Writing Center: Impact analysis Fall 2014 to Fall 2018

The Utah State University (USU) Writing Center is dedicated to empowering students to express their knowledge and ideas in writing. Their approach promotes academic inquiry, critical thinking, and expressions of diversity. While research and evaluation suggest that the Writing Center significantly impacts student academic performance, the impact on student persistence is not yet clear. This report explores the association between USU’s Writing Center and students’ persistence toward graduation. METHODS: Students’ Writing Center use was captured through student log-ins at writing appointments. Students who had a record of using the Writing Center were compared to similar students who did not have a record of Writing Center use. Students were matched for comparison using prediction-based propensity score matching. Students were matched with non-users based on their persistence predication and their propensity to participate. FINDINGS: Students were 97% similar following matching. Participating and comparison students were compared using difference-in-difference testing. Students who used the Writing Center were significantly more likely to persist at USU than similar students who did not use the Writing Center (DID = 0.031, p \u3c .001). The unstandardized effect size can be estimated through student impact. It is estimated that Writing Center resources and services assisted in retaining 17 (CI: 3 – 32) students each year who were otherwise not expected to persist

The Plague of Poor Student Writing: USU Writing Center Directors Reveal the Solution in Assignment Description

Despite a professor’s carefully crafted lectures, students regularly do not meet expectations in writing assignments—but it might not be all their fault. Writing assignments require students to articulately apply critical thinking skills to a content area, but this complex task becomes more challenging when instructions range from confusingly vague to overbearingly complex. Frustrated students throw up their hands and settle for a half-hearted effort, and professors become increasingly frustrated. The key to breaking this cycle of frustration lies in clear, concise, goal-driven assignment descriptions. In this hands-on presentation, attendees will learn the art and science of assignment descriptions that encourage the student’s best writing, allowing for more accurate assessment of content knowledge

A Writing Community: Writing Center Directors Teach Effective Peer Review for the Classroom

Many instructors rely on student writing to assess content knowledge of a course but do not have the time to teach writing; additionally, instructors who teach Gen Ed Communications Intensive courses might wonder how to teach learning outcomes tied to written and oral communication. With guidance and mentoring, students can be effective at helping each other achieve these learning outcomes. In this presentation, USU Writing Center directors will discuss how to incorporate peer review to engage both the student writer and the peer reviewer in the conventions of writing in a particular discipline, a process which can increase learning for students who experience the iterative, collaborative process of working on writing and decrease the feedback load for instructors. Attendees will receive multiple models of peer review to work with nearly any assignment, as well as strategies for where and when to incorporate peer review in the syllabus