1. Introduction

[1] Although they have been part of scholarly conversations since Eric Hobson’s 1998 Wiring the Writing Center, online writing labs (OWLs) are still considered relatively unfamiliar writing environments. Among writing center (WC) scholars in particular, OWLs have been overtly questioned as legitimate pedagogical sites for tutoring writing, while simultaneously considered to be less effective than traditional face-to-face tutoring (Bell, 2011; Carino, 2008; Coogan, 2008; Harris & Pemberton, 2008).

[2] Moving beyond such resistance, OWL tutoring has gained practical support: 69% of four and two year institutions surveyed between March 2013-October 2014 for the National Census of Writing reported that they offered either synchronous (real time) or asynchronous (non-real time) online tutoring (Gladstein & Fralix, 2014) and 59% of WCs surveyed for the 2014-2015 Writing Center Research Project indicated that their WC offered online or virtual services (Denny, 2014). Yet, only one monograph to date has focused specifically on the online writing conference (Hewett, 2015) and far too few articles have offered practical guidance grounded in theory (Martinez & Olsen, 2015).

[3] Nonetheless, covert resistance to the unique processes and benefits of OWL tutoring persists. Most tutor handbooks dedicate brief space to online tutoring and offer narrow concepts of OWLs. For instance, Christina Murphy and Steve Sherwood’s The St. Martin’s Sourcebook for Writing Tutors (2011) includes only one chapter about online tutoring, a reprint of Lisa Bell’s 2006 article, “Preserving the Rhetorical Nature of Tutoring When Going Online.” Bell evinced a concerned perspective about online tutoring: “Yet, online tutorials were and are taking place at an alarming rate considering the lack of research” (327). Offering an incongruous message, three additional chapters regarding tutoring students to write in multimedia and with multiliteracies were juxtaposed against this negative chapter where the online tutorial was given short shrift and its potential was left unsung.

[4] Similarly, in Leigh Ryan and Lisa Zimmerelli’s The Bedford Guide for Writing Tutors (2016), there were only 7 full pages of 152 devoted to online tutoring. In Lauren Fitzgerald and Melissa Ianetta’s The Oxford Guide for Writing Tutors (2016), only 6 of 546 pages were devoted to online tutoring; although these pages were more positively expressed than in Murphy and Sherwood’s (2011) text, the brevity itself reveals that online tutoring is both little understood and poorly valued.

[5] These recent handbooks focus primarily on transferring face-to-face tutoring theories and strategies to online spaces, working from the assumption that online tutoring should follow traditional WC strategies (i.e., non-directive, dialogic, and peer-model based). They pay little attention to research that has suggested who online tutors are (Hewett and Ehmann, 2004; Ehmann Powers, 2015), what strategies they use (Hewett, 2015), and how those strategies appeal (or not) to widely varied personality and learning preference types in the general student population (Van Waes, van Weijen, & Leijten, 2014).

1.1 OWI Principles and Online Writing Tutoring

[6] Although WC studies has yet to engage fully with the ways in which online sessions change the work of tutoring, the Conference for College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Committee for Effective Practices in Online Writing Instruction (CCCC OWI Committee) laid the groundwork for this in their 2013 position statement with 15 principles and examples of effective practices. For instance, the following principles are especially important when considering the OWL setting:

• OWI Principle 1: Online writing instruction should be universally inclusive and accessible.
• OWI Principle 3: Appropriate composition teaching/learning strategies should be developed for the unique features of the online instructional environment.
• OWI Principle 4: Appropriate onsite composition theories, pedagogies, and strategies should be migrated and adapted to the online instructional environment.
• OWI Principle 7: Writing Program Administrators (WPAs) for OWI programs and their online writing teachers should receive appropriate OWI-focused training, professional development, and assessment for evaluation and promotion purposes.
• OWI Principle 13: OWI students should be provided support components through online/digital media as a primary resource; they should have access to onsite support components as a secondary set of resources.
• OWI Principle 14: Online writing lab administrators and tutors should undergo selection, training, and ongoing professional development activities that match the environment in which they will work.
• OWI Principle 15: OWI/OWL administrators and teachers/tutors should be committed to ongoing research into their programs and courses as well as the very principles in this document.

[7] In particular, OWI Principle 1 is central to this study because it recognizes the need for OWI in all its forms to be inclusive and accessible. We understand this principle to have implications not only for student writers, but also for online writing tutors, who are rarely recognized as a unique group who may need additional training and support different from traditional WC training. In this article, we write from the awareness that online tutoring differs significantly from theories and strategies connected with traditional WC practices. Such theories and strategies tend to suggest that:

1. face-to-face best practices represent a superior way to tutor;
2. online tutoring simply requires the direct transfer of face-to-face strategies—hence, an understudied and tutor-focused emphasis on synchronous tutoring—and thus is without additional challenges in that modality;
3. asynchronous online tutoring is like a drop-off paper center largely without benefits regarding a range of online modalities and media for tutoring scenarios; and
4. face-to-face best practices are flexible enough to address diverse learning styles in a digitized world.

