Suwako Uehara // The University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, JP
Dawn Lucovich // The University of Nagano, Nagano, JP
Brian Gallagher // Meijo University, Nagoya, JP
This article presents results from a survey of volunteer tutors who provided feedback to clients on in-process papers that clients shared with the PSG. The PSG is a group of Japan-based educators who provide writing support to novice and experienced academic writers through an online writing lab. The survey revealed tutors' views of the PSG, its advantages and challenges. Findings illuminated tutors' motivations, foci of feedback for writers, and challenges of peer-readership through online collaboration.
Keywords: Academic Writing, Asynchronous Collaboration, Online Collaboration, OWCs, OWLs, Peer Support, Reflective Practices, Tutor Motivations, Tutor Experiences, Writing Support
The PSG is an informal group of professional educators from various institutions that operates voluntarily in conjunction with, yet peripheral to, the Publications wing of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT). The PSG serves as an asynchronous online writing laboratory (OWL) for novice and experienced academic writers. The use of the term OWL rather than online writing center (OWC) reflects decentralized activities of the PSG and its online existence.
JALT currently has approximately 3000 members in Japan and abroad (JALT, n.d.). All participants in the study were professional educators working in Japan, some of whom were also pursuing advanced degrees as mature students. The research question that focused the survey of tutors and an initial presentation of findings was: "What are tutors' views of the PSG, its advantages and challenges?" (Lucovich, Beaufait, Uehara, & Gallagher, 2016).
The study built upon previous research that focused on clients' experiences receiving feedback from tutors on papers that these writers had submitted to the PSG (Lucovich, Beaufait, & Uehara, 2016). The survey of tutors investigated three main areas:
- Tutors’ motivations for and recommendations of volunteer readership to colleagues or peers who might be interested in joining the PSG;
- The visions, standards, and types of feedback tutors deemed helpful to clients; and
- Tutors’ views on advantages and challenges of serving as tutors, and of working entirely online.
The findings were that the majority of tutors (62.5%) intended to continue to work as peer readers, and also would recommend joining the PSG to colleagues or peers in their institutions, locales, or special interest groups. In addition, they were largely motivated for professional reasons, namely to fulfill academic community service needs, to improve their own writing–both processes and products, and to familiarize themselves with academic publication protocols.
Tutors concurred on providing feedback to clients that prioritized higher-order concerns over lower-order concerns. They also agreed on the advantages that they gained as peer readers, namely, professional development and content knowledge acquisition. However, they differed in their opinions regarding advantages and disadvantages of the online format. Tutors mentioned lack of content area knowledge and technological skills, lack of time, and issues with English-as-an-additional language (EAL) writing as major challenges they had faced.
The implications of these findings are that, although tutors are satisfied with PSG participation, there are things the PSG can do to improve. It should offer consistent tutor development comprising tutoring techniques, additional accommodation of non-native writers of English, and technology utilization. Such offerings will help tutors become socialized into an active online community of practice and enhance both tutors' and clients' experiences. The PSG also should promote itself actively, and recruit and train additional tutors, in order to address current challenges that tutors perceive.
Immediate future directions of this research include an investigation of the impact of technological and tutor training on the PSG's tutors and clients. Secondly, there is a need to update, extend, and expand upon the literature that describes practical considerations for peer-powered OWCs and OWLs (see: Rosalia, 2013). Finally, the research could also be turned inward towards more qualitative methods, such as case studies of tutor and writer interactions.
Although Kyoko Morikoshi (2008) described tutors as "facilitators," with roles similar to those of tutors in North American organizations, where tutors and students are supposed to work together to help students to become better writers, in the context of the current study, clients are near-peers who aim to publish their academic work. Generally speaking, the role of tutors in writing centers in Japan is for tutors to work with writers to facilitate good writing skills, to help them develop as independent writers (Ota & Sadoshima, 2013), and to respect writers' intents, so the relationship between tutors and writers becomes one of cooperation or collaboration (Ota, Kano, & Hisamoto, 2014).
Nevertheless, in various higher education settings across Japan, the authors of this paper recognize tensions among EAL writers' wishes, e.g. for immediate surface-level corrections or proofreading, and tutors' missions or philosophies. Since its inception (Background, below), members of the PSG have striven to reorient attitudes and expectations not only of EAL writers but also of uninitiated colleagues, OWC planners, and administrators.
