THE PERCEPTIONS OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS REGARDING ACADEMIC STUDENT SUPPORT CENTERS

Abstract

Academic student support is one of the essential services provided by higher education institutions (HEIs) in order to meet students’ academic needs and requirements. During their studies, students might encounter various academic obstacles or misunderstandings that require institutional support and help which, in turn, might shape students’ satisfaction with their university. Even though the phenomenon of providing academic support has been practicing among universities for years in different corners of the world, Kazakhstan has started to be exposed to it not long ago. Due to this, academic support and advising were poorly introduced and integrated in the context of Kazakhstan. Therefore, the study aims to explore undergraduate students’ perceptions of academic support centers and their services as a result of utilizing them. The study also identifies the main reasons for academic help-seeking and ways of improving these centers. The study was based on the qualitative research design with the phenomenological approach to focus on shared experiences. For the study, ten undergraduate students who used academic support centers were recruited, and semi-structured interviews were conducted to understand the students’ perspectives on these centers and services. The findings revealed that students at this particular university were mostly satisfied with the support services, even though there were several difficulties that arose during the process of using support services. It was also found that students had different reasons of seeking help like organizational, academic, and personal. The main recommendation made were increasing the availability of academic support and focusing more on providing support with their course materials. Considering all of the findings, there were some more suggestions made in improving the services of the academic support centers.