomy is not a key concern for Chinese colleagues who find it crucial to collaborate with government authorities and other campus departments. Aligning common interests with government administrators is a more effective path for advisors to gain recognition. Similarly, lack of a consistent administrative home for advising is not an obstacle in China. Although there are many roles involved in advising, their administrative home is very clear and stable. In China, class counselors are typically affiliated with the student affairs, whereas class teachers and undergraduate mentors report to the academic affairs. Therefore, for Chinese practitioners, the obstacle that needs to be overcome is how to construct partnerships and collaborate effectively among these groups. Defining their distinct responsibilities in a clear and concise manner presents a particular difficulty.

Chinese universities are undergoing great developments in the professionalization of academic advising. With the increase in enrollment rates of 60.2% in 2023, student bodies are becoming more diverse and differentiated, which has brought new challenges to academic advisors, class counselors, class teachers and undergraduate mentors. While Chinese colleagues are helping students achieve academic success, it is possible to frame new theories of PAA in order to provide diverse experiences and theories for PAA in the global community of academic advising.