With this shared ethos, the PSG believes that tutors should help their clients find ways to improve their writing, while not directly telling them how or what to revise in too much detail. This is consonant with a "conception of tutors' roles as collaborators and coaches rather than as teachers, and [with] the encouragement of risk-taking and practice rather than evaluation" (Godbee, 2014, pp. 157–158).
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Writing centers in Japan have had a short history, since around 2004, and are still not common in Japan (Johnston, Cornwell, & Yoshida, 2008; Johnston, Yoshida, & Cornwell, 2010). As of 2018, online writing centers were virtually unheard of (Appendix D). Even in 2018, there was a dearth of research about what makes a good online peer tutorial, which this study seeks to rectify by addressing the experience of online peer tutors. At present, very few institutions in Japan can boast a writing center presence on the Internet, let alone a mature OWC. The Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) Writers' Peer Support Group (PSG) is an asynchronous geographically distributed OWL that caters to writers in academia globally, yet predominantly in Japan.
At present, the PSG consists of a coordinator-in-chief, an ICT coordinator, a reader coordinator, and approximately 20 peer readers—including the coordinators (Appendix C: Web resources, Meet the PSGers). Though 20 readers may sound superfluous, in most cases two volunteers read each paper, and, as participant demographics suggest (see: Method, Participants, below), significant numbers may be preoccupied with their own work on advanced degrees or actively seeking regular employment (with volunteer work on their CVs). With the exception of occasional face-to-face interactions at JALT conferences, PSG work takes place entirely online. Unlike traditional writing centers, which only operate when classes are in session or upon request, the PSG operates year-round.
PSG coordinators are initial points of contact and provide encouragement and guidance for incoming tutors. Papers that have already undergone peer revision are available to show new group members exemplary feedback from the PSG to previous clients. New tutors also undergo informal orientation during which they serve as secondary readers following the leads of primary readers. This orientation usually continues until they become a primary reader with a more experienced reader as the secondary reader. After that, they are free to volunteer as either first or second readers on any papers they wish.
Beth Hewett (2002) identified four types of theoretical frameworks for online writing centers: current-traditional, expressivist, neoclassical, and social constructivist. The PSG closely follows the social constructivist model in both organization and procedure, as well as in collaborative development. This is reflected in the PSG's activities as a collaborative, distributed, online writing support laboratory, as well as in the research and publication activities of the group itself. These approaches underpin not only development of papers for publication, but also of collective, emergent knowledge of the actors, motives, and technologies involved in PSG activities. According to Keith Taber (2016), "The constructionist perspective focuses on people collaborating to construct knowledge, and indeed artifacts. … [It] also focus[es] on technology, and the role of technology in supporting collaborative learning" (para. 1). Celiane Camargo-Borges and Emerson F. Rasera (2013) recognized social constructionism as a blend of processes leading to innovative practices that comprise "a focus on strengths and what is already working well instead of on problems and how to fix them, an emphasis on a diversity of perspectives instead of on commonalities of ideas, ..., and increased flexibility in terms of approaches" (p. 2). In short, these processes can lead to "participatory, co-creative" ways of "thinking and doing" for purposes of organizational development , from which co-participants could benefit almost immediately (Camargo-Borges & Rasera, 2013, p. 3).
An array of tools and venues undergirds online workflow to, within, and back from the PSG team. The process begins with contact from writers via a generic form on the JALT Publications website (see: Appendix C), either before or after writers have contacted or submitted papers to various venues for publication. Once a PSG coordinator receives papers from clients, that coordinator calls for readers to volunteer as tutors via a group mailing list.
In 2013 the group made a technological transition from circulating, annotating, and constantly renaming Microsoft Word documents attached to email messages to using Google Drive instead. Since the transition, Google Drive continues to serve as a collaborative platform for soliciting and integrating feedback to clients on singular versions of their papers in a Google Doc repository. The feedback and communication process is represented in Figure 1.
Though Figure 1 suggests sequential readings in steps 4.a–b, designations of 1st and 2nd actually reflect the order in which tutors volunteer for particular papers. Depending on individual availability, readings may be reversed or even simultaneous—a flexibility enabled by the online medium in which the PSG works.
