CFP: Community Confidence: A Collection of Writing Center Self-Efficacies

Posted on by

CFP: Community Confidence: A Collection of Writing Center Self-Efficacies

Edited by Kendyl Harmeling, Katie Garahan, and Megan Keaton

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

In Writing Center studies, recent research has shown that self-efficacy is crucial to the work of the writing center, with scholars bridging self-efficacy with related concepts like confidence, writing anxiety, agency, authority, or time. But the field could do more to explore the opportunities and nuances about the central role of self-efficacy for writers, tutors, administrators, and the writing center itself. Though self-efficacy has become a topic of writing center research, the field has yet to bring together a collection of studies focusing on the wide reaching experiences with self-efficacy, from local client and tutor self efficacies to global institutional self-efficacies of the writing center. Because writing centers occupy a third space, our field should be at the forefront of the self-efficacy conversation. Therefore, we invite you to think about writing center self-efficacy with us in this collection.

Self-efficacy, broadly defined as one’s belief in their ability to accomplish a task (Bandura, 1997), is a complex network of relationships between the practice and affective experience of developing levels of skill, confidence, authority, and more within one person. Self-efficacy is a phenomenon that is highly contextual, and task-specific and individuals inhabit different self-efficacies in different contexts. Yet, we can carry multiple, even conflicting, senses of self-efficacy; we can at the same time feel like an agentic writer and a poor speaker. Self-efficacy is therefore a process of becoming, how it is that someone goes from feeling and acting novice to feeling and acting expert – and all the levels of development in between. Does this sound familiar? In the editors’ opinion, this is the very crux of what writing centers seek to grow in the writers who come in, the tutors who consult, and the administrators who advocate in our centers across institutions and nations. Writing centers are places of becoming, places which herald development, transfer, risk-taking, confidence, and agency. Writing centers are therefore inherently sponsorship hubs for complex, powerful, and diverse self-efficacies.

Across the domains, processes, and experiences from which self-efficacy may bloom in our centers, we welcome explorations into writing center self-efficacies like:

  • Client/Writing self-efficacy: how users of the writing center gain/experience self-efficacy around writing

  • Tutor/Tutoring self-efficacy: how tutors/consultants in writing centers gain/experience self-efficacy around tutoring writing

  • Administrative self-efficacy: how administrators of writing centers gain/experience self-efficacy with administrating a writing center

  • Institutional self-efficacy: how writing centers as institutions gain/experience self-efficacy around/within their larger intuitions (universities, communities, etc.)

Because self-efficacy as a phenomenon lends itself to multiple methods, given its variety of expression and experience, we envision this to be a mixed-methods collection. We therefore welcome a range of methodological approaches to the study of writing center self-efficacies: empirical, theoretical, first-person or group narratives/reflections, quantitative, qualitative, practical application/demonstration.

Additionally, we welcome authors from across nations, ranks, and roles, including writing tutors of all levels, collaborative teams, administrative staff, faculty, etc. We also welcome proposals from K-12, public/private institutions as well as community centers.

Since we are featuring different kinds of self-efficacies within the writing center, we imagine this collection to be organized in four sections: client/writer/writing self-efficacy, tutor/tutoring self-efficacy, administrative self-efficacy, and institutional self-efficacy.

Invited Themes

The editors welcome chapter proposals which address the below questions or related questions around self-efficacy studies in writing centers:

Section 1: Client/writer/writing self-efficacy

  • What are tutors’ perspectives on client/writer self-efficacy and how a writer’s self-efficacy may impact the work of the writing center?

  • What relationship(s) does your center see between client writing/reading self-efficacy and writing center use?

  • What narratives of self-efficacy do clients/writers share about their writing center use?

Section 2: Tutor/tutoring self-efficacy

  • How/does tutor training impact tutor self-efficacy?

  • What does tutoring self-efficacy feel like?

  • How do tutors talk about their self-efficacy over time?

