Topics Tuesday: Consultants over Time

It's a Tuesday. AKA the best day of the week. Monday is over, the week is gaining momentum, the cafeteria is serving tacos, and I get to write another post detailing the top-secret happenings of our Topics in Composition staff development course.

This week is especially top secret. I'm going to give you the low-down on my group's research project. That's right. The writing center does research, and I'm going to tell you about it. Brag to your friends; you know you want to.

Basically, the spring semester of Topics is structured around studying special little forms we fill out after conferences to see if any conclusions can be drawn. We focus mostly on qualitative research, meaning we generally care more about finding patterns in what the consultant says in the form rather than how she responds to check-box style constructs.

My group wants to look at how consultants' commentaries and scores on these forms change over time, specifically from the first year to the fourth year. We predict that consultants will use more confident language over time, but that the self-evaluative scores will not necessarily change. We think the language of the commentaries will change because the consultant should theoretically gain confidence in his conferencing style as he gains experience. Even if a conference does not go stunningly well (though we all know CWC staff is pretty darn close to perfect), he does not have to base his stalk as a consultant in that single conference. We don't think scores will change because as a consultant gains experience, she also gains knowledge of what she can do better and what she has done better in the past. The scale is relative based on the consultant using it. A really good conference might seem totally different in the first year than in the fourth year.

Of course, these are all just speculations. Our group is now working on the logistics to test these predictions. There will be more updates as our group has them!

Remember, you only get one Tuesday per week! Use it to its fullest Tuesday potential!

-Angela