“Was it useful? Like, really?”: Client and Consultant Perceptions of Post-Session Satisfaction Surveys
Abstract
Client satisfaction surveys have long been a cornerstone of writing center assessment, but to date, research on satisfaction surveys has largely focused on analyzing client responses from the survey and their administrative uses. Research rarely investigates why clients provide the responses they do and how consultants process these responses. This study, therefore, involved conducting separate client and consultant focus groups to learn about each population’s interactions with one writing center’s optional post-session satisfaction survey and the survey results. The findings revealed that while client participants used the survey to communicate high levels of satisfaction, client participants also thought about the survey in multifaceted ways that took into account complex factors, such as their relationship with the writing center and care for consultants’ feelings. The study also showed that consultant participants valued positive feedback from clients but that consultants found their survey responses to have limited utility for professional growth and that they craved more specific and constructive feedback. This article offers considerations for how writing center professionals can better communicate the purpose of surveys to both clients and consultants, and it proposes additional forms of assessment that could allow consultants and administrators to hear the nuanced feedback clients can offer.
- Journal
- Writing Center Journal
- Published
- 2021
- DOI
- 10.7771/2832-9414.1967
- CompPile
- Open Access
- OA PDF Gold
- Topics
- Export
- BibTeX RIS
Citation Context
Cited by in this index (0)
No articles in this index cite this work.
References (0)
No references on file for this article.
Related Articles
-
Journal of Response to Writing May 2024Generous Audience, Activist, Evaluator: Tutor-Teachers’ Knowledge, Practices, and Values for Response to Writing ↗Wisniewski, Carolyn
-
Pedagogy Oct 2023rhetorical criticism first-year composition writing pedagogy writing across the curriculum two-year college teacher development collaborative writing assessment writing centers qualitative research multimodality literacy studies race and writing gender and writing disability studies affect and writing literary studies book reviews editorial matter
-
Writing Center Journal 2016Second Language Writing Development and the Role of Tutors: A Case Study of an Online Writing Center "Frequent Flyer" ↗Carol Severino; Shih-Ni Prim
-
Writing Center Journal 2014Isabelle Thompson; Jo Mackiewicz
-
Composition Forum 2012Daniel Sanford