[8] Indeed, we specifically believe the opposite is true in that:

1. face-to-face best practices may work well onsite but not in most online settings;
2. online tutoring requires more than a direct transfer of face-to-face theories or strategies, thus necessitating its own theories and practices and making migration of onsite best practices problematic at best
3. both asynchronous and synchronous modalities have distinct strengths and challenges when tutors work with online writing students, requiring specific training and practice opportunities for each; and
4. students diverse learning styles require flexibility beyond face-to-face best practices given a range of student technology preferences and access, learning needs and inclinations, and geographical connections to particular institutional settings.

[9] Thus, we follow Beth L. Hewett and Kevin Eric DePew’s (2015) Foundational Practices for Online Writing Instruction and use the above OWI Principles to guide our online tutoring research by attempting to provide specific guidelines for training that recognize the unique challenges and affordances of the online setting. We also call for additional, OWL-specific training and professional development for online WC administrators and their tutors.

[10] To do this work, we draw on national survey data collected from over fifty OWL tutors and administrators to better understand who online writing tutors are, what they believe, and what strategies they use in practice. This project emerged primarily from our extensive backgrounds in onsite and online WC tutoring experience and research.

[11] Recognizing the complex skill set required to tutor writing online and the lack of attention to online writing, or OWL, tutoring in general, we speculated that OWL tutoring likely attracted a particular kind of writing tutor with specific preferences and needs, something that Hewett had found in previous training sessions with online writing tutors (Hewett & Hallman Martini, forthcoming). This potential led us to an informal conversation about the Meyers Briggs’ Type Indicator (MBTI) survey of personality types as one measure of teaching personalities (Jensen & DiTiberio, 1989). In our conversation, we realized that we were both OWL tutor-administrators with one of the rarest personality types, INFJ—a Jungian personality type based on the MBTI—that focuses on the inner world as opposed to the outer world; gains energy from a primarily introverted perspective; focuses iNtuitively on interpreting information as opposed to the information itself; addresses decision making from a Feeling perspective, considering people and special circumstances versus concerns of logic and consistency; and uses Judging to seek closure and completion rather than continuing to seek more information, leaving things open ended.

[12] Given that the INFJ personality type is the least common of 16 Jungian types in the general population (1.5%) based on data from the Myers and Briggs Foundation (2017), we formulated three research questions regarding OWL tutors:

1. Is there a high percentage of OWL tutors and administrators with INFJ personality types?
2. If there is a high percentage of INFJ personality types among OWL tutors and administrators, how does such a personality clustering influence what these tutors and administrators think about online tutoring and how they approach online tutoring?
3. What specific needs do OWL tutors and administrators have in terms of professional development?

Thus, we hypothesized that there would be a high percentage of OWL tutors and administrators with INFJ personality types and that this trend would have some influence on OWL tutoring. Our findings confirmed our hypothesis; 19.6% (n = 10) of 51 OWL tutors and administrators scored as INFJ. Further, these separate personality traits (Introverted, iNtuitive, Feeling, and Judging) were consistently more common than their counter parts (Extraverted, Sensing, Thinking, and Perceiving). Similar to George Jensen and John DiTiberio’ findings (1989), we also learned that tutors often use strategies that tend to align closely with their own learning styles. For example, an introverted tutor may encourage a writer to begin the writing process with prewriting and outlining, even though an extroverted writer would likely prefer to generate ideas by talking first, without worrying about a formal plan.

[13] Thus, we suggest that online tutors may be tutoring as if students have the same or similar personality types and learning preferences as their own, without acknowledging a wide range of learning styles both present in and exacerbated by online settings. This possibility should raise major concerns particularly in terms of access and inclusivity, per OWI Principle 1, since most students likely are not the same type as their tutors and, in some cases, may be very different. The notion of personality types, which provides a rich taxonomy for examining tutoring and learning differences in this article, can be a helpful way of educating OWL administrators and tutors to rethink writing tutoring for an online setting.

[14] We argue, therefore, that professional development for online writing tutoring must explicitly teach tutors not to tutor themselves, thus calling for the practice of OWI Principle 14. We also acknowledge that moving tutoring online may amplify the issue of personality-projection, in part because gauging personality type without face-to-face interaction takes extra effort and could be overlooked as a necessary part of working effectively with the writer.

[15] In the sections that follow, we begin with a discussion of the MBTI Survey and Jungian Personality Types followed by a description of our study and methods. Then, we provide our major findings that indicate why tutors work online and OWL tutors’ and administrators’ perceived areas of comfort and needs, with close attention professional development opportunities. Next, we consider participants’ personality types and trends and how these trends impact online tutoring. Finally, we end with two key guidelines for educating online writing tutors and materials that we believe OWL writing center administrators and tutors can use profitably as they prepare to work with writers online. We conclude by considering the limitations of our study and possibilities for future research in this area.

