Toward a Theory of Engagement: A Cognitive Mapping of Service-Learning Experiences
Kerry Ann Rockquemore,
University of Connecticut

Regan Harwell Schaffer,
Pepperdine University

Service-learning in higher education is intended to increase students’ civic responsibility and enhance learning. While quantitative assessment of these two outcomes has dominated the existing literature, this article explores the oft-ignored cognitive processes that students undergo during the community service learning experience. Data from 50 daily reflection journals is used to draw a descriptive map of the social-psychological stages that occur during service-learning. In addition, textual analysis reveals that students progress through three identifiable stages of development: shock, normalization and engagement. To increase the effectiveness of service-learning outcomes, faculty members must understand these specific cognitive processes that accompany community-based learning.

This paper presents results from a study that compares course-based service-learning and generic community service. The study was a quantitative, longitudinal look at over 22,000 students at diverse colleges and universities. Student outcome comparisons are made related to values and beliefs, academic skills, leadership, and future plans. Of particular interest is the finding that connecting service with academic course material does indeed enhance the development of cognitive skills. Limitations and directions for future research are identified.

Collecting information from community-based organizations (CBOs) about their perspectives about ser-vice- learning (SL) students is a valuable and important form of feedback to schools with such programs. In the present study, supervisors from 30 CBOs located in a large urban setting at the end of an academic term completed items about their perception of each SL student located at their site (total n = 109). Factor analyses (varimax rotation) of the CBO supervisor ratings of 9-rating items about students yield two reliable factors explaining over 74% of the common variance, namely: students demonstrated service skills (constructive relationship with others, respectful of clients, sensitivity to needs of clients, appropriate dress, positive attitude), and work skills (good attendance, punctuality, dependable, and strong work qualities). These results suggest that the CBO supervisors perceive SL students as providing useful service and work-related skills, and that the University partnership is beneficial to their agency.

This study represents evolving research focused on the use of the Community Service Involvement Preference Inventory (CSIPI) to measure changes in involvement preferences for undergraduate students enrolled in a core course with a service-learning component. Results of the study revealed coefficients of internal consistency increased for the Exploration (r =.6383) and Affiliation (r =.7001) involvement preferences. Coefficients for Experimentation (r =.7414) and Assimilation (r =.7062) involvement preferences remained relatively constant. When comparing mean scores for the repeated measures portion of the study, preferences involving initial experience with community service (Exploration) were higher on the first administration of the instrument [t (1,52) = 2.86, p <.01]. The propensity for service to become a life-long commitment (Assimilation) was higher on the second administration of the instrument [t (1,51) = -1.63, p <.10]. The study resonates with recent service-learning literature and suggests that the CSIPI may be a valuable assessment for measuring how preferences may change based on learning influences.

Performance feedback plays a key role in helping service-learning students adapt to their service envi-ronment. In this paper, the role played by feedback in promoting key service-learning goals is examined. 177 students who were enrolled in service-learning classes at six colleges and universities in the Midwest completed surveys reporting the quality of feedback they received in their workplace, their personal dis-positions toward feedback, and the extent to which their key service-learning goals were attained. Evidence was found supporting the proposition that both the quality of feedback in the service setting, and students’ own dispositions to approach or avoid feedback, positively predict the attainment of service-learning goals. Implications for service-learning practice and future research are discussed.

This is a qualitative, interpretive, case study which utilizes ethnographic techniques to discover what happens, and what preservice teachers think about what happens, within a service-learning field experience for a multicultural education course. Three roles and perspectives that can be related to multicultural learning are described and analyzed: playing it safe, teacher/helper, and companionship. Although preservice teachers tended to play it too safe to fully realize the aims of the course, the study suggests that service-learning still holds promise for multicultural education.

Creating Reciprocal Learning Relationships Across Socially-Constructed Borders
Ellen Skilton-Sylvester and Eileen K.,
Erwin Temple University

This paper describes how a service-learning course that matches college students and older adult literacy learners addresses two difficult educational issues: 1) widespread attrition in adult education programs and 2) the need for the training of teachers to include ways for them to become effective at work-ing with people who are different from themselves. This paper also shows how the theoretical construct of border crossing is a useful metaphor for understanding the ways that this program fostered important "learning relationships" for both older adults and their college student tutors. Based on interviews, a year of participant observation and an analysis of student writing, two essential elements of successful and reciprocal learning relationships emerged—the importance of connecting across differences through caring relationships and the ability to reflect in ways that transformed previous assumptions. More generally, this paper addresses a gap in the service-learning literature by looking at the impact of this pro-gram not only from the point of view of the college student tutors (those "doing service"), but also from the point of view of the older adult learners (those "being served").

