Institutions of higher education in the United States are facing challenges that include rising costs of tuition, decreasing numbers of students entering, and admitting many underprepared students. Universities are adopting high impact practices such as academic advising to help retain students. This important role is often placed on the faculty, who are not always presented with professional development opportunities to gain more knowledge on this topic. While there has been research on professional development and its relationship to job performance, there is little research on professional development and self-efficacy, most specifically of faculty advisors in higher education. The purpose of this research was to examine the latter. The theoretical framework that guided this study was Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory, as it addresses counseling and mentoring, including various aspects of academic and career development, which are essential goals of academic advising. A quantitative, survey research design was used in this research, with descriptive analyses and independent samples t-tests implemented. The data revealed that faculty advisors who participated in advising professional development, have higher self-efficacy scores than those that do not; however, this was only supported for 10 of the 26 of the components of academic advising. These components related to advising practices included five conceptual concepts, three informational concepts, and two relational concepts. With a greater focus on these topics in academic advising, institutions of higher education can better serve their students, increasing their chances of retaining students through effective advising. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]