2. Use of the MBTI Survey of Jungian Personality Types

​[16] The MBTI survey, a multiple-choice personality test, was developed by Isabel Meyers and Katherine Cooke Briggs based on Carl Jung’s (1921) theory of personality types. Jung’s theory suggested that most people had a preference for one side of each dichotomy including general attitudes, perceptions, judgements, and approaches to decision-making. These types suggest a preference for a particular worldview and influence how individuals approach to learning, working, and teaching/tutoring. Although people often tend toward a particular personality type, there is value in learning how to use the opposite approach, thus rounding out the person’s ability to (inter)act in the world more fully. Table 1 draws on David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates (1984) to suggest how the four dichotomous types connect with personality types.

3. The Study​

[21] Given our individual past experiences with the MBTI, we decided to develop an Internet-based survey of online writing teachers, tutors, writing program administrators, and writing center administrators (WCAs) that could be delivered online and have some national reach via the WCenter and WPA listservs. We used Google Forms to create the survey, which began with nine demographic and background questions, eight Likert-scale questions to confirm the form of the MBTI selected, and five open-ended questions regarding professional development opportunities and perceived needs.[i] We then asked participants to take the JTT survey to learn their Jungian personality type and to self-report it on our survey proper. Finally, we asked participants two Likert scale questions to determine their perceived validity of their Jungian typology result and its relevance to their online teaching and tutoring.

3.1 Demographics

[22] Fifty-one WC practitioners participated in the study.[ii] Of those, 29 identified as tutors, 16 as WCAs, and 6 as both tutors and WCAs. Regarding institutions, most participants were located in writing centers at traditional universities (31). Seven were at small, comprehensive universities, seven at for-profit universities, four at two-year colleges, and two were not currently working in a university setting. The most widely represented disciplinary background was rhetoric and composition with 20 respondents; additionally, there were 10 in English Studies, 8 in other humanities, 5 in literature, 4 in creative writing, 2 in education, and 2 in the sciences. Participants’ tutoring/administrative experience ranged from less than 1 year to more than 10 years. Finally, 9 identified as BA/BS holders, 16 as MAs, 1 as an MS, 5 as MFAs, 14 as PhDs, and 6 as in-process BAs or AAs. These education demographics indicate that, for this study at least, more tutors were graduate-level or postgraduate-level and working in pre-professional or professional tutoring positions, rather than current student peer tutors. Potential reasons for this interesting difference may be how the participants received the survey (i.e., though listserv outlets and distributed by OWL administrators) as well as who actually has the interest and/or writing instructional skills needed in online settings.

3.2 Validation Questions

[23] We used the JTT, a test based on the Jungian personalities popularized by the MBTI, primarily because it is readily available online, has no-cost, and captures no participant information. The selected instrument is used by HumanMetrics primarily for business purposes. Because this instrument was not the original MBTI, we tested it for potential problems by building into the survey questions to rate the degree to which participants agreed with the personality type they had received from the instrument (n = 51).

[24] First, as described in Beth L. Hewett and Rebecca Hallman Martini (2018), we tested our results for potential problems by building into the survey a set of control questions regarding teaching preferences by personality type (Fuller, Norby, Pearce, & Strand, 2000). We used a four-point Likert scale of Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree. For example, to differentiate E versus I, Dorothy Fuller, Rena Faye Norby, Kristi Pearce, and Sharon Strand (2000) used the following two statements:

• Sensing (S) tendencies prefer structured, step-by-step syllabus, and traditional curricula.
• Intuitive (N) tendencies prefer focusing on concepts, self-instruction, and independent study. (p. 2)

We revised these statements to the following Likert Scale control-question statements for which participants were to agree or disagree. These were placed as the third and fourth control statements respectively:

• I prefer to teach/tutor using structured, step-by-step syllabi and traditional curricula. [S]
• I prefer to teach/tutor by focusing on concepts, self-instruction, and independent study. [N][1]

The same operation was completed for Extravert versus Introvert, Thinking versus Feeling, and Judging versus Perceiving. All eight control statements were placed first in the survey prior to asking participants to take the JTT; with a goal of avoiding possible participant bias, the response to the JTT instrument was last in the survey. Our null hypothesis was that there would be no difference between groups as identified by the JTT and control question response.

[25] We compared the scored Likert Scale control statements with the personality instrument responses using a one-way t-test. There were no significant differences between response groups for Extraversion, Introversion, Sensing, Feeling, and Thinking, which may be explained by the relatively small sample and the fact that individuals participating in the survey were performing similar professional tasks grounded by similar theories.

