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Writing Center Journal

Abstract

As institutions cope with the difficult task of managing scarce resources to support student learning, college writing centers, like other student services, need to be able to articulate and, at times, quantify the benefits they offer the populations they serve. This study examined outcomes associated with visiting the writing center at one American community college in a southern town. Using binary logistic regression, the researchers compared the effects of writing center visitation on the probability of passing and/or earning an A for students enrolled in introductory English and psychology courses, while accounting for other student-level covariates including prior GPA, SES, and minority status. Results indicated that writing center visitors were significantly more likely to pass their English courses and were more likely to earn As in both subjects. Further, the level of visitation was a significant predictor of student outcomes, particularly in English courses, with students who visited the most frequently experiencing a significantly increased likelihood of both passing and earning As. Overall, these results suggested that writing center visitation was meaningfully associated with students’ success in these courses at this institution, after accounting for additional individual-level variables commonly identified as predictors of educational outcomes.

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