Friedenberg, Edgar Z. (1950). The measurement of student conceptions of the role of a college advisory system. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 10, 545-568, © 1950 by SAGE Publications
| College Advisory System Evaluation |
| Items |
| Below you will find listed certain problem situations which are encountered with varying degrees of frequency among College students. Among the resources to which a student at the U. of C. might turn for assistance with each of these problem situations is his College Adviser. In considering each problem situation, feel free to draw on your own experiences with the College Advisory System, or other information which you believe to be valid, but try in every case to give a reasonably generalized response, based on your conception of the system as a whole. For each of the situations listed, on your answer sheet blacken space |
| A. if you believe the College Adviser to be the best person from whom to seek help in such a situation. |
| B. if you believe that the College Adviser would be the best University staff member from whom to seek help in such a situation, though probably less effective than experts available elsewhere (e.g., a private psychoanalyst or firm specializing in vocational placement). |
| C. if you believe that the College Adviser might be of some help in such a situation, and that you might go to him if you had special respect or friendship for him, but believe that there are other more appropriately trained and chosen University officials who could be of greater assistance. |
| D. if you believe that some University official should be available to help in such a situation, but that a College Adviser , either because of deficiencies in training, insight, or interest, or because his responsibilities are divided between the student and the institution, might be an indifferent or even dangerous source from which to seek it. |
| E. if you cannot conceive that the University has any responsibility to help a student with such a problem, and do not believe that this student should seek help from any University official. |
| PROBLEM SITUATIONS |
| 16. Student is fearful of failing his comprehensive examinations, even though he has been working and has made passing grades in the Autumn and Winter Quarters. |
| 17. Student must work to remain in school, and finds that in order to clear enough time to keep a job, he must petition to get into sections of classes that are listed as closed. |
| 18. Student has stolen an automobile and later abandoned it. He has not been detected, but fears that he may be, and anxiety is disrupting his work and his life. |
| 19. Student is making mostly C’s , with an occasional D and still less frequent B . The death of his father makes it impossible for him to continue in school without substantial financial aid. |
| 20. Student cannot bring himself to study; if he sits at his desk and attempts to do so, his mind wanders off into daydreams. If he attempts to write a required paper, or other written exercise, the blocking is particularly intense. |
| 21. Student wishes to enter medical school in the shortest possible time, and wants help in planning his program of studies most efficiently. |
| 22. Student is uncertain whether the qualifying examination in Humanities I (Special Art) can be taken as part of a sequence culminating in Humanities 3 (German) in fulfillment of the requirements for the A.B. degree, and if so, whether Language I is still a requirement or not. |
| 23. Student has gotten into serious difficulty as a consequence of sexual relations, and is now in a state of panic at the prospect of having to choose between and undesired marriage or exposure and parental discipline. |
| 24. Student, not living in a residence hall, has participated in a group which went to a Gerald L. K. Smith meeting to break it up. Eggs were thrown, and the student is now being help by the police. |
| 25. Student has a mild interest in becoming a lawyer, which is in accord with his parents’ wishes. He is not certain that his interest is very real, or that he has the pattern of abilities which lead to success in this field, and is beginning to feel anxious. |
| 26. Student is troubled with severe headaches, of undetermined origin, which are making it impossible for him to study and causing him to fail his work. He notices that they are followed by periods of listlessness and depression. |
| 27. Student has purchased a portable typewriter from a store in the University community, and signed and installment contract to pay for it. He has found several mechanical defects in the machine, and wishes to return it and get his money back. The store, however, threatens to sue him for the balance of the money. |
| 28. Student does not understand the process by which his placement has been made and wishes to have the meaning of his placement scores explained to him, as he feels he should have been excused from Mathematics I and Social Sciences 2. |
| 29. Student has developed a very strong emotional attachment to his roommate, who is now no longer willing to “pal around” with him as he did at first. The roommate has requested a change of room assignment, and the student is troubled by suicidal impulses, and terrifying dreams in which he is murdered by his former friend. |