[26] We found significant differences for iNtuition in that participants who scored as iNtuitive were more likely to agree with the control statement indicating iNtuitive teaching strategies than were the Sensing type individuals (although Sensing was assigned to a small percentage of our total participants comprised of online tutors, WCAs, teachers, and WPAs). According to Jensen and DiTiberio (1989), as one climbs the “academic ladder,” sensing types become less frequent for both students and teachers (more high school teachers are S types, for example) and iNtuitive types begin to increase, outnumbering Sensing types for both students and college teachers (p. 165; see Figure 1).

[27] One pair, Judging versus Perceiving, revealed significant differences. First, those who scored as Judging were more likely to disagree regarding the Perceiving control statement than those who scored as Perceiving. Second, those who scored as Perceiving were more likely to disagree with the Judging control statement than those who scored as Judging. In essence, those who scored as Judging revealed strong beliefs in the statement associated with their supposed personality trait; those who scored as Perceiving revealed similarly strong beliefs in accordance with their supposed personality trait.

[28] As a second test of the JTT validity, we asked two more questions. The responses below reflect only online writing tutors and WCAs.

Based on the information provided on the above survey/website link about my given personality type, I:

• Strongly Agree 60.7% (n = 31)
• Somewhat Agree 39.2% (n = 20)
• Somewhat Disagree 0% (n = 0)
• Strongly Disagree 0% (n = 0)

This personality type represents personality characteristics pertinent to my online teaching/tutoring practices (i.e., style, strategy, approach).

• Strongly Agree 37.25% (n = 19)
• Somewhat Agree 58.8% (n = 30)
• Somewhat Disagree 3.9% (n = 2)
• Strongly Disagree 0 % (n = 0)

All OWL participants agreed that the information associated with their personality type according to the JTT matched, and all but two participants agreed that their personality type was pertinent to their online tutoring/administration. We considered both responses to be acceptable for our study’s purposes.

3.3 Open-Ended Questions

[29] We also asked participants to respond to open-ended questions about their perceived areas of comfort in the online setting, the kinds of administrative support and professional development they receive, the areas where they would benefit from institutional/administrative support, the types of professional development they would find supportive, and anything else related to online teaching/tutoring that they wanted to share. Responses were read several times and coded according to thematic patterns that emerged from the data.

​[31] Although findings suggest that online tutors worked in online settings primarily because they were asked to do so (n = 30) or their ability to retain a position required taking on online tutoring (n = 5), tutors also indicated that chose to tutor online because it better suited their scheduling needs (n = 25), they liked working in the online environment (n = 24), and because they thought students benefit from OWL (n = 21). Thus, these findings are in direct conflict with the assumption that face-to-face writing instruction is superior and/or preferable. Further, with only 14 survey participants indicating that they were required to tutor online, tutoring online often is a choice made by tutors themselves.

4.1 OWL Tutors and Administrators: Perceived Areas of Comfort and Needs

[32] Throughout the short answer sections, we noticed that there were surprisingly few mentions of tutoring at all. This may be due in part to the fact that 19 of the 51 participants were also OWI teachers.

4.1.1 Short answer question 1: Areas of comfort in OWL.

In response to the first short answer question, we received a range of responses. The most common are included in Table 3.

[33]​ Although findings suggest that online tutors worked in online settings primarily because they were asked to do so (n = 30) or their ability to retain a position required taking on online tutoring (n = 5), tutors also indicated that chose to tutor online because it better suited their scheduling needs (n = 25), they liked working in the online environment (n = 24), and because they thought students benefit from OWL (n = 21). Thus, these findings are in direct conflict with the assumption that face-to-face writing instruction is superior and/or preferable. Further, with only 14 survey participants indicating that they were required to tutor online, tutoring online often is a choice made by tutors themselves.

​[34] In terms of these responses, we found that the most common area of comfort among OWL tutors and WCAs was related to providing feedback to writers (n = 18). In addition, nine participants voiced ease with using discussion in online writing instruction settings. Eight mentioned the “individualized” nature of working with students online, which is significant in the context of online tutoring, since face-to-face sessions also tend to be conducted one-on-one and assumed to be better for building rapport (Price, Richardson, & Jelfs, 2007). Five participants mentioned that they were comfortable with “chatting with students” or “live chatting,” which seems to suggest a preference for a synchronous and video-based environment, but could also refer to casual instant messaging talk between online tutor and writer.

[35] While there was little mention of tutoring per se (n = 4), three participants mentioned a comfort with synchronous tutoring specifically and two mentioned comfort with asynchronous tutoring. Six mentioned a comfort level with creating “short videos” or “screencasts” for students. Furthermore, two participants compared the online environment directly to “traditional classrooms.” Thus, these data suggest that overall, online writing instructors may be more comfortable with teaching than tutoring in general. One participant voiced no comfort at all with any aspect of OWI. No one mentioned a comfort-level with the online platform or technology used for online tutoring.

4.1.2 Short answer question 2: Support needed.

Most participants listed at least three different areas of OWI where they would benefit from institutional or administrative support. The most common responses are indicated in Table 4 below.