Section 3: Administrative self-efficacy

  • How do administrators build infrastructure – policies, scheduling, processes, training – for writing center self-efficacies (tutoring, writing, institutional, etc.)?

  • How does your writing center “do what it knows how to do” within its larger institutional contexts, limits, and/or affordances? How does your writing center determine what it “can do”?

  • How do self-efficacies appear in writing center narratives at your institution (i.e., in marketing, institutional, departmental conversations)?

Section 4: Institutional self-efficacy

  • How does location, center name, and/or institutionally provided resources (or lack thereof) affect writing center self-efficacies?

  • How do mergers or collaborations across campus influence the writing center’s institutional self-efficacy?

  • How do changes to majors, departments, or degrees influence writing center self-efficacies?

General questions that may fall under any of the above sections:

  • How do authority, identity, and agency co-mingle with self-efficacies?

  • How does Generative AI impact self-efficacy across all levels?

  • Is there such a thing as trickle-down self-efficacy, or self-efficacy sponsorship (i.e., institution → writing center → director → tutor → student)?

  • What in our daily work in writing centers has to do with self-efficacy? Where else is it, where does it impact the work that we don’t yet notice?

Submission Guidelines

Please submit a proposal of 300-500 words by November 6, 2026. Proposals should be formatted in APA 7 and include the following:

  • Tentative chapter title

  • The authors’ names, titles, affiliations, and email addresses

  • Abstract (300-500 words)

  • 1-2 sentence summary of project

  • References (not included in word count)

  • Approximately 50-word author biographies (not included in word count)

Please submit your proposal and relevant information to the Proposal Submission Form or at: https://forms.gle/qLXB4zuUq3frApWYA

Submissions will be reviewed for topical relevance, methodological appropriateness, novelty, and potential for contribution. Selected chapters will be notified via email by approximately January 14, 2027.

Tentative Timeline

  • August 2026: CFP released

  • November 2026: proposals due

  • January 2027: selected chapter proposal authors will be notified and invited to submit full chapters (Chapters will be 6000-8000 words.)

  • July 2027: chapter submission deadline

Contact Info

Kendyl Harmeling, kharmeli

Katie Garahan, kgarahan

Megan Keaton, mfiresto

References

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. W.H. Freeman.

Camfield, E. K. (2016). Mediated-efficacy: Hope for “helpless” writers. Journal of Developmental Education, 39(3), 2–11.

Casswell, N.I. et al. (2016). Working lives of new writing center directors. Utah State UP.

Goodman, S. B., & Cirka, C C. (2009). Efficacy and anxiety: An examination of writing attitudes in a first-year seminar. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 20 (3), 5-28.

Harmeling, K. et al. (2025). Navigating writing center timescapes: Reflections on tutor self-efficacy at university and community sites. Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, 22(2), 82-91. https://www.praxisuwc.com/222-harmeling-et-al2

Lundin, I. M., O’Connor, V., & Perdue, S. W. (2023). The impact of writing center consultations on student writing self-efficacy. The Writing Center Journal, 41(2), 7–25. https://doi.org/10.7771/2832-9414.1937

Messier, D., & Banat, H. R. (2025). Writing confidence: Tutoring, identity, and race—A mixed-methods approach. The Writing Center Journal, 43(1), 31–63. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27380707

Powell, R., & Hixson-Bowles, K. (2018). Too confident or not confident enough?: A quantitative snapshot of writing tutors’ writing and tutoring self-efficacies.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, 16(1), 36-56. https://www.praxisuwc.com/161-powell-and-hixson-bowles

Ryan, P. (2020). How race can impact our writing self-efficacy in college composition. Educational Research: Theory and Practice, 31(1), 63-66.

Savarese, C.M. (2022). Identifying variables that predict community college students’ level of self-efficacy in writing. Educational Research: Theory and Practice, 33(3), 106-124.

Kendyl Harmeling, PhDAssistant Teaching Professor
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Department of Communication Studies
Program in Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies