When exploring the emotional work of tutoring, writing center literature typically foregrounds writers' emotional health, with limited consideration of tutors' wellbeing or stress levels. For instance, tutors are advised to" gauge the cognitive load of student writers"(Feitosa 15) and be attuned to writers' mental states (Bullock), in addition to helping their peers self-regulate their emotions (Kervin and Barrett). Tutors may even take on the role of counselor or" psychoanalyst" if students" exhibit behavior patterns of anxiety, self-doubt, negative cognition, and procrastination"(Murphy 14). Although experienced tutors know their work can be emotionally draining and stressful, current research does not fully investigate these experiences. To address this gap, researchers in our writing center explored tutor stress, compassion fatigue, and burnout in a pilot study, the results of which we shared at the 2014 International Writing Centers Association Collaborative (Schubert et al). We found, by surveying tutors (n= 7), that factors within the tutoring session (eg, stressed students, unfamiliar genres, language barriers) caused more stress for tutors than external factors (eg, coursework, personal issues, health). The top three stressors for tutors were self-imposed high performance expectations, weak papers, and" problem" students (ie, students who were demanding or rude). Although our response rate was low (15% of total staff), these preliminary results identified potential stressors and inspired us to design a biometric study to understand how stressful tutoring can be.

While some stress can be beneficial, high levels of stress are associated with a variety of health problems, including cardiovascular disease, decreased immune response, and sleep disruption (Kelloway et al.). Stress can also impair thinking and decision making (Porcelli and Delgado). In the writing center, tutors are expected to prioritize among various writing concerns; however, session productivity may suffer if stress impedes a tutor's ability to make sound judgments. Noreen Lape has argued that tutors need to develop their emotional intelligence in order to enact" a pedagogy of empathy"(3), but we have little evidence that describes how this pedagogy influences tutors' emotional states. Since writing centers are places where we often labor in under-resourced working conditions (Boquet), studying stress in this context should be a higher priority.