Hi Margaret,
I have some suggestions for gathering numbers, as well as other types
of evidence, to measure writing centre success, though these are
suggestions for the future, rather than for retrieving past information.
At the UCFV writing centre, we have a Microsoft Excel database which
measures, among other things, numbers of users and frequency of visits
by repeat and regular users. Before each (and every) consultation, we
have students fill out a form which asks what they seek when they visit
the centre and records their characterizations of their writing
assignments, as well as the disciplines in which they are writing. This
allows for all kinds of explorations in addition to offering statistical
"proof." It allows us to measure not only how many students are using
the centre per term or fiscal year, but what kinds of writing tasks are
being discussed, what disciplines are recurring or absent, and what
kinds of students are using the centre (ie. majors, year of program
etc). In addition, it could allow us to track individual students' use
of the centre. These kinds of data would be even more instructive when
coupled with interviews and personal testimony. (ie. we could track
students' use over four years to examine not only frequency of visits,
but also the ways in which they are representing their writing needs and
their writing tasks. Put with students' comments about their progress,
some interesting things would likely be revealed.) I'm not sure if this
helps for your purposes now, but the need for numbers might prompt
adminstrators to give you money to set up such databases in order to
measure success in these ways.
Dana Landry
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