In-house writing support: who uses supplemental resources, and how, and for what purpose?

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the US, supplemental writing resources have played a strong role in higher education, emphasizing nondirective peer tutoring, but recent initiatives have developed discipline-specific teaching-oriented resources, which have yet to be adequately analyzed. The present study analyzes data on student use of one such service (N = 2,353 appointments with 865 students over 5 years). We sought to determine which students attended appointments, and for what purposes. As hypothesized, results showed that these students’ characteristics and purposes in seeking help differed from those commonly seen in writing center research. For faculty, results suggest that students may need more instruction on audiences and contexts for writing, and that faculty recommendations do seem to play a role in how students seek additional help. For administrators, results suggest that students may benefit from discipline-specific supplemental teaching, in more venues and from staff with more subject expertise than is commonly available in writing centers.