[36]​ Additional support requested included tone online, focusing on higher level concerns instead of grammar in asynchronous tutoring responses, understanding how students receive online feedback differently from face-to-face, and helping students learn how to use written feedback. Participants also said that they would benefit from more resources (n = 6), specifically mentioning either time or money from their workplace, and from a better online platform more conducive to online tutoring (n = 6). Another technology-specific need was connected to using tools like video-audio conferencing. Some also expressed a need for more opportunities to collaborate with other online writing tutors and/or to receive feedback from supervisors about how online tutoring was going (n = 4).

4.1.3 Short answer question 3: Support currently provided.

Despite many areas of support needed, participants also noted the resources their institutions and administrations provided. Table 5 shows the most prominent kinds of support provided.

[37] Participants indicated that some kind of local support was often provided (n = 16). Yet, the type of this support varied from the development of training manuals and “a document of copy-paste grammar comments” to practice sessions and consultant reading group. However, it was not always clear whether or not the pedagogical support (i.e., consultant reading groups) were specific to online tutoring or just to tutoring in general. Only three participants expressed that they had been given funding for conferences or release time to develop their OWI, even though two additional participants were “encouraged” to attend conferences. Thus, it seems unlikely that research-supported online tutoring effective practices (per the CCCC OWI Committee’s OWI Principles, 2013) currently are being provided in any wide-ranging way for training purposes.

[38] More common than locally developed support was general LMS or technology-specific training (n = 10) or outside certification programs (n = 8). These professional development opportunities did not seem to recognize teaching writing or teaching writing online but instead the general nature of teaching any subject online. For instance, the outside certificate programs mentioned were Sloan OLC, AVID, and Quality Matters. Given the challenges of teaching literacy skills in online settings (CCCC OWI Committee, 2013) and participants’ indication of writing-agnostic training, we see a crucial need for more literacy-based educational opportunities specific to tutoring writing online.

4.1.4 Short answer question 4: Professional development desired.

In addition to asking participants what kinds of support they wanted, we also asked them about their professional development needs specifically. The most common responses are presented below in Table 6.

[39]​​ The vast majority of participants wanted professional development related to research-supported activities and resources (n = 10). For instance, the desire to attend both physical and online OWI conferences was requested, in addition to journals specific to OWI. Most of those who requested more resources (n = 8) wanted them so that they could attend professional development activities. In addition, participants requested more OWI-specific support (n = 4) and better technology (n = 4), even though better technology is not a kind of professional development, per se. The presence of “better technology” in this section suggests that most participants may be working with platforms that are not fully conducive to online tutoring.

4.1.5 Short answer question 5: Additional comments related to online tutoring.

Although only about half of the survey participants responded to this short answer question, there were still some significant patterns shown below in Table 7.

5. Addressing the Needs of OWL Tutors and Administrators

[41] Overall, participants’ responses to our short answer questions suggest that most OWL tutors/administrators like teaching writing online, that there is some degree of comfortability with the online tutoring space, and that institutions are providing some support. For instance, OWL tutors expressed feeling comfortable with providing feedback, managing discussion, and providing an individualized experience for students, yet they seemed less comfortable with using technological tools (such as video) to enhance tutoring. Lack of professional development specifically to tutoring writing with differing online media either asynchronously or synchronously may be why only three participants mentioned comfort with synchronous tutoring.

[42] Although many of our participants did receive some kind of localized training (n = 16), OWL tutors and administrators still voiced a need for more OWI-specific training, mentioned as both a needed support and a kind of professional development (n = 12), better technology and more appropriate platforms for their work (n = 15), and more resources, measured in both time and money (n = 14). The most prominent kind of professional development requested was field-specific engagement through workshops, conferences, and the production of and subscription to scholarly journals in the area. One participant even noted that “the literature that seems available on this topic is often repetitive and does not provide much useful information.”

[43] Thus, the need for a professional, scholarly community to come together around issues specific to OWL tutoring and administration is a need voiced by these participants. While Diane Martinez and Leslie Olsen (2015) have begun this important work, more research is needed. The recent formation of the Global Society for Online Literacy Education (GSOLE) is another exciting step in this direction in part because GSOLE is the online tutoring affiliate to the International Writing Centers Association (IWCA). Creation of professional organizations and scholarly journals around OWI would perhaps also make a case for providing more resources to support professional development in this area, as many participants requested funding and time-based support, but few seemed to receive more than “encouragement.” Finally, it seems likely that current OWL platforms are inadequate for the kinds of work online tutors do, according to some participants. Thus, there is much potential to improve online tutoring work with students in this capacity.

5.1 OWL Tutors and Administrators: Personality Types and Trends

[44] Perhaps the most stunning finding of this study was the overwhelming presence of ENFJ, INFJ, INFP and INTJ personality types among OWL tutors and WCAs.