Successful outcomes of this interactive process ideally would lead to future publications in which authors acknowledge contributions to their work by members of the PSG. Such acknowledgements need not be as formal as those at the beginnings of books or ends of journal articles. Even before actual publication, the PSG would welcome mentions in social media, conference presentations, and the like. In more immediate practical terms, however, it seems that enhancing channels for feedback to PSG tutors—directly from clients, via PSG coordinators, or in interactions with one another—could reinforce tutors' aims to collaborate both with clients and other tutors for the following purposes:
- Enhancing writers' confidence,
- Promoting whole-text development,
- Focusing in particular on content and organization, &
- Finding out, in return, which feedback [from tutors] has (or has not) been most helpful. (Beaufait et al., 2015, p. 45)
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Writing Centers in Japan
University writing centers in Japan have emerged since the early 2000s to improve written English for L2 writers (Delgrego, 2016; Johnston, Yoshida, & Cornwell, 2010). Writing centers in Japan tend to hew closely to the North American model of a writing center and aim to support independent and autonomous writers. The writer population is largely undergraduate university students who require support in academic English writing for coursework.
Thus, writing centers in Japan are supplementary learning facilities for students to receive feedback and advice from tutors outside the classroom on a compulsory or voluntary basis. The tutor population is varied and can be comprised of various combinations of full-time or part-time faculty, staff, and graduate or undergraduate students (Delgrego, 2016; Nakatake, 2013; Rosalia, 2014; Tan, 2011).
The growth of writing centers in Japan in the 21st century has led to the creation of an academic society, The Writing Centers Association of Japan (WCAJ), and its Symposium of Writing Centers in Asia. The symposium, held in Japan annually since 2009, is hosted by a rotating lineup of universities with established writing centers, and attracts international presenters and attendees (see WCAJ Events).
Online writing centers in Japan.
- A Peer Online Writing Centre (POWC) began at Kanda University of International Studies over a decade ago (Rosalia, 2013; Rosalia, 2014; Rosalia & Llosa, 2008). It is now a service for learners to receive tutors' advice asynchronously when classes are in session. Students can submit Word or Google documents online and request advice on up to two issues pertaining to spelling and mechanics, using sources, structure and content, or grammar. On receiving feedback requests from student writers, tutors spend up to 15-minutes to provide feedback to writers on each paper and the response time is on average one working day—Monday to Friday (Self-Access Learning Center, 2018).
- Gene Thompson (2014) detailed a transition from a physical writing center at the Rikkyo University College of Business to an online writing center in 2013 due to limitations in physical space, budget, and lack of available graduate student tutors and users. The transitional steps included creating online reservation systems using a free learning management system (LMS), adding guidelines and self-check materials online, automated messages informing registered students of updates made by the writing center administrator. The changes were made based on an action research spiral (Zuber-Skerritt, 2001), and access to the online writing center was found to be higher when courses used the same LMS within the curriculum.
- Similarly, as of 2018, Hiroshima University had launched trial online tutorials via Skype for its Higashi-Senda campus, Kasumi campus, and mature (non-traditional) students. In a departure from online tutorials mirroring face-to-face sessions, their 75-minute online tutorials are twice the length of 40-minute face-to-face tutorials, and tutors are student tutors (Hiroshima University, 2003).
The PSG differs greatly from both traditional writing center settings and other online writing centers in Japan. In traditional settings, an online writing center is often considered a deficit model of writing support (Martinez & Olsen, 2015). That is, the traditional, physical setting is preferable to the online writing center, which is seen as somehow lacking. Instead, the online format of the PSG arose due to necessity and reflects its stakeholders: its tutors, clients, and the academic community it serves. Tutors and writers were often separated by distance and faced time-related issues. Both were most likely working full-time and possibly doing graduate work part-time. Unlike the typical model of an online writing center that extends a physical writing center (Hewett, 2002; Moberg, 2010), including those found in Japan, the PSG flips the script; it lacks a physical setting, and operates online. Any physical or location-bound sessions extend its primary, online work.
Tutors and Their Experiences in Writing Centers
In 2002, Hewett suggested that "there [was] not enough research into, and understanding about, what makes a good tutorial" (p. 10). Studies showed writers improved motivation through tutors' encouragement via rapport and solidarity (Kerssen-Griep, Hess, & Trees, 2003; Legg & Wilson, 2009; Mackiewcz & Thompson, 2013), and developed language proficiency (Denekamp, 2016). Meanwhile, research on the writers' perspectives of using writing centers showed preferences for corrective feedback, detail, and fast response times (Ferguson, 2011).
