“How can we help you?”: Assessing student behaviors and outcomes in collaborative research and writing support

Research shows students benefit from both research services (Cox et al., 2019) and writing services (Salazar, 2021; Freeman & Getty, 2024), but what changes for students when such services are offered collaboratively in the same space? Our research examines how student behaviors and expectations can inform the design of collaborative research and writing support services and assesses self-reported outcomes in learning, confidence, and belonging in academic communities for post-traditional students, and students of color at a small, urban, public university in the Midwest. In a mixed methods study based on a broad sample of survey data, we determined the service model worked well for users with varied demographic backgrounds and in both online and in-person service modalities. The most significant determinant of self-reported outcomes came not from aspects of the service model itself, but from how students made the service part of their learning. Most notably, the amount of time users spent with the service correlated with positive self-assessed outcomes in grades, and user preference for working consistently with the same staff member showed positive outcomes across grades, confidence, and connection to community. These findings offer several implications, including challenges in communicating to students how librarians support the research and writing process, a reassessment of the value of “transactional” engagement between students and librarians and writing tutors, and reinforce of the need to provide flexibility to students and learn from their usage habits, especially when serving post-traditional learners.