[45] Figure 1 shows that the most common personality type among OWL tutors and WCAs was ENFJ (n = 11), with INFJ (n = 10) and INFP (n = 10) closely behind. Other than INTJ (n = 7) and ENFJ (n = 4), the other seven personality types had far fewer people, with only one or two in each category. Four personality types (ISFP, ESTP, ESFP, and ESTJ) were not present at all among OWL tutors and WCAs. Overall, I (Introverted), N (iNtuitive), F (Feeling), and J (Judging) were the most common characteristics among OWL tutors and administrators (see Figure 1 and Table 8). Overall, I (Introverted), N (iNtuitive), F (Feeling), and J (Judging) were the most common characteristics among OWL tutors and administrators (see Table 8 below).

[46] ​Furthermore, pairings of two or three of these traits within one score were common. For instance, 39% (n =20) of online tutors and WCAs were assessed as INF (Introverted, iNtuitive, Feeling) personality types, 54.9% (n = 27) were IN (Introverted and iNtuitive) personality types, and 60.8% (n = 35) were NF (iNtuitive and Feeling). For comparison, Figure 2 draws on 2017 Myers and Briggs Foundation data to show a percentage-based breakdown of the OWL tutor/WCA personality types alongside a breakdown of the U.S. general population.

​[47] Across the U.S. general population, the most common personality types were ISFJ (13.8%), ESFJ (12.3%), and ISTJ (11.6%). While all personality types are represented within the U.S. general population, several common personality traits among the general population were nearly absent or much rarer among OWL tutors and administrators, including ISTJ, ESTP, ESTJ, ISFJ, ISFP, ESFP, and ESFJ.

​[48] Given the possibility that tutors in any environment might impose their own personality types onto any writers with whom they work, there is much potential for conflict here. The online setting makes personal tutoring preferences especially complex, given that tutors could be making assumptions quickly about who students writers are based on very little evidence or interaction, since non-verbal communication is harder to pick up (in synchronous settings) and sometimes entirely absent (in asynchronous settings). Further, online tutors could get in the routine of approaching all online sessions the same way, likely imposing their personality types onto writers out of habit. According to Table 4, the greatest possibility for disconnect between the online tutors who responded to the survey and their students, as generalized by the Myers and Briggs Foundation (2017) data, would be between the iNtuition thinking tutor and the Sensing student.

[49] Intuitive thinkers focus on interpreting information, seeing the larger picture, and considering abstractions and concepts; they tend to be innovative, exploratory, and creative, all the while appreciating challenges. The iNtuitve thinker quickly absorbs information and comes to the whole answer intuitively, often without explanation (Keirsey & Bates, 1984; Luyckx & Dalelemans, 2008). As online tutors, iNtutitive types might be patient with the writing process, acknowledge that there is value in brainstorming and exploring ideas before coming to a conclusion, and focus on the whole picture. Thus, iNtuitive thinkers as online tutors are likely to focus on the big picture ideas in a piece of writing, emphasizing the writer’s meaning and purpose (Jensen & DiTiberio, 1989, p. 98).

[50] However, sensing types focus more on basic information and value facts, experience, and the concrete. Sensing thinkers are grounded in reality, are detail oriented, and prefer practical information. They have a tendency to focus on the practical and want to get to the point, which sometimes comes across as being abrupt or impatient explanation (Keirsey & Bates, 1984; Luyckx & Dalelemans, 2008). As writers, Sensing type students might focus on small parts of a writing assignment with an eye toward detail and facts and a desire to make specific “corrections” that, if made, would represent a complete revision.

[51] Rather than bringing a more exploratory and creative mindset to the writing, Sensing writers are likely to do better with writing assignments that focus on writing from their own personal experiences (Jensen & DiTiberio, 1989, p. 98). Sensing types are likely to get bogged down in lower-order concerns and want direct, explicit instructions from iNtuitive tutors who are unlikely to see writing possibilities in such concrete ways. Sensing writers might lose patience with tutors who do not explain their processes or why they are approaching a piece of writing in a particular way, and they also might become frustrated by the lack of concrete progress made during a session.

[52] Another opportunity for disconnect is between how predominantly Feeling online tutors and Thinking student writers choose what to do or not to do. For instance, Feeling types make decisions based on people and special circumstances. Thus, they value personal and emotion-based judgments, and they enjoy talking with people in a warm and friendly manner. Feeling types often show their emotions, trust and accept people, and have difficulty saying no. Yet, Thinking types root decision making in logic and consistency. Thus, they tend to take an objective, impersonal stance that operates according to rules. They are more likely to hide emotional reactions or appear cold, while being analytical, critical, and question-raising. Thinking types prefer formal organization and logic with lots of detail. A Feeling type online tutor might mistake a Thinking type online student’s questions and desires for detail as a focus on form and disinterest in content, placing them in a tension through which—we have observed—some tutorial pairs do not recover.

