Interesting Reads This Week

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It’s that time of year when the weather is getting cooler (but not for Phil, who endured 105-degree heat in Phoenix to watch a rock concert [ed. Sammy said it was 114 on stage, making the tequila shots disgusting]), and I am getting more survey reports in my inbox. What did I find interesting?

Jumping to conclusions about technology: AI edition

Tyton Partners has released a new survey report, Driving Toward a Degree 2024, exploring student success and advising. The authors delve into the challenges faced by student support professionals, identifying excessively high advisor caseloads, advisor retention, and burnout as key issues hindering student success. Tyton concludes that while AI is still in its early stages of adoption, it holds significant potential as a solution to address these advising challenges in higher education.

While I find the report's findings interesting, I have reservations about some of their underlying assumptions and the conclusion that more (or different) technology will alone solve the problem. The report's breakdown of barriers to better student advising is fascinating. Caseloads and advisor retention are becoming critical issues hampering student support.

The report then examines perceptions of AI and its role in advising and student support. In general, students have significantly more faith in the promise of AI.

Among advisors, regular users of AI have substantially more faith in the potential of AI to support the work of advisors than those who don’t use AI. This all makes some sense. The report then makes a bit of a jump to argue that technology in general is under-deployed in advising that:

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