Re: WC Research

[Eleanor Berry <eberry@willamette.edu>]

I, too, really like this thread--indeed, it's drawn me out of lurking! As
the director of a center staffed primarily by undergraduate consultants,
I've been especially interested in the possibilities for research by
undergraduate writing consultants and in the role of research in their
preparation. In my efforts to help the students in my Composition Theory &
Pedagogy course develop reflective consulting practices, early in the
semester I assign a writing autobiography, in which the students are to
present an aspect of their development as writers and to reflect on it in
terms of research and theory that they've found illuminating. Then, later
in the semester, I ask them to conduct and report on research relevant to
our writing center operation or to prepare a research-based how-to piece
for student writers or consultants. Some research done by these student
consultants I have found very valuable. One conducted quite extensive
interviews with three Russian and three Japanese students on their writing
experiences in their native languages and in English and did an extremely
thoughtful analysis of her findings. Another investigated, through 
interviews and examination of writing portfolios, how two freshmen and 
two sophomores had made or were making the transition from high school to 
college writing. Another explored, through interviews with three faculty 
and three students teaching/majoring in three different areas of the 
curriculum the use of writing assignments other than standard academic 
papers and the professors' and students' views of their value. Another 
did follow-up interviews of several writing center users whose session 
assessments had specifically mentioned increased confidence as an effect 
of consulting sessions, asking them about what had affected their 
confidence and how their increased confidence had affected their writing, 
both on the projects in question and on other projects. Both the writing 
autobiographies and the research reports become part of the reading for 
the class--indeed, the autobiographies have been used as data for 
research projects, and students have done research projects extending or 
following up on previous students' projects.

One group of students undertook to explore the question of the position 
of undergraduate writing consultants as researchers, and made a 
presentation on this subject at the PCWCAAC with the theme of Writing 
Centers as Research Sites that I coordinated last year. They developed a 
model of undergraduate consultant research, based on models of teacher 
research.

Though this work has been necessarily constrained in scope by the 
limitations of time and background of the researchers, not only have the 
student researchers learned from doing it, but all of us in the center 
have learned from reading it, and a number of the research reports I have 
duplicated for other faculty and/or found relevant for writing program 
assessment.

I'd be interested in learning about other student consultant research that 
is being done and in hearing how others regard its value.

Eleanor

****************************
Eleanor Berry
Assistant Professor, English
Director, Writing Center
Willamette University
900 State St.
Salem, OR 97301
503-370-6276
eberry@willamette.edu
****************************


On Thu, 25 Jun 1998, Richard Haswell wrote:

> I really like this thread on research and writing centers.  I'm a
> believer in research in composition--and to my mind, the more different
> kinds, the better.  Research is just careful observation under a method,
> and everybody knows that different methods are going to get people to
> see different things.  That's good, isn't it?
> 
> But Neal's question set me a bit aback, as it did Harvey.  Indeed, what
> kind of research would I like to read conducted out of writing centers? 
> I was a bit amazed because I had an immediate answer, and it wasn't one
> I had really thought about before.
> 
> I'm thinking of what is called longitudinal studies in the area of
> development.  It occurs to me that what writing centers have going for
> them that, say, classroom teachers don't, is that writing centers often
> see the same student over longer lengths of time.  Typically the teacher
> has a student for a quarter or a semester, and that's it.  But tutors
> see students returning over and over, certainly over two or three
> semesters, sometimes for years.
> 
> What the writing profession truly lacks is knowledge of the way student
> progress in their writing over time.  Longitudinal studies.  Marilyn
> Sternglass's wonderful new book, TIME TO KNOW THEM, makes it clear as
> day that we just don't know how students change in their writing and
> their uses of writing over the undergraduate years.  We know zilch.
> 
> I think writing centers are in a good position to acquire some of this
> knowledge, even it were a case at a time.  Any info would be invaluable.
> 
> Rich Haswell
> 
>