[53] During an online tutoring session, any of these personality differences can make establishing rapport and building a relationship difficult. Thinking students may prefer to remove the self from writing, to follow specific structures, and to focus on content over form. To that end, they may want an online tutorial—asynchronous or synchronous—in which the online tutor offers a guided review of the paper and provides specific next steps for revision. Significantly, they may want to keep any personal information out of the writing and focus on more objective topics. Yet, a Feeling type online tutor might encourage writers to write about topics they care about personally and to draw on personal experience in the writing. Such tutors also may shy away from providing concrete actions in fulfilling a common onsite writing center-based concern that doing so would appropriate the writer’s process.

[54] This approach, however, is in direct conflict with what Thinking type student writers likely prefer and need—they might strongly desire specific guidance to get into a new draft. Feeling type online tutors are also likely to value anticipating reader expectations and using them to help guide organization, all the while emphasizing form over content. While the writer’s focus on content and the tutor’s focus on form in this scenario might actually prove quite productive, it also might create conflict if the online tutor dismisses content entirely and focuses either on process or on form.

[55] The above scenario is especially significant because it serves as an example of how a face-to-face best practice in tutoring (using nondirective strategies and linguistically indirect language per Hewett, 2015) could be especially problematic if transferred online. Whereas onsite practices eschew directive (including linguistically direct) guidance, students may indicate frustration and confusion through body language or continuous questioning that suggests to tutors that they should be more directive. Yet, when online students receive such nondirective guidance, they may leave both asynchronous and synchronous sessions not only dissatisfied but also unclear as to how to move their writing forward.

[56] The other discrepancies in personality types (Introvert/Extraverts and Judging/Perceiving) are also likely to influence the online tutor-student dynamic. For instance, Introverted tutors should take care to acknowledge the need for Extraverted writers to talk through ideas and should thus value such dialogic processes, rather than emphasizing other process-based writing strategies above all else. Furthermore, Perceiving type writers are likely to select broad topics and spend a great deal of time researching and analyzing before they write. Judging tutors are likely to value well-organized first drafts with specific topics. In these two dichotomies, there is much potential for Introverted or Judging type tutors to unintentionally pass value judgments on Extraverted or Perceiving type writers who may rely on a range of idea development strategies that are not directly linked to writing. Thus, these student writers may show up to multiple writing center sessions without drafts, leading tutors to assume that they have not done much work when the opposite may be true.

[57] When considered outside the realm of onsite writing center contexts, such scenarios become more complex. Our study of online teachers (Hewett & Hallman Martini, forthcoming 2018) indicated that teachers with primarily Introverted preferences were satisfied in asynchronous settings while Extraverted online teachers expressed less comfort with asynchronous media and even yearned for synchronous settings. Hence, some online tutors may profess to prefer asynchronous or synchronous settings—given an Introverted or Extraverted personality preference—and they may be meeting with students who have quite the opposite personality-driven preference and/or learning style need—a situation that can affect access drastically.

[58] Taken a step further, if an online WC administrator has an Extraverted personality type and gravitates toward synchronous settings—whether because of Extraversion or the prevalent face-to-face dictum that working with a writer in full view, in person, and in real time is the best practice—he or she may be out of sync with a number of more Introverted online tutors who would be more comfortable in asynchronous settings. The administrator’s choices affect both the online students and the online tutors and, therefore, such choices ideally would be made with special consideration of how personality types may play into the hiring and training of online tutors as well as the actual purchasing of any software or hardware.

[59] More than modality is in play, for once one opts for either the asynchronous or synchronous modality (or both), media in terms of text, text plus audio, audio/video (and whether it is live or taped), and use of multimodal processes must be determined. For each of these media, we suspect one’s Jungian personality type may play a part in preference for learning and using in online tutoring sessions. Overall, the potential conflicts we have outlined herein may have some bearing on the numbers of online and onsite students who use and return to online writing centers for tutoring.

[69] As part of their professional development and specifically regarding a variety of writer personality types, OWL tutors and WCAs should practice online tutor-writer scenarios, discuss a case-study sample paper and how the tutor would respond to it, and brainstorm ways to address writer’s block experienced by each type of writer. In addition, they should talk about possible ways of assessing students’ potential personality types to anticipate particular learning styles and writing habits. For instance, the scenarios provided here depict student writers who carry the most prevalent personality types from each dichotomy and consider how online writing tutors could work with those students.

6.2 Guideline 2

[70] Guideline 2 is to encourage tutors to take a Jungian-based personality test and, in professional development, address potential ways their personality type shapes their approach to tutoring. As Jensen and DiTiberio (1989) suggested, teachers can benefit from knowing their personality type and how it influences their preferences, while also working to improve less-favorable processes. If our small sample of 51 OWL tutors and WCAs is remotely representative of OWL educators, then online tutors should realize that their own personality-type and learning preferences likely are different from those of most student writers.

