Abstracts from MJCSL Volume 9, Number 1

Factors That Motivate and Deter Faculty Use of Service-Learning
Elisa S. Abes, Golden Jackson, & Susan R. Jones,
The Ohio State University

The purpose of this survey research was to determine the factors that motivate and deter faculty use of service-learning. Faculty responses from more than 500 surveys completed at 29 diverse institutions of higher education were analyzed by institution type, academic discipline, faculty rank, tenure status, and gender. Results indicated remarkable consistency in motivators and deterrents to service-learning use—both for faculty who do and do not use service-learning. An analysis of faculty who do not use service-learning, a relatively unexplored area in the literature, is a significant contribution of this study. The findings suggest several strategies for recruiting and sustaining service-learning faculty.

Changes in College Students’ Attitudes and Intentions for Civic Involvement as a Function of Service-Learning Experiences
Barbara E. Moely, Megan McFarland, Devi Miron, Sterett Mercer, & Vincent Ilustre,
Tulane University

College students, 217 doing service-learning and 324 not so engaged, completed the Civic Attitudes and Skills Questionnaire (CASQ) at the beginning and end of a semester, reporting their views regarding civic and interpersonal skills and attitudes. Students who were doing service-learning showed increases over the semester in their plans for future civic action, assessments of their own interpersonal, problem-solving, and leadership skills, and agreement with items emphasizing societal factors that affect individual outcomes (social justice). No differences were seen in students’ diversity attitudes. Students engaged in service-learning showed greater satisfaction with their courses, reporting higher levels of learning about the academic field and the community than did students not participating in service-learning. Among service-learning students, satisfaction with course aspects and with service contributions was related to social justice attitudes, appreciation of diversity, and plans for future civic action.

This article reports the outcomes of a study involving service-learners in a tutoring program with 260 elementary school children. Compared to a non-tutored group, the tutored children had higher one-year gains in Stanford Achievement Test (SAT/9) scores in math and spelling. Children and their teachers gave high ratings to the tutors and believed that tutoring helped the children learn. Tutor similarity to the children along a number of dimensions was associated with stronger reading gains. Teachers gave higher evaluations to tutors who expressed intentions to be involved in civic action, while children gave higher marks to tutors who valued diversity and believed in social justice.

Two focus groups, one comprised of faculty members and the other of staff members at community-based organizations, discussed their experiences with service-learning courses. Transcripts of these discussions were analyzed to infer the theories of learning that informed participants’ talk and to compare the theories across groups. Faculty members and community partners differed in 1) their commitment to the idea of expertise and their willingness to identify themselves as learners; 2) their attention to words or actions as evidence of learning; and 3) their tendency to represent learning as an individual or collective activity. These conceptual differences mirror the differing values and work practices of the academic and nonprofit worlds, highlighting the importance of continual communication and sensitivity in service-learning partnerships.

Conceptual metaphors are ubiquitous and powerful frames for human experience, having important analytical and pedagogical applications to service-learning. This article draws from self-descriptions of national and community service organizations, and from service-learning history and literature, to reveal and examine underlying metaphors of service. Analyzing these metaphors of service leads to a second constructive pedagogical project: describing and developing purposeful metaphors for service. Both aspects of this project, the analytical and the generative, clarify service-learning’s multiple meanings and, in the process, facilitate reflective learning, a key component of service-learning.

The Calvin Environmental Assessment Program (CEAP) involves faculty who dedicate regular lab sessions or course projects