| Below you will find listed a series of such limitations which you may or may not feel apply to the College Advisory System. In considering each limitation, feel free to draw on your own experience with the College Advisory System, or other information which you believe to be valid but try in every case to give a reasonably generalized response, based on your conception of the system as a whole . For each of these, on you answer sheet blacken space |
| A. if you feel that this problem is almost always satisfactorily overcome by the College Advisory System, or is one with which it should not be concerned anyway . |
| B. if you feel that the problem is often satisfactorily overcome by the College Advisory System, but is nevertheless the source of occasional annoyance. |
| C. if you feel that the problem is recognized by the College Advisory System, but is mishandled about as often as it is solved, or has been solved by halfway measures . |
| D. if you feel that the problem is one which may usually be expected in contacts with the College Advisory System, although you are occasionally surprised by successful handling of it. |
| E. if the problem is almost always troublesome in student contacts with the College Advisory System to which it is related, and there is no satisfactory evidence of effective attempts to solve it. |
| 61. Providing of enough time at each interview to permit students to complete the business for which they sought an appointment. |
| 62. Keeping individual advisers close enough to their schedules that students need not wait too long for their appointment, or miss class time because of late advisers. |
| 63. Finding persons to serve as advisers who are warmly interested in students and their problems, and who know their students as individuals. |
| 64. Keeping the case load per adviser low enough to permit advisers to get really acquainted with their advisees and their problems. |
| 65. Keeping student conference material confidential, and not revealing it to persons who might use it in damaging ways. |
| 66. Knowing accurately the right members of the University to whom to refer students with special problems‒e.g., reading deficiencies, or presumed errors in recording comprehensive results‒and helping students to get in touch with those people. |
| 67. Providing office facilities which insure as much privacy as students need in order to discuss freely with their adviser such problems as they wish. |
| 68. Assigning as advisers persons with sufficient insight into the emotional and developmental tasks of young people to really understand what’s going on inside them. |
| 69. Keeping records sufficiently up-to-date, accurate, and available that advisers do not act on misinformation. |
| 70. Conveying to students an attitude of respect for them as people, and conducting interviews with courtesy and genuine friendly feeling. |
| 71. Getting advisers to shut up long enough to permit students to express their own feeling about problems fully. |
| 72. Assigning as advisers persons of sufficient maturity that they need not “use” students emotionally, by bullying, identifying too much with them and their problems, making demands on the student for liking or admiration, or in other, more subtle, ways. |
| 73. Providing advisers sufficiently mature emotionally to listen to any problem students might wish to discuss with them without becoming “shocked” or frightened, or attempting to impose standards of conduct which the student does not accept. |
| 74. Scheduling sufficient hours per adviser that students can get to see an adviser when they need to, without having to wait for attention with their problem unsolved. |
| 75. Providing sufficient information on “summons” forms that students are not caused needless anxiety as to the possibility that they may be in trouble. |
| 76. Limiting the scope of the adviser’s activity sufficiently that students are not obliged to discuss with him matters which are not properly his business. |
| 91. Student is afraid the he will fail comprehensive examinations in German and Mathematics. In the course of his first interview with the adviser, he reproaches himself severely for his failure to study, but states that, as soon as he begins to try to do so, his mind wanders off into daydreams. He is a good jazz musician, and is in demand by many of his former high-school friends to lead a small orchestra at their social events. When he agrees to do this, his parents attack him, pointing out that he has never been as smart as his elder brother, that he is wasting his time and their money, would probably have a hard time succeeding at the University of Chicago in any case, and must surely transfer to an easier school if he fails an examination. |
| The boy, as he tells this story, seems much hurt and uncertain, but is inclined to agree with the low estimate placed by his parents on his character and intelligence. Entrance aptitude test scores secured by the University place him well among the upper tenth of applicants admitted. |
| A good adviser would |
| A. sympathetically but firmly support the parents’ demands on the boy, advising him to give up the orchestra until he is more certain that he can carry his schoolwork. |
| B. tell the boy unemotionally that the decisions must be his, but reiterate for him the precise requirements for continuing registration in the College. |
| C. say only enough to make it clear to the boy that his feelings of anxiety, rejection and conflict are understood and accepted. |
