As a faculty advisor, my purposes for dialogue include helping students to gather information, assess personal experience and new knowledge, problem-solve, and become critically reflective about their knowledge. In my view, there are a few underlying factors. First, by having their experience and concerns taken seriously, students are affirmed as thinkers and knowers from day one. Consequently, even the most self-doubting of students become more emotionally capable of change. Being taken seriously as a thinker provides some support for taking those risks.
Successful results whet the appetite for more learning and taking more risks.
It matters that the questioning and seeking take place in relationship with faculty advisors who know their students and want them to succeed. Being closely questioned by an advisor is seen not as a potential put-down but as stimulating. The search for knowledge is not a lonely quest after all, but an adventurous collaborative undertaking. This also extends to fellow students. Gaining a voice and feeling the power of their minds are important aspects of students' transformation.