Skip to main content

Writing Center

Student Outcomes

Assessment of Student Outcomes

Outcome A Collaboration (undergraduate)

Work together and share the workload equitably to progress toward shared objectives learned through structured activities that occur over a significant period of time.

The General Education objectives associated with this Outcome are listed below. You can use these objectives as is or modify them in the next step in GVAssess.

Students will:
• Use knowledge of group dynamics to select appropriate roles.
• Use knowledge of group management to create effective plans.
• Successfully follow the group's plan.
• Assess their contribution and the contribution of others.
Objective 1 Ensure student satisfaction of their collaborative work with a peer consultant by maintaining 90% positive responses on student exit surveys. In this case, positive is considered answers that are either "extremely helpful" or "helpful" with regards to the help they received and either "very comfortable" or "comfortable" with regards to their collaborative experience with the writing consultant.

Measure 1

2021 Status
Achieved
In Fall 2020 (still early in the pandemic), the Writing Center switched to a new online database for scheduling and data collection. Within this new system (Book It), feedback surveys were emailed to students rather than filled out immediately after the end of each session. As such, the number of responses is significantly lower than it had been previously. Despite an overall drop in service numbers during the pandemic compared with previous years, the student satisfaction remains strong. In Fall 2020 there were a total of 687 surveys for 2915 completed sessions (24% response rate). Students indicated high levels of comfort working with consultants (95% very/somewhat comfortable), their helpfulness (97% very/somewhat helpful) and their confidence after the session (95% felt confident with their next steps). These numbers went slightly up for Winter 2021 (3332 total sessions with 588 surveys) with 96% comfort, 98% helpfulness, and 96% confidence. However, these percentages dipped slightly in Fall 2021 (3236 total sessions with 407 surveys) with 95% comfort, 94% helpfulness, and 93% confidence. Between Fall 2020 and Fall 2021, we saw the survey response rate decrease by half - Fall 2020 - 24% response rate; Fall 2021 12% response rate, while the number of students increased 12% (2915 sessions in Fall 2020 and 3236 sessions in Fall 2021).

2019 Status
Not Yet Achieved
For 2019, 87% of student users rated their work with a consultant as very comfortable and 83% indicated their experience was very helpful. Combined with ratings of "somewhat" helpful/comfortable brings both percentages to 90%, which is in line with the target objective. For 2017, 86% of users felt "very comfortable," and users indicated the feedback they received was "helpful" (82%). That said, the levels of student satisfaction are consistent between years/semesters.

2017 Status
Achieved
The Writing Center maintains a high level of student comfort, confidence, and consultant helpfulness. For 2017, 86% of users felt "very comfortable," while 5% felt "neither comfortable nor uncomfortable," and less than 1% felt "uncomfortable." Users indicated the feedback they received was "helpful" (82%), while 10% said their feedback was "neither helpful nor unhelpful" and less than 1% (.6%) indicated their feedback was "unhelpful." Student confidence will be discussed later in this report, but 92% of students felt "confident" after their consultation while less than 1% felt "less confident." Roughly 7% of students using our service did not complete their session notes or provide feedback on the quality of service. These findings indicate the overall quality of service provided is high and remains between the threshold and target range.

Outcome B Critical Thinking (undergraduate)

Use systematic reasoning to examine and evaluate information and ideas and then synthesize conclusions to propose new perspectives and solutions.

The General Education objectives associated with this Outcome are listed below. You can use these objectives as is or modify them in the next step in GVAssess.

Students will:
• Assess relevant information, perspectives and assumptions.
• Construct logical conclusions based on reason and evidence.
• Formulate novel approaches or create innovative interpretations.
• Evaluate the proposed ideas or approaches.
Objective 4 Assist 20% of student writers at GVSU and guide them to develop long-term critical thinking and compositional skills that will serve them in future writing tasks as much as any work being done on an individual piece of writing.

Measure 1

2019 Status
Not Yet Achieved
In 2019, the writing center assisted 4392 unique students. Total enrollment at GVSU was 24033 (21019 undergraduate/2814 graduate, plus 200 non-degree seeking students) which indicates that the writing center serves 18% of total students. Additionally, editing/grammar/mechanics remain the most common topic within writing consultations (occurring in 22% of consultations), however higher order concerns such as focusing content (18%), organizing information (16%), and brainstorming ideas (13%) occur frequently in our work with students and reflect the broader goal of improving critical thinking.

