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Force, Michelle Montilea

Psychology

2006

PhD

Bringle and Hatcher (1996) defined service-learning as an experience that involves earning academic credit by participating in an organized service activity that is designed to meet specific community needs; students reflect on this service activity in a way that furthers their understanding of course content. Service-learning has gained popularity as educators realize its potential value to both students and the community but further research is needed to define high-quality service-learning practices and relate them to student outcomes. In an effort to address this, university students in service-learning courses (n=121) and non service-learning courses (n=97) completed measures of social responsibility and problem solving before and after course completion. Service-learning students also completed measures of service-learning components (reflection, integration, community voice, service experience) at the end of the service-learning course.
It was hypothesized that students in service-learning courses would show greater gains from the beginning to the end of the semester compared to non service-learning students and that higher-quality service-learning components would lead to greater increases in social responsibility and demonstrated problem solving ability when taking into account two covariates: student learning style and previous service experience. Neither hypothesis was fully supported, but results indicate a potentially important role for learning-style in predicting student outcomes among service-learning students. Recommendations for conducting service-learning assessments are included.