In Japan, tutors typically use L1 or L2 English; in a few cases, they may also be able to conduct tutoring sessions in Japanese, or in their own or writers' native languages. Consequently, challenges of running writing centers in Japan are often linguistic or cultural in nature. Writers who were Japanese writers of English wished for advice on lower-order concerns (e.g. grammar); similarly, tutees' unfamiliarity with writing centers and North American tutoring styles resulted in passive behaviors in tutees (Nakatake, 2013). Maiko Nakatake asserted:
In Japan, the idea that the tutor and the students have the same authority is culturally hard to accept. The students tend to think that tutors are a kind of instructor for them, that is, the tutors perform a more authoritative role than the students. Therefore, students tend to be passive and follow their tutors’ advice without any question. (p. 19)
While some writing centers (e.g., Waseda University, The University of Tokyo, and Sophia University) hire graduate students as tutors (Johnston, Yoshida & Cornwell, 2010), Kyoko Morokoshi (2008) recommends hiring professionals, rather than near-peer student tutors, for writing centers in Japanese universities. This was the case for Osaka Jogakuin College, Kanda University of International Studies, and Hokusei Gakuen University Junior College (Johnston, Yoshida, & Cornwell, 2010). What was however common amongst these writing centers was that there were forms of pre- and post-session training for tutors, which raised their awareness of writers' needs.
Using networking tools to support online learning is a challenge for many communities, and in particular for geographically distributed OWL tutors. So roles and concepts of peer support and learning should be clearly articulated with specific exemplars, which will provide opportunities for near horizontal alignment of expected standards and practices within the group. This being said, the opportunities for such learning must be created within a framework that recognizes the social, collaborative and interactive nature of learning so that technology-based tools for learning are situated within a sound pedagogical framework.
With so many different writing labs, and standards employed within each having their own characteristics, it is important to move towards common standards in order to establish the best parameters for the peers this group is trying to support (Davis, 1997; Reeves & Reeves, 1997). For peer-reading and writing support labs such as the one this study examined, identifying and propagating quality practices is of vital importance.
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Participants
Tutors and coordinators (n = 27) then on the PSG-team mailing list (a private, JALT Publications support provision) received calls to participate with a link to a Google Form survey, as well as email reminders. The overall response rate was 55% (N = 15; f = 7, m = 8). All respondents resided in Japan at the time of the survey, and all listed English as the language in which they were most proficient. Participants were predominantly 40–49 years of age (n = 6) but ranged to over 60 (n = 2; Figure 2).
In identifying their professional fields, twelve respondents selected "education industry," seven selected "private education," and five selected "public education." Most (13 or 86.7%) of them reported working in higher education institutions; the others (2 or 13.3%) were in secondary education. Based on analysis of both employment status and job titles, twelve apparently were non-tenured faculty, ten worked full-time, and three had tenure. Four of the non-tenured (full-time or contract) faculty also reported being graduate students. This distribution is visible in Figure 3.
Most respondents (13 or 86.7%) reported having published work of their own (Figure 4).
Despite the high number of tutors who had published previously, a majority (62.5%) of the tutors had never submitted their own work to the PSG, and thus would not have experienced PSG readership from a client's perspective.
Procedure
After the development and piloting of a survey instrument, the authors sent out email via the group's list serv to introduce the survey to the tutors. In keeping with best practices for online surveys, the survey was short—estimated to take 10–20 minutes; a professional email invitation with a clear subject heading and deadline (24-day response period) introduced the survey; and a reminder email included a 15-day extension of the deadline (Saleh & Bista, 2017; Porter & Whitcomb, 2005). The introductory message included the names of the researchers, contact information for queries, specification of survey purposes, and a notice regarding confidentiality; the first page of the survey duplicated the consent agreement and reiterated both survey purposes and the confidentiality notice (see Appendix A).
Instrument
The form comprised three main sections:
- Background information (k = 14: 2 checkbox, 5 forced choice with a write-in option, 7 open-ended), including ages, affiliations, gender, languages, research interests, and publication experiences;
- Getting started (k = 8: 1 dichotomous, 1 checkbox, 1 forced choice, 2 5-point Likert scale, 3 open-ended), including motivations for joining the PSG, numbers and subjects of articles reviewed, and extents of previous experience in writing centers; and
- Working with the PSG (k = 8, all open-ended), focusing on roles in the PSG; personal workflow and time commitments; visions, standards, and types of feedback the tutors provide for clients; and advantages and challenges of being peer readers and working entirely online.
