The International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IJRSLCE)
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Pre-College Factors Influencing College Students’ Civic Attitudes: The Importance of Familial and Community Service Experiences
Get PDFEntering university students (N = 178) were surveyed in the fall of 2013 to learn about their attitudes toward college and civic engagement. As with students beginning study at the same university five to seven years earlier, participants felt positive about the institution’s public service graduation requirement and indicated plans to engage in substantial service during college. Their civic attitudes were as or slightly more positive than those of students surveyed earlier, but they were less positive in their self-reported knowledge of the community. Students’ reports of family orientation toward community service predicted their views of the graduation requirement, as well as their civic attitudes (i.e., civic responsibility, value placed on community service, and social justice). Replicating earlier research, students’ pre-college community service, especially their reported enjoyment of service activities, predicted attitudes toward the graduation requirement and civic attitudes. A mediation model showed that the effects of family orientation on civic attitudes were partially mediated by students’ involvement in service during secondary school years. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for K-12 and college programming
A Framework for Dialogue within Service-Learning: Lessons from Philosophy for Children
Get PDFThis article argues that the field of community service-learning should adopt a “community of inquiry” model for classroom dialogue. Specifically, the author claims that communities of inquiry, as expounded by the Philosophy for Children movement, can help to overcome certain educational barriers that have been identified in both the theoretical and empirical service-learning literature by providing a general model for productive classroom dialogue. Moreover, this dialogical model, given its relative parsimony, promises to be amenable to many of the distinct (and potentially incompatible) theoretical models that inform service-learning approaches
Revisiting Pedagogical Variations in Service-Learning and Student Outcomes
Get PDFThis article presents results from a quasi‐experimental replication study that extended Mabry’s 1998 correlational study by introducing a counterfactual (using psychometrically defensible measures) and controlling for academic motivation and relationships among students, faculty, and staff. The study offered evidence of the effectiveness of frequency of contact, reflection, and service duration in influencing civic and academic outcomes. Though the study’s quasi-experimental approach posed modest limitations, the measured effects were similar to those identified in Mabry’s study, thus improving confidence around findings related to the impacts of service-learning pedagogical variations and their implications for instructional design.
At a Crossroads: Pakistani College Students’ Perspectives on Service and Service-Learning
Get PDFWith its large youth population, high unemployment, and limited educational opportunities, Pakistan is at a crossroads. Service-learning is a new concept in Pakistan, and several universities have begun to incorporate service into their curricula—with varying degrees of success—as a means for bridging academia with pressing community concerns. This qualitative case study explored Pakistani college students’ perceptions of service and how service-learning was being developed at their university, and the challenges they had encountered. Findings revealed students’ desire for a relevant education that not only prepares them for productive careers, but also serves their communities; gaps between the realities of and aspirations for education; issues of empowerment; and the need to mitigate risks. Analysis of the findings revealed a tension—a “tragic gap” (Palmer, 2004)—between what is and what could be in relation to service-learning and civic engagement in Pakistan
“I just kept quiet”: Exploring Equity in a Service-Learning Programme
Get PDFSocial justice underpins the sustainable development goal of health for all. In developing countries, social injustices are particularly severe and widespread, demanding critical and immediate attention. This article describes a qualitative, descriptive study that investigated pharmacy students’ responses to incidents of social injustice following their service-learning experiences in public-sector primary healthcare facilities in Cape Town, South Africa. Data were gathered from written reflection reports and then thematically analyzed using the pedagogy of discomfort as an interpretive framework. Themes were categorised according to students’ habitual responses to incidents of social injustice, how they interpreted their responses, and how they could promote social justice in the workplace as future healthcare professionals. Findings demonstrated students’ inability to take action and revealed that silence was the most common response to incidents of discrimination. These results highlight the ways in which the structural constraints of the societal status quo can perpetuate inequity. Study limitations include bias from students self-reports and their narrow understanding of structural barriers in the work-place. Intergenerational dialogue and advocacy is crucial across South African higher education to understand widespread social injustices. Embedding a critical approach to service-learning in the African context needs exploration
Measurement Matters: Estimating Students’ Community Engagement Participation
Get PDFMany community engagement and service-learning studies require the researcher to identify whether or not a particular student has participated in an engagement activity. In this article, the author explores the importance and challenge of measuring college students’ community engagement by detailing one institution’s rigorous effort to answer the question, “What percentage of students participate in community engagement during their time at college?” The article illustrates the results of a study in which an institution supplemented an existing database of student participation with several other nontraditional sources of student participation data to construct an expanded measure of engagement. Results indicated that, compared with the expanded measure, the existing database produced a biased estimate of engagement with regard to gender, race and ethnicity, financial aid, and athletic status. Implications for future research, assessment, and practice are discussed.
Exploring Service-Learning Outcomes and Experiences for Low-Income, First-Generation College Students: A Mixed-Methods Approach
Get PDFThis study explored the service-learning experiences of low-income, first-generation college students using a mixed-methods design that drew upon a national longitudinal dataset and in-depth, face-to-face interviews conducted over the course of a year and a half at three institutions in three states. The purpose of this study was to increase understanding of the outcomes related to service-learning participation for low-income, first-generation college students. Findings indicated that participation in service-learning courses was significantly positively related to the development of several academic and affective outcomes related to increased academic success. The presence of divergent findings from the two data streams also indicated particular complexity in measuring development for low-income and first-generation students—a complexity not found in the overall student population. The author discusses specific implications of this study for practitioners, college and university administrators, researchers, and policy makers
Introduction to the Section: Student Outcomes (Primary, Secondary and Higher Education)
No full textThe section editors of the Student Outcomes section report with appreciation on the abundance of high quality research and theoretical literature that is currently available on student outcomes of service-learning and community engagement. Today’s research is less atheoretical and narrowly focused on specific courses and outcomes of interest and better grounded in more sophisticated conceptualizations about the effects of student participation in service-learning and community engagement and an empirically stronger knowledge base. The section editors introduce five articles that exemplify these positive trends, including two replications and extensions of previous work. The section editors then challenge scholars of service-learning to broaden the scope of future studies by contextualizing them within global issues facing society and presenting the role that education faculty and community engagement professionals might play in addressing these issues. They provide a unique model for designing and conducting these future investigations
Service-Learning as an Independent Course: Merits, Challenges, and Ways Forward
Get PDFIn Hong Kong, service-learning is commonly regarded as a pedagogy for facilitating students’ learning of specific subject knowledge; rarely does it serve as an independent course focusing on developing students’ knowledge and skills of service-learning itself. At Lingnan University, however, the Office of Service-Learning offers an independent, credit-bearing service-learning course outside of other academic departments. The course aims to equip students with knowledge, skills, and attitudes about service-learning and to prepare them for future engagement in service activities within communities. This article reports on a case study of this independent service-learning course, with particular emphasis on the course development process. Assessment and evaluation data from students are also reported, followed by a discussion of the merits and challenges of implementing such a course, and a consideration of ways forward. The authors argue that the lessons learned from this study can help to inform the design of independent service-learning courses specifically and improve the quality of service-learning courses and programs in higher education in general
Highlights from IARSLCE’s Annual and Regional Conferences
Get PDFThese conference papers provide a glimpse into current international discussions on service-learning and community engagement research. They also offer information on the kinds of research studies that are needed to advance service-learning and community engagement in different community and cultural contexts