The literature on advising in graduate education confirms the graduate advisor-advisee relationship as the most important factor (Bloom, Cuevas, Hall, & Evans, 2007) which received increasing attention over the past 10 years (Barbuto, Story, Fritz, &Schinstcok, 2011). Advising as a relational process is a structured role for advisor in a graduate school and advisor is usually a faculty member who has the responsibility for helping the advisee throughout the graduate program including the dissertation process (Schlosser, Knox, Moskovitz, & Hill, 2003).

Studies suggested that the graduate advising process was directly influenced by the quality of the relationship between graduate student and academic advisor (Zhao, Golde, & McCormick, 2007).  Advisee’s satisfaction was a sign of relationship quality (Schlosser, Lyons, Talleyrand, Kim, & Johnson, 2011) which was defined as meeting the advisees’ needs within the framework of advising, facilitating their professional development and their whole perceptions of the quality of advising (Inman et al., 2011). Satisfactory advising relationship perceptions were differed in some respects between disciplines and found related with selecting the right advisor (Zhao et al., 2007). Furthermore, advisory satisfaction was predicted by advisees’ perceptions of greater guidance, encouragement in professional development, advisors’ availability, being able to choose their advisors, and sharing traits in common (Green & Bauer, 1995).

Kram (1985) argued that perceived support is another important factor of advising relationship which was conceptualized with three distinct elements; instrumental, socio-emotional, and networking support. When these components are defined, coaching and instruction might constitute instrumental support whereas self-disclosure, counseling, challenges of graduate training and professional development might constitute socioemotional support; on the other hand, networking support might involve the process of introducing advisees to other people in the field (Tenenbaum, Crosby, &Gliner, 2001). The levels of perceived support was found significantly related with the aspects of graduate students’ satisfaction and academic productivity in a comparative study between Turkish and American graduate counseling students (Buyukgoze-Kavas, Taylor, Neimeyer, &Yerin-Güneri, 2010). To date, there were limited studies which aim to understand what the academic advising at graduate level is and what kind of factors are related with the quality of academic advising relationship. In this context, the current study had two main aims. First aim was to understand the nature of academic advising in terms of the pairing process and the criteria of choosing advisors, and academic productivity. The second one was to investigate the role of academic advising satisfaction and graduate school difference on perceived support among graduate students of a Faculty Education at a public university.

Barbuto, J. E., Story, J. S., Fritz, S. M., &Schinstock, J. L. (2011). Full range advising: Transforming the advisor-advisee experience. Journal of College Student Development, 52, 656-670. Bloom, J. L., Cuevas, A. E. P., Hall, J. W., & Evans, C. V. (2007). Graduate student perceptions of outstanding graduate advisor characteristics. NACADA Journal, 27, 28-35. Buyukgoze-Kavas, A., Taylor, J. M., Neimeyer, G. J., &Yerin-Güneri, O. (2010). The mentoring relationship: A comparison of counseling students in the United States of America and Turkey. Counseling Psychology Quarterly, 23, 387-398. Green, S. G., & Bauer, T. N. (1995). Supervisory mentoring by advisers: Relationships with doctoral student potential, productivity, and commitment. Personnel Psychology, 48, 537-561. Inman, A. G., Schlosser, L. Z., Ladany, N., Howard, E. E., Boyd, D. L., Altman, A. N. & Stein, E.P. (2011). Advisee nondisclosures in doctoral-level advising relationships.Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 5, 149-159. Kram, K. E. (1985). Improvingthementoringprocess. Training & Development Journal, 39, 40-43. Schlosser, L. Z., Knox, S., Moskovitz, A. R., & Hill, C. E. (2003). A qualitative examination of graduate advising relationships: The advisee perspective. Journal of Counseling Psychology,50, 178-188. Schlosser, L. Z., Lyons, H. Z., Talleyrand, R. M., Kim, B. S. K., & Johnson, W. B. (2011). A multi-culturally infused model of graduate advising relationships.Journal of Career Development, 38, 44-61. Taylor, J.M., &Neimeyer, G.J. (2009). Graduate school mentoring in clinical, counseling, and experimental academic training programs: An exploratory study. Counseling Psychology Quarterly,22, 257–266. Tenenbaum, H. R., Crosby, F. J., &Gliner, M. D. (2001).Mentoring relationships in graduate school.Journal of Vocational Behavior,59, 326–241. Zhao, C. M., Golde, C. M., & McCormick, A. C. (2007). More than a signature: How advisor choice and advisor behaviour affect doctoral student satisfaction. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 31,263-281.