Alphanumeric codes in the Results section identify participants anonymously by reported gender (e.g., F6 was the sixth female respondent). Those codes distinguish individual respondents and identify sources of direct quotations in the results section.
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Other major findings to emerge related to tutor motivations, feedback processes, peer readership roles, and online collaboration, and the numerous challenges tutors faced.
Motivations
Recruitment for PSG tutors occurred through two main methods: via personal contact or via JALT-internal advertising. Presentations or interactions at the annual JALT international conference (n = 7), with current PSG tutors (n = 3), or with acquaintances/colleagues/friends (n = 2) were the most common personal contact methods through which tutors have been recruited, through advertising in a monthly publication (The Language Teacher) or the JALT website (n = 6) also comprised a significant number. More than half (60%) of the tutors indicated that they absolutely would recommend becoming PSG tutors to others (acquaintances or colleagues).
As motivations to join the PSG team, respondents (n = 13; instances = 25) cited a variety of reasons, for example to:
- Make professional contributions (7),
- Improve their own writing and editing skills (6),
- Familiarize themselves with academic writing processes (4),
- Continue their own professional development (4),
- Continue tutoring (2) after or in addition to more traditional tutoring roles, and
- Respond to PSG calls for participation (2).
Tutor Feedback for Clients
Regarding visions, standards, and types of feedback that tutors deemed beneficial to clients, tutor respondents (n = 14; instances = 34) indicated that they had focused largely on:
- Constructive criticism (8), e.g., "I try to hew as closely as possible to writing center best practices" (F2);
- Article structure and content (7), e.g., "look for good research design" (M2);
- Affect: i.e., acknowledgement of accomplishments and encouragement of clients (7) e.g., "I want to try and encourage the writer, but also try to be realistic" (F7);
- Clients' autonomous developments (4), e.g., "what would be useful to me as a writer" (M6);
- Mechanics (3), e.g.: "I do not comment on...mechanics … unless it impedes understanding" (F2); “I am better at proofreading than editing so I let the author know that” (M5).
- Other (7), e.g., "I think about what I would want to hear as a writer" (F5); "notes for possibilities in future study" (M3).
Initial analysis for presentation purposes (Lucovich, Beaufait, Uehara, & Gallagher, 2016) revealed similarities among responses synopsized with the category descriptors above. Reanalysis confirmed or corrected the numbers of responses in those thematic clusters without disintegrating any or revealing new ones.
Peer Readership
Though more than half of respondents (71.4%) reported having read fewer than six papers for the PSG, 60% of them indicated that they were strongly inclined (choosing 5 on a Likert scale of 1 to 5) to read additional papers. Regarding working entirely in distributed online capacities, 14 tutors mentioned totals of 24 advantages and challenges, respectively.
The predominant advantages of voluntary peer readership that 14 tutors mentioned (24 instances) were their personal writing development (9) and knowledge acquisition (6). Three mentioned affect—namely personal motivation (M5), satisfaction (M1), or enjoyment (M7), and two tutors mentioned career or professional development advantages related to networking (M1) or service opportunities (F2).
Major challenges on which the 14 tutors who responded (13 instances) to an open question about both advantages and challenges focused were:
- Managing time for voluntary activities—readership and feedback for clients (4);
- Providing criticism that would be encouraging (2) or comprehensible (1);
- Lacking content area knowledge (2);
- Working entirely online (1);
- Lacking feedback from PSG coordinators on tutors' feedback for clients (1);
- Accommodating EAL writers (1); and
- Other (1), e.g., "It takes ... mental space and energy to be a reader" (F2).
Four respondents mentioned no such challenges.
Online Collaboration
Nine of the 14 tutors responding to advantages and challenges of working online expressed beliefs that the technology in use (essentially an email list server, Google Drive, and Google Docs) was advantageous for tutors. They felt that for them it was accessible (4), convenient (3), efficient (1), or useful (1). Four tutors mentioned advantages of timing, either asynchronous (3) or economical (1). Three tutors indicated that the online format provided support for clients that was similarly accessible (2) or helpful (1), and one even suggested that it was better than face-to-face tutoring.
