by Dr. Allen Ho, Associate Director and Senior Lecturer at the English Language Teaching Unit, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Regional Editor of Connecting Writing Centers Across Borders

Students’ academic performance in a university setting is affected by multifaceted determinants, including personal, socioeconomic and pedagogical ones, to name just a few (Mulaudzi, 2023).

In Bruce Bowles’ article titled “When a Measure Becomes a Target: The Dangers of Using Grades in Writing Center Assessments”, a very important issue was brought up, which concerned whether the use of students’ grades and/or GPAs is a proper way of assessing the effectiveness of a University Writing Center (UWC). Bowles held a negative stance and emphasized that if this form of assessment is embraced, it will lead to an array of negative consequences especially the significant risks of prioritizing grades over learning as well as twisting writing centre pedagogy.

He also highlighted the phenomenon of “assessment washback” (in which tests or examinations might govern the curriculum as well as affect the teaching content and value of the institution concerned) and the problems brought by “negative washback”.

While I agree that it is unfair to use students’ performance in courses supported by a UWC as an effectiveness indicator, I hold a different view from Bowles’ that facilitating students’ preparation of and achievement in course assignments does not necessarily compromise learning in a UWC context.

CONTEXT AT THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG (CUHK)

At CUHK, the institution in which I am serving, there is basically no Writing Centre. Instead, we have an English Language Centre (named “English Language Teaching Unit), which aims at providing quality language learning experiences for students (primarily undergraduate students) through our formal curriculum (i.e., credit-bearing EAP[1], ESP[2] and EPP [3] courses as graduation requirements) and non-formal provisions (e.g., the English Across the Curriculum Project and Peer Tutoring Scheme). In this commentary, it is worth emphasizing that I will base on our Peer Tutoring Scheme for illustrating my views since the corresponding context is more comparable to that in UWCs stated in Bowles’ article.

We assess our PTS, which is a funded project with over 300 tutors serving around 1,500 tutees in around 5,500 tutoring sessions since its launch in 2016, using trend data related to the number of tutoring sessions offered, as well as responses from both the tutors and the tutees in regular surveys and interviews. Specifically, at the end of each tutoring session, the tutee concerned will be requested to complete a survey based on the tutoring experience (similar to the scoring sheet mentioned by Bowles in his UWC context). We currently do not use students’ grades in the assignments or courses concerned as an effectiveness indicator of our scheme.

UNFAIRNESS OF USING STUDENTS’ GRADES IN TARGET COURSES AS A UWC EFFECTIVENESS INDICATOR

It is believed that students make use of services offered by a UWC or our PTS on a voluntary basis. It implies that in the same course, some students have while some have not sought corresponding help. Even for those who have made use of the services, the amount of assistance obtained may vary. In our PTS, some tuteesjust have a one-off consultation session with a tutor shortly before the submission of an assignment, while some may seek continuous support from the tutor in a series of sessions. Also, it is common for our tutees to solicit help from our scheme in one or two course assignments rather than all.

With the aforementioned discrepancies in terms of the amount of writing support received by students in a course setting, it seems to be unfair to use  their grades in the courses concerned to reflect the actual effectiveness of a UWC or our PTS, unless considerable and systematic trend data about their performance in multiple drafts (before and after receiving related writing support) are available and carefully analyzed. At the end of the day, it is worth noting that students’ academic performance in a university setting is affected by multifaceted determinants, including personal, socioeconomic and pedagogical ones, to name just a few (Mulaudzi, 2023).

RESERVATION ABOUT THE VIEW THAT LEARNING WILL BE COMPROMISED IN A UWC CONTEXT WHEN FOCUSING ON IMPROVING STUDENTS’ GRADES

It is evident that students these days are quite pragmatic and many students using the UWC (and our PTS) services tend to be instrumentally motivated (Hong & Ganapathy, 2017), with an aim of performing better in specific course assignments. Realizing the existence of this trend, when training our peer tutors, we try to expose them to a variety of genres, such as expository essays, argumentative essays, research proposals and research reports.

We also put much emphasis on tutoring pedagogy, especially the goal of “producing better writers” rather than merely “producing better pieces of writing”, as well as constructive tutor-tutee interaction and feedback strategies (e.g., not serving as editors for the tutees).With the corresponding empowerment, our tutors, when offering their services, will not only help tutees meet the teachers’ assignment-related requirements, but also assist them with transferable skills, such as genre analysis and audience analysis. Specifically, when facilitating tutees’ preparation for a particular assignment, learning transfer (Driscoll, 2015) is always an important focus in the tutors’ mind. In this regard, it is likely that real learning still takes place in a sense that the support provided to tutees is applicable to not only the target assignment per se but also other writing contexts. 

To reiterate, Bowles’ article is valuable in a sense that important issues related to UWC assessment have been raised. I tend to agree with him that there are potential risks to judge whether a UWC is operating effectively by relying on students’ grades due to the presence of many variables. Yet, we do not need to be too worried about the twist of writing centre pedagogy even when facing more requests from students to help them improve their assignments, as long as we uphold the mission of training good writers rather than simply good writings.

References

Driscoll, D. L. (2015). Building connections and transferring knowledge: The benefits of a peer tutoring course beyond the writing center. The Writing Center Journal, 35(1), 153–181.

Hong, Y. C., & Ganapathy, M. (2017). To investigate ESL students’ instrumental and integrative motivation towards English language learning in a Chinese school in Penang: Case study. English Language Teaching (Toronto), 10(9), 17–35.

Mulaudzi, I. C. (2023). Factors affecting students’ academic performance: A case study of the university context. Journal of Social Science for Policy Implications, 11(1), 18–26.

[1] EAP: English for Academic Purposes

[2] ESP: English for Specific Purposes

[3] EPP: English for Professional Purposes