| D. sympathetically point out that the boy has a right to make any decisions about his total program of activities which will best satisfy him, while making sure that he understands both the conditions under which he may continue in school and the real abilities he has been shown to possess. |
| E. point out that the key to the situation is probably the hostility his parents feel toward him, as shown by their desire to underrate him, and his resultant fear that, should he succeed, they will completely reject him. |
| 92. Student, an eleventh-grade entrant, seventeen years old, has been placed on probation because of a failure to attend required physical education classes. She is also failing two of her subjects. The instructor in one of these has turned in a sympathetic report, indicating that he believes the girl to be intelligent and creative, but too much burdened by her personality difficulties to accomplish much at this time. The other report is aggressively critical, describing the girl as unkempt and lazy, and declaring that she has no place in the College. At the conference to which she is summoned, the girl appears shy, nervous, and so far as possible, uncommunicative. |
| A good adviser would |
| A. point out to her in a kindly but resolute way that she will surely be dropped from school if she does not make a better academic adjustment, and help her to schedule her week’s work so that she can begin to make effective use of her time. |
| B. restate to her, in as neutral a tone as possible, the conditions under which her registration may be terminated, but emphasize that the decision must be hers. |
| C. let her know that he understood that she must be feeling threatened and unhappy and express clearly a wish to help her understand her own feelings better, while pointing out calmly that they must also meet the practical situation in which she is involved in order to go on working together. |
| D. suggest that she drop the course taught by the hostile instructor, and use the extra time to catch up on her other work. |
| E. point out to her that her unkemptness, laziness, and uncooperative attitude are quite evidently ways of rebelling against authority and are almost certainly derived from her feelings about her parents rather than from any real aspects of her College situation. |
| 93. The program of an 11th-grade entrant has been erroneously prepared by his registration adviser, who checked Biological and Physical Sciences rather than Natural Sciences 1, 2, and 3, as requirements for his degree. The error is noted shortly before the beginning of the student’s second year in the College, and the student is notified that the requirement has been changed and that he must now take the Natural Sciences sequence. The student has not yet registered for either Biological Sciences or Physical Sciences, and could not have begun work on Natural Sciences 1 during the previous year because of poor mathematics placement, so that he has not, in fact, suffered as yet by the error. He is nevertheless quite upset by the change, as he wishes to enter an engineering school, believes that Physical Science will serve him in better stead than Natural Sciences 1, does not want to take an additional comprehensive, and is angry about the inefficiency of the adviser in making such an error. He comes in to ask that the original statement of his degree requirements be kept in force. |
| A good adviser would |
| A. apologize for his carelessness in making the error, but point out that since it has not as yet affected the student’s program, the requirement should stand as corrected. |
| B. state firmly that error or no error, the degree requirements for 11th-grade entrants are uniform and must be consistently administered. |
| C. note carefully the student’s reasons for wanting to keep the old requirements in force, then take the matter to the Dean of Students in the College, admit that the original error was his, and ask the Dean to stand behind the old requirements. |
| D. himself prepare an amended program for the student, reaffirming the original requirement, and send a copy of it to the Registrar for recording. |
| E. point out to the student that it is irrational for him to be angry over an error which has, in fact, done him no harm, and try to help him to gain insight into the true sources of his annoyance. |
| 94. An 11th-grade entrant has a schedule which requires that he take Physical Education at 1:30. He schedules a conference with his adviser at which he complains, with some indignation, that this program is not acceptable to him, because it interferes with his freedom of worship. It has been his custom, since the age of ten, to read a chapter of a religious work daily after lunch; if he does not do so, his food disagrees with him, and he suffers from bloating and heartburn. He believes it to be dangerous to his health to take exercise while in this condition, but maintains stoutly, and unasked, that this does not bother him at all, since he is prepared to meet his Maker at any time. He does, however, insist that, rather than risk the moral obloquy thus involved, he will simply refuse to attend physical education classes. There is no way to arrange his schedule so that he can either lunch at 11:30 or take Physical Education then without either petitioning for admission to three closed class sections or getting the Physical Education Department to make an exception to its rule and let the student come two days a week at 11:30 and two days at 1:30. |