There were three major clusters of challenges that the 14 tutors who responded about working online mentioned (18 of 24 instances):
- Adjusting to interpersonal distance-related issues such as depersonalization or unfamiliarity, either amongst tutors and clients (4), or amongst tutors and their peers (3);
- Utilizing technology: e.g., navigating Google Drive (3), or using Google Docs (3); and
- Spending time locating resources (3), or following list-served email discussion threads (2).
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One noteworthy feature of the demographic data is the distribution of expertise across the group including academic writing, blended learning, technology in the classroom, motivation, teaching methods, autonomy, CALL, materials development, media literacy, m-learning, elementary school English education, multimodal literacy, pragmatics, self-assessment, copy-editing, teacher and learner development, vocabulary, assessment, discourse communities, writing centers, and corpus linguistics (Appendix A, 2016 Survey, Interests). Another is the nearly equal numbers of women (7) and men (8) who responded.
Initial analyses showed that tutors' survey responses to free response items fell into three general categories: very short responses 46% (7 to 28 words in length), medium length responses 30% (52 to 92 words in length), and in-depth responses 15% (175 to 184 words in length). The significance of varying lengths of responses may become evident upon close, future examination of individual tutors' feedback on clients' papers.
Tutors were motivated by both internal and external factors. For tutors, joining the PSG served as a contribution to the academic community, as well as a means for professional development in terms of improving their own writing skills and gaining familiarity with academic genres. While a few reviewers (4) reportedly serve to convey their expertise to others (4), the majority (9) undertake reviews in order to learn for themselves and to improve their own reviewing and editing skills.
That is, they undertook reviewing as learning, as well as reviewing for learning (content knowledge acquisition). Similar to assessment, reviewing can be used as a way to learn the writing process and the language used in the process. The majority of our contributors are therefore using this service as a learning process for themselves, as de facto reviewing for learning. One could also extend this to reviewing as learning, in that by undertaking reviews for near-peers, they do so for their own professional development.
Reviewing as learning is the use of ongoing self-reflection by reviewers and writers, that is, tutors—not necessarily clients themselves—in order to monitor and improve their own writing and professional development. Introspection and near-peer discussion characterize this process of reflection on their own learning and making adjustments in order to achieve deeper understandings of their fields as well as of writing (e.g.: foci, genres, and styles) in and about them.
In reviewing for learning, tutors can use reviewing as an investigative medium through which to discover as much as possible about what their peers know and can do and what confusion, preconceptions, or knowledge gaps there might be. Reviewing as learning helps tutors to take responsibility for their own development, while setting their own goals and monitoring their own progress, by providing exemplars and models of good practice and quality work that reflect desirable professional outcomes. Reflective reviewing as learning enables tutors to work with peers and develop clear criteria for good practices.
Nevertheless, among challenges tutors mentioned working with little or no direct feedback (from clients, co-readers, or the PSG coordinator) on their feedback for clients (1) and working in an online-only venue (1). Other emergent clusters of challenges comprised the following:
- Delivery of constructive criticism (n = 6) that would be encouraging (3), comprehensible (1), impartial (1), and accessible to EAL writers (1);
- Time management issues (n = 4), namely devoting time as volunteers (2), finding time (1), and being unsure how much time is necessary (1); and
- Insufficient content-area knowledge (2)—in spite of PSG members' association with 10 or more of JALT's 20+ special interest groups (Appendix C, Web resources, JALT Chapters and SIGs).
Both these tutor-related challenges and the major collaborative technology-related challenges at the end of the Results section are matters for consideration as next steps for the PSG.
Implications
The implications of these results are that future tutor recruitment may need to address demographic under-representation, particularly in the area of L1s. There is a particular need to recruit more peer tutors with Japanese as their L1 because the PSG is based in Japan. Prospective clients and even PSG members may wish to submit to Japanese-language publications.
Other major findings to emerge related to tutor motivations, feedback processes, peer readership, and online collaboration—numerous challenges in particular. These span two separate categories, namely writer-related and tutor-related issues.
EAL writers.