The primary audience for this article are faculty who utilize or wish to utilize a service-learning peda-gogy. One of the most effective ways for faculty to conceptualize and operationalize this pedagogy is to configure the service activity as an actual course text. When service is conceived in this way, faculty are implicitly prompted to answer the two questions that should frame any service-learning course: (1) What type of service text should I assign, and (2) How will I meaningfully incorporate the service text with other texts utilized in the class? This paper uses interdisciplinary theory to help faculty formulate detailed responses to each of these crucial questions. In doing so, it focuses on the “learning” side of the service-learning equation.

This paper focuses on the value of community-based research (CBR) as a pedagogical strategy for cours-es in social science research in an effort to show how service-learning can enrich discipline-based learning. Community-based research introduces an experiential component that helps students acquire research skills and makes research more appealing and accessible to students, especially those who prefer “connected” modes of knowing. But the more distinctive value of CBR is that it engages students with some important epistemological debates surrounding the production of knowledge in the social sciences by modeling alternatives to conventional assumptions about why we do social research, how best to study humans and society, and who should control the research process and the knowledge that is produced.

John Dewey’s related concerns to revitalize education and to rebuild community and democracy at the local level have powerfully appealed to service-learning advocates. Yet only rarely have students been engaged directly as neighborhood organizers, a role that, from Dewey’s perspective, would appear to have great educational and social promise. After exploring this anomoly, this paper employs Dewey’s understanding of democracy to analyze one program which has succeeded in making widespread use of college students as frontline organizers. The complementarity between what students do in their neighborhood target sites and what happens within the classroom generates the extraordinary potential of this service-learning activity.

This paper explores the possibility of implementing a new campus-based model of service-learning in the unique environments of university art galleries. Guided by critical theory and a Deweyan pragmatist philosophy, this model promoted the use of constructivist learning strategies by 63 preservice teachers. Serving as facilitators, these preservice teachers worked with a total of 210 visiting schoolchildren in small groups to: a) address authentic intellectual, aesthetic, and social problems; b) actively negotiate and construct new identities; c) share multiple perspectives on and meanings about art; and d) learn to think critically and creatively about complex issues of teaching, learning, and boundary-crossing. Data from a variety of sources, including pre- and post-course attitude surveys and preservice journals, were analyzed and inter-preted to reveal that preservice teachers greatly benefited from their service-learning experiences and changed their views of art, teachers, and learning in art gallery-museums.

We use research and theory on intrinsic motivation to suggest that some service-learning practices may be counter-productive. Although these practices may encourage student involvement in the short-term, they may reduce interest over the long-term. We pose seven questions about service requirements and suggest answers that would be least likely to undermine long-term service. The seven questions are clus-tered into three groups: 1) choice and control over community assignments (we emphasize internal choice rather than external incentives and coercion, and we suggest projects in which students can feel as though their contribution made a difference); 2) choice and control over how activities are undertaken on site (we suggest providing freedom and opportunities to create positive phenomenal experiences, a fit between tasks and the student’s interests, and opportunities to experience mastery and competence); and 3) ways of addressing long-term internalization of service values (self-attributions, discussion, and modeling). These strategies may increase the quality of the students’ performance in the immediate pro-ject as well as increase their long-term interest in service.

Live Cases: Service-Learning Consulting Projects in Business Courses
Susan Hayes Godar,
William Paterson University

Business school faculty are excellent prospects to incorporate service-learning into their courses. Given their long-standing use of a live case approach in which their classes perform consulting projects for for-profit companies, they can also be encouraged to use not-for-profit organizations for these projects. In this paper, suggestions are made to community service coordinators on how to encourage the use of consulting service projects among business faculty. Examples of projects in marketing and management courses are given. How to implement this type of activity in a business course is also discussed.

Community organizations often see students coming to work only for the period of a single service-learning course. This pattern of rapid turnover in students’ community-based work and learning has costs for both the work and the learning. This paper tells the story of efforts over a period of four years to solve this problem in the partnership between the Jane Addams School for Democracy and two higher education institutions. The promising and successful strategies which this partnership has discovered for keeping students involved for longer periods have two dimensions: first, to the extent possible lower academic and financial barriers to students’ participation, and second, foster a community of students who see themselves as living their ideals of social justice. These strategies are adaptable to other settings.