What is the Effect of the Writing Center as it Relates to Transfer Students and Persistence?

Michael Brisbane, Mary Gallagher1, Rose Jackson2, Ira Degawan3, Kevin Curtin3
1Macklin Center for Academic Success, USG, 2Office of the Executive Director, Universities at Shady Grove, 3Psychology, UMBC
Mentor: Diane Alonso, Psychology

University transfer students may not be as equally likely as non-transfer students to utilize student services such as the writing center due to demographic and academic characteristics. In this sense, transfer students could be seen as having less access to resources and academic support, placing them at a higher risk for attrition. Attrition (or persistence) research examines the factors and mediating roles associated with student completion or graduation rates. Two related factors of paramount importance are self-efficacy and self-regulation, defined as the feelings about one’s ability to achieve a goal, and to plan, organize, and carry out the objectives of that goal, respectively. This study explored the relationship between transfer students’ characteristics, writing center usage, and persistence. Implementing a mixed-methods approach, self-report measures were used to gauge writing self-efficacy and self-regulation levels. Additionally, qualitative methods adopting the phenomenological approach were implemented by conducting interviews with 20 students to yield themes associated with high and low writing center usage. The qualitative research expanded and elaborated on the transfer student experience with the writing center.