For EAL writers, at present, PSG documents are unavailable in Japanese (Appendix C: Web resources) or any other languages than English. This may be resolved by consulting SIGs that represent other languages in the larger JALT organization. Secondly, an important issue raised by one PSG tutor was related to difficulties in providing advice on papers from EAL writers. The tutor asserted (and the authors agree), "Another very big challenge is that sometimes we have to check non-native speaker's articles, and those can sometimes be quite difficult" (M5).
Maiko Nakatake (2013) noted that problematic issues included expectations regarding lower-order editing such as proofreading. Nakatake also found Japanese writers to be "passive" and accepting of tutors' advice without question. The PSG's mission, however, is to take a constructionist approach which calls for autonomous decisions and action on the part of clients. As one PSG tutor put it, "The writer (tutee) is the owner of the writing" (F2), and as such, PSG tutors' roles should be to encourage and motivate writers towards autonomy.
Feedback for tutors.
Without such feedback on tutors' efforts, it may be difficult for them to assess and improve their peer reading and feedback skills. Addressing such challenges is a matter for consideration as next steps for the PSG (see Future directions, below). Possible solutions to consider are opening feedback channels and establishing routines for tutors such as:
- Online discussion with PSG coordinators and peers soon after returning papers;
- Face-to-face consultations with coordinators and peers at annual conferences, and
- Training sessions based on actual writing samples (Mackiewcz & Thompson, 2013).
Previous research on face-to-face tutoring (Cogie, 2006; Thonus, 2004) identified negotiations, partially or unresolved issues, and linguistic scaffolding for a non-native writer of English as areas to focus on. Ben Rafoth (2015) argued that reflection utilizing transcripts, in particular, can enhance tutor development.
Although the PSG does not engage in face-to-face tutoring, and thus cannot make recordings and utilize transcripts, the same principle can be applied, namely the use of reflection on feedback to and interactions with clients in order to improve peer reading and develop tutoring skills. In Google Docs, the comment and suggestion functions and revision histories capture rich detail that can serve as transcripts to use for reflection, training, and orientation sessions.
Tutor formation.
For tutors, it is important to know what quality of service others may expect—clients and PSG co-readers in particular. One way of priming expectations is to have a peer-reader charter which "attempts to lay down guidelines" regarding what tutors "can and should expect to examine and do" (Bach, Haynes, & Smith, 2007, p. 76). Such a charter or cannon may set forth clear examples of quality work with detailed explanations of the pedagogy behind the decisions made and the terminology used in the reporting. Examples should be positive in nature and nurturing of the writing (e.g., Podis, 1980).
Aaron Kraut, Lalena Yarris, & Joan Sargeant (2015) affirmed:
Cognitive theory illuminates how feedback is processed by learners and, ultimately, how it affects personal growth. On a fundamental level, feedback can be viewed as an opportunity to bring attention to a gap between the recipient's knowledge or skill and the level of knowledge or skill he or she needs to attain. Ideally, the recipient's awareness of that gap can then serve as a catalyst for further learning. (p. 262)
This affirmation indicates a real need for such guidelines.
Tactical training.
Volunteers who initially have no experience using Google Docs must learn how in order to complete their first PSG reviews. This may be while or even after shadowing peer tutors. However, due to the extended intervals that can occur between peer reviews, tutors may need to re-learn the process, either due to forgetting or due to updates or changes in the technology. Continuing orientation and (re-)training may be necessary to ensure that all tutors can:
- Make valuable, timely, and easy-to-follow contributions to intra-group planning and reflection via the PSG discussion list;
- Share content and suggestions for public resources in PSG web spaces, e.g., the Meet the PSGers and Various venues for publication documents, and its WWW bookmarking group venue (Appendix C);
- Contribute directly to logs of their own progress and accomplishments as peer readers, tasks which currently require hands-on work with Google Sheets.
Tutor socialization.
Tutor-to-writer socialization follows Kenneth Bruffee's (1984) model of collaborative learning. By using peer tutoring as a format, the authority and onus of the traditional teacher-student classroom relationship is removed, and instead distributed between the tutor and writer. This method of production more accurately reflects the relationship that writers have with their eventual audience (Bruffee, 1984). Despite conceivable variation in the impact or uptake of asynchronous written feedback to clients from remote and relatively unknown tutors as more or less authoritative than that in face-to-face or real-time tutorials, the PSG strives to achieve a mutually respectful, supportive balance in relationships with remote clients it serves.