[71] Thus, they would benefit from recognizing their attitudes and tendencies toward particular online writing tutoring practices and theories; additionally, tutors should develop instructional approaches that they seem to prefer less because student writers are likely to prefer a wide range of tutoring platforms and modalities, each with their own strengths and challenges (Martinez & Olsen, 2015). In particular, OWL tutors and WCAs would benefit from first determining their own learning preferences and then brainstorming strategies for developing their less-preferred strategies per the information in Table 11. Such less-favored OWL tutoring strategies can be applied in both asynchronous and synchronous settings, as well as altered for face-to-face tutoring scenarios. In Table 11, we draw on Jensen and DiTiberio’s (1989) Learning Preferences Associated with Dimensions of MBTI Type (p. 162) to describe the most likely favored and less-favored strategies among OWL tutors and WCAs in the first two columns; we respond to them by suggesting tutoring strategies that are more likely to be favored among online writers in the third column.

[72] To consider how the most prevalent aspects of each dichotomous personality types might play out in the online setting, we provide strategies for working with a student of each type in an asynchronous and a synchronous setting here. Although we believe these strategies could be shared with OWL tutors in a single professional development session, we also acknowledge the challenge of addressing personality type in settings where student employees rotate out of the WC regularly. Therefore, we suggest that whenever possible WCAs choose OWL tutors who will likely be on staff for at least a year, so that they can practice and develop their online literacy skills over time.

7. Limitations and Future Studies

[73] There is a risk in any study that uses a taxonomy for categorizing human concerns and preferences because it isolates individualized tendencies within one particular typology. Therefore, we acknowledge that using the JTT and the MBTI may lead to reducing people to a mere personality trait. Indeed, other factors also may have influenced participants in our study to respond as they did, to include the need for them to identify themselves as either an online teacher or tutor when, in fact, many worked both jobs and found it challenging to separate their different roles. Additionally, in response to the open-ended questions, despite a potential for understanding more deeply people’s preferences, wishes, and background in online tutoring work, participants must be acknowledged to be self-reporting what was important to them on that day and at that time, perhaps even biased by the survey questions themselves. These self-reports may be connected to personality types and not always representative of educational needs or vice versa. Nonetheless, there are lessons to be learned from these data.

[74] We also found it surprising that only six of the 35 participants who identified as OWL tutors were in process AA or BA students. Although too small to make any conclusions, our demographic data suggests that a peer-to-peer tutoring model may be less likely online. Instead, we found primarily a student-professional scenario in OWL tutoring, as the other 45 participants in our study were degree holders. Additional research in this area is necessary, especially given that traditional WC practices primarily assume the peer-to-peer model.

[75] We believe that the Jungian personality typology has untapped value in the research of online literacy education, particularly as a taxonomy for understanding tutoring strategies for online writing tutoring. In keeping with the spirit of OWI Principle 15 (CCCC OWI Committee, 2013) that encourages research into all online writing education, tutoring included, we urge additional studies—especially larger ones that can reach more online tutors and their WCAs particularly. Because this study is limited in its sample size, we hope that it will be replicated to determine whether and how this sample is representative of the larger online writing tutoring population. Additionally, researchers might advance online tutoring by studying the efficacy of our suggested strategies for tutor education. We also imagine a fruitful future study that investigates the personality types of online student learners, and those who use the online writing center services specifically.

8. Conclusion

​[76] In our study, we found an overwhelming consistency of similar tutor personality traits (Introversion, iNtuitive, Feeling, Judging) among the participants. Their responses to the survey and particularly to the open-ended questions suggest that the Jungian personality typology might have benefits for online tutor education and professional development. Indeed, we believe that the more frequently seen personality traits may have a powerful impact on how online tutors approach their work with student writers, who likely have different personality traits. Thus, the Jungian personality typologies may have important implications for raising access issues in tutor education. Preparing OWL tutors to work with a wide range of personality types is crucial, and it must be addressed explicitly in professional development.

[77] To do so, WCAs also must be educated in inclusive and accessible online writing tutoring per OWI Principles 1, 3, 4, 13, and 14 (CCCC OWI Committee, 2013). Such training can include the strengths and weaknesses of the asynchronous and synchronous modalities and the various media that support them; theories of online tutoring; strategies that work with students of different personality preferences and learning styles; and both their own and their tutors’ closely held personality preferences, learning styles, and tutoring beliefs.

[78] We have provided the beginnings of a series of OWL tutoring training strategies in this article. These strategies can be adapted to online reading and digital composition tutoring as well as to onsite writing, reading, and digital composition teaching. At a minimum, we think that taking and discussing an MBTI-type test such as the JTT can spur interesting education-focused discussions that open up potential biases and encourage new, accessible tutoring strategies.

[79] It is essential to tutor all students effectively by considering their personality preferences and inherent learning styles, thus increasing a generous spirit of inclusion and access and, of course, avoiding simply tutoring as if all students are like us, the tutors and administrators.