Qualitative methods are predicated on the desire to understand teaching and learning from the actions and perspectives of teachers and learners, and has largely dominated knowledge making in composition studies, particularly in the last twenty years.
[7] Quantitative methods, meanwhile, stem from the belief that the world works in predictable patterns, ones that might be isolated in terms of their causes and effects or the strengths of their relationships (i.e., correlation).
In writing centers, using this method allows writing center directors to collect responses to specific questions and to use the social dynamics of the group to allow for the participants to play off one another's answers, resulting in changes that can be implemented rapidly to make their organization or product more productive.
Discussed in many forms, several writing center scholars advise directors to develop assessment plans, and provide a series of approaches for doing so.
These typically begin with figuring out what to measure, validating these plans, and presenting these findings to the relevant stakeholders.
[5] In discussing the VCAP, Isabelle Thompson lists six general heuristics of program assessment that fit into this context.
[22] In their book Building Writing Center Assessments that Matter, Ellen Schendel and William J. Macauley Jr. provide a set of heuristics for presenting information to stakeholders in the university setting: Some of this advice, such as the desire to tell a story about the writing center space, clashes directly with advice from administrators like Josephine Koster, who claims that "administrators don't want to read essays.
Directors should use bulleted lists, headings, graphs, and charts, and executive summaries in documents sent to administrators".