2017 Status
Achieved
In 2017, at our face-to-face service locations, we assisted 4548 unique students, which is 18% of GVSU students (based on 25,000 enrollment). Our service also offers embedded consultants in Writing 098 and 150 classrooms, which accounts for (roughly) 3,250 students in 2017. Adding our WRT 098/150 numbers to our face-to-face totals creates a more accurate picture of the scope of our service, but there is undeniable overlap since all students taking 098 will eventually take WRT 150 and many students from WRT 150 also seek assistance at face-to-face locations. Taken together, these two arms of our service assist between 18-31% of GVSU students.

Outcome D Information Literacy (undergraduate)

Identify, access, evaluate, and synthesize multiple forms of information.

The General Education objectives associated with this Outcome are listed below. You can use these objectives as is or modify them in the next step in GVAssess.

Students will:
• Articulate the specific information needed.
• Access information using appropriate search tools.
• Evaluate the quality, usefulness, and relevance of the information.
• Ethically communicate synthesized information.
Objective 3 Provide a framework for assisting student writers to help them improve their understanding, familiarity, and application of proper citation and effective use of research.

Measure 1

2019 Status
Achieved
Conversations about citation, documentation, and applying research are common features of embedded writing consultant support in WRT 098/150. While our measure highlights frequency, it is difficult to assess the interplay between generating ideas, research, integration of support, and documentation, since they overlap and intersect with each other in the writing process. That said, the discussions related to information literacy are consistent between years/semesters and fall between the target and threshold.

2018 Status
Not Yet Achieved
In conversations with WRT 098/150 students in the classroom, the data indicates that all major aspects of a student's writing process are discussed. In over half of the conversations, global topics such as brainstorming (65%), organizing information (66%), and focusing content (57%) are discussed. Discussions of citing and documenting sources are present in 39% of conversations.

Outcome I Written Communication (undergraduate)

Write effectively for multiple purposes and audiences.

The General Education objectives associated with this Outcome are listed below. You can use these objectives as is or modify them in the next step in GVAssess.

Students will:
• Develop content that is appropriate to a specific disciplinary or professional context, drawing upon relevant sources.
• Organize written material to suit the purposes of the document and meet the needs of the intended audience.
• Express ideas using language that meets the needs and expectations of the intended audience.
• Use conventions of grammar, punctuation, usage, formatting, and citation appropriate to the specific writing situation.
Objective 2 Provide ongoing support to all WRT 150 students, both in 1-to-1 consultations in the writing center and in their WRT 150 classrooms.

Measure 1

2019 Status
Achieved
For Fall 2019, 63% of WRT 150 students sought additional writing support outside of class. Overall, 90% of WRT 150 students were satisfied with the support they received in class and would recommend their consultant to other students. This data indicates WRT 150 students' value additional learning opportunities related to writing and they have a strong working relationship with peer writing consultants.

Measure 2

2019 Status
Not Yet Achieved
The number of hours of classroom support fluctuate based on student enrollment and the number of incoming freshmen is often the biggest indicator of the number of WRT 098/150 sections offered. That said, the Writing Center provided 5008 hours of in-class support in 2019, which indicates the value WRT instructors place on embedded peer consultants in the writing classroom.

Measure 3

2021 Status
Achieved
Post-consultation data for both embedded consultants and 1-to-1 support at physical locations is relatively consistent; survey data from one-to-one sessions indicate 93% of sessions end with the student feeling confident in their session and next steps, whereas 90% of embedded WRT 150 students indicated feeling either “much more confident” or “somewhat more confident.” Student confidence reflects not only a student’s likelihood to make successful revisions to their writing, but also their own self-efficacy. Taken together, we see a consistency in our effectiveness to support students in both academic contexts.

2019 Status
Achieved
Student confidence reflects not only a students likelihood to make successful revisions to their writing, but also their own self-efficacy. The post-consultation data for both embedded consultants and 1-to-1 support at physical locations indicate that students are consistently more confident (88%) after working with a writing consultant 1-to-1 and 79% more confident after working with an embedded consultant in their composition classes.