| A good adviser would |
| A. let the boy go ahead and petition, regardless of the improbability that three petitions would be granted for such a reason, in the hope that he might change his mind when finally confronted with so nearly impersonal a reality. |
| B. attempt to persuade the Physical Education Department that the boy’s emotional need is important and real, and that it should make an exception in this case. |
| C. say neutrally and dispassionately to the boy that the University does not recognize this kind of fantasy as religious in character, and cannot accommodate itself to such diversity of need; tell him frankly that if he does not attend compulsory physical education classes, he will be removed from the College. |
| D. tell the student that it is pretty clear that some factor besides religious conviction is operating to produce symptoms of this kind, that the responsibility of the University to him and his parents requires that it insist he report to Student Health for a complete medical and psychiatric examination, and that his program may more profitably be discussed in the light of the report which Student Health for a complete medical and psychiatric examination, and that his program may more profitably be discussed in the light of the report which Student Health will make. |
| E. discuss with the student the religious meaning of his position, pointing out that it must derive from an unusual conception of God, and suggesting that he scrutinize his own emotional needs as the source of the conflict. |
| 95. A twenty-year-old student, who entered the College at the 13th-grade level at the opening of the previous scholastic year, is making satisfactory grades, both on his comprehensives at the end of his first year and on quarterly examinations. Reports from his instructor in Humanities 2 and History of Western Civilization commend him for his brilliant contribution to discussion, and his evident capacity to integrate the material offered into abstract generalizations. Reports from his instructors in Biological and Physical Sciences indicate that he has hardly ever attended classes in these courses, although he passed the comprehensive in Biological Sciences with a grade of C . |
| The student’s adviser, in an informal discussion with the Head of the residence hall in which the student lives, learns, however, that the student is regarded by the Head as somewhat lacking in emotional adjustment. He has taken no interest in House social activities, and so far as is known, has few social interests of his own. His friendships within the House are confined to two other boys, with whom he has discussions nearly every night centering on the Marxist interpretation of the motivations of contemporary politicians, or the unity and structure of contemporary drama, or the nature of reality. He has twice been sent back to his room from the dining hall because he came in to dinner without coat or tie. |
| A good adviser would |
| A. do nothing about the situation, on the grounds that he has no right to interfere with what evidently represents the boy’s free choice of behavior, so long as he is academically successful. |
| B. summon the boy for a general discussion in the course of which he would expect to describe to describe to the boy in detail the range of interesting activities available at the University. |
| C. attempt to show the House Head that the behavior of the boy might very well indicate more complete achievement of the objectives of the College than that shown by nominally better adjusted students, and urge him to encourage the boy’s present mode of self-expression. |
| D. summon the boy for a conference in which he would cautiously attempt to estimate how happy the boy really was, and if considerable anxiety and unhappiness were indicated, try to get him to discuss the possibility of seeking help from the Counseling Center or a psychiatrist. |
| E. summon the boy and explain to him that his present behavior shows serious maladjustment, is probably more the result of his need to rebel against the patterns of middle-class behavior established by his parents than of serious interest in his studies, and suggest that he work the problem through with the adviser. |
Cite this article
Mohammed looti (2026). College Advisory System Evaluation. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. Retrieved from https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/college-advisory-system-evaluation/
Mohammed looti. "College Advisory System Evaluation." PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, 3 Apr. 2026, https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/college-advisory-system-evaluation/.
Mohammed looti. "College Advisory System Evaluation." PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, 2026. https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/college-advisory-system-evaluation/.
Mohammed looti (2026) 'College Advisory System Evaluation', PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. Available at: https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/college-advisory-system-evaluation/.
[1] Mohammed looti, "College Advisory System Evaluation," PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, vol. X, no. Y, ص Z-Z, April, 2026.
Mohammed looti. College Advisory System Evaluation. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. 2026;vol(issue):pages.