Exploiting motivational processes to promote advisee engagement and ownership in written advising.

Relay Journal, cilt.3, sa.2, ss.173-184, 2020 (Hakemli Dergi)

This working paper elaborates on a series of written advising email exchanges conducted

with an AYBU-SFL student who volunteered to become an advisee and receive online

written advising from one of the researcher-LAs in this study. The study spans a period of

seven months, final three months overlapping the pandemic-related lockdown during which

instruction at the university was delivered online. The purpose was to exploit the strategies

and tools of advising asynchronously via email utilizing Intentional Reflective Dialogue

(IRD) to promote deeper reflection, while at the same time facilitating advisee engagement

and encouraging advisee ownership by considering certain motivational processes, including

emphasizing effort, creating hope, respecting power, building relationships, expressing

enthusiasm, challenging and prompting. In the paper, the context and background, and the

purpose are introduced briefly. Then the motivational processes used are presented with

reference to the written advising data pointing out and illustrating how motivation-boosting

elements were incorporated in this series of IRD email exchanges. Finally, the impact of

exploiting motivational resources is further discussed so as to bring insights to how advisors’

focus on motivational elements while conducting advising sessions influence the overall flow

with respect to advisee engagement and ownership of the process.