Preparing for a new paradigm: A mixed-methods study of student experience in on-site, hybrid, and online writing courses

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly all students have had some kind of experience with modalities beyond traditional, on-site teaching. We wanted to study how first-year writing students experienced different modalities (i.e., on-site, hybrid, and online) to learn more about how best to support students and faculty in the future. This paper presents results of a mixed-methods study investigating differences in first-year writing student levels of confusion, satisfaction with social interaction, and preferences for modality in learning about writing. We found significant differences (with mostly small effects and some medium and large effects) in lower levels of confusion and higher satisfaction with social interaction in on-site classes relative to hybrid and online classes. We also found that students preferred a modality for a writing class for different and sophisticated reasons. On the basis of these results, we recommend more support for teaching in all modalities, more investigation of strengths/weaknesses of synchronous and asynchronous approaches, and more support offered to students before and during their writing classes for how best to learn how to learn in a given modality.