The limitations of this research study were as follows:
1. Limited generalizability. Participants are from a specific population; the
schools that participated in this study were purposefully selected due to
the proportion of NNES students using the university writing lab and
comparability of the schools. Because participants were a convenience
sampling, limited generalizability to this unique population was a
limitation.
2. The data collection method involved administering self-report surveys to
participants, face-to-face interviews, and observations of tutoring sessions
with NNES students. Various factors could have influenced participant
responses on each instrument. Presence of the researcher during observed
sessions may have influenced tutor and student activity during sessions. A
student‘s attitude and views towards the writing center or English in
general may also change over time.
3. Cultural factors such as religious ideologies that were not addressed and
also may influence responses. Culture may play a role in how detailed a
student is with criticisms of a session (or whether they feel comfortable
being critical at all) and gender of researcher may also limit the
communication from student.
4. Specific writing needs may vary with native language. For example, low
order needs such as spelling and wording may be a more considerable
issue for native speakers of Arabic as their errors often occur as result of
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translation from the L1 (AbiSamra, 2003) as opposed to higher order
concerns such as organization for students whose first language is Spanish
and whose writing may show digression of topic resulting from the L1
writing style (Kaplan, 1967). Isolating language groups was not
approached in this study.