Tutor-to-tutor socialization should also be increased in order to develop and strengthen identities and practices as peer tutors. Tutors could benefit from increased anticipatory socialization; that is, by explicit orientation into the practices and values of the PSG community of practice (Tierney & Rhoads, 1994; Beaufait, Edwards, & Muller, 2014). This can be accomplished by deliberate shadowing practices, through technical training, as mentioned above, or by holding online and offline meetings for hands-on practice sessions.
The lack of face-to-face meetings with other tutors is a barrier to organizational socialization, which is how members enter communities (Tierney & Rhoads, 1994). This can be remedied by meetings at conferences or events for information dissemination, question-and-answer sessions, and more informal networking opportunities. Finally, more promotion of the PSG and the professional development opportunities it provides is desirable in order to attract a wider range of tutors, who in turn will be able to serve a wider range of writers.
Limitations
The limitations of this study include the small sample size (N = 15) and the less than 100% response rate of tutors. If all tutors had responded to the survey, the results could be very different from the self-selected sample. However, as the survey was designed and distributed according to best practices and administered by near-peer colleagues to a population with both Internet access and vested interests in the survey subject, the response rate was high for an online survey (Saleh & Bista, 2017).
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- Recording and aggregating dates of intake, readership, and completion of papers;
- Collecting tutors' (in-house) reflections on processes and outcomes; and
- Aggregating feedback from writers of the PSG service regarding feedback they receive from tutors.
Secondly, there is a need for meta-literature—namely, to update, extend, and expand upon the literature that describes practical considerations and best practices for peer-operated online writing centers (see Rosalia, 2013). Finally, the research should also be turned inward and towards more qualitative methods, such as case studies of tutors and writers, and how exactly the process is enacted and transacted between tutors and writers in asynchronous online settings.
PSG research could focus more closely individual tutor-writer discourse, motivations, and working relationships, as well as on writing issues such as clients' uptake of feedback from tutors, academic writing and genre socialization, and second or additional language writing issues. It certainly would be helpful to discover reasons that a majority of the PSG tutors have never availed themselves of in-group peer readership, as well as to explore practical ways to clarify the submission and feedback processes for both clients and tutors.
An important issue that emerged from this study was that content or subject matter in papers is sometimes outside tutors' areas of expertise, and that this lack of knowledge can impede or restrict the tutoring process. Working within areas of expertise is a strength that transfers to and from formal roles reviewing for professional publications such as those Rachel Ankeny mentioned recently (Ankeny et al., 2018). As the PSG serves a very specialized population, that is, working professionals involved in language- or education-related fields in Japan and aiming to publish in English, the PSG also provides research design and content support often provided by professors or supervisors in institutional settings. This sharing of specialized, field-specific knowledge among tutors and clients may enhance tutor-client discourse and augment the rigor of the research as well as the quality of the writing. Since many writers are new to academic research and to publishing in English in Japan, tutors serve as near-peer role models and mentors within the same community of practice.
Also calling for attention in the lack of diversity in tutors' L1s. This may be due to the general membership and perception of JALT (i.e., as primarily L1 English users), and may speak to the language socialization required by a collaborative learning format (Duff, 2007, 2010; Ochs, 1988; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986). Thus, there is a need to promote the PSG at conferences and by other means, in order to attract and develop a wider pool of tutors.
As with most writing centers, outreach is essential. At present, a PSG member edits a collaborative Writers' Workshop column in The Language Teacher, a JALT publication that is often a target of PSG clients. This column can and should be used to raise awareness of and recruit for the PSG. It also would be productive for the PSG to convene and present at national conferences, SIG and chapter events, and other events that may attract both potential recruits and future clients. More attention should go into convening recruitment, orientation, training, and feedback sessions among and for tutors, as well as into exploring possibilities of face-to-face meetings with and hands-on workshops for writers at such events.
Finally, as an extension of the current and previous studies, PSG research should focus outwards to investigate target users' knowledge (or lack of knowledge) of the PSG, as well as to identify reasons underlying disinclination to make use of PSG services. Additional research should continue to focus on the PSG’s unique existence and operations as an entirely volunteer peer-powered OWL in Japan.
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Appendix A: Survey of Tutors [text facsimile]
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Appendix B: Recommended readings
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Appendix C: Web resources
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Appendix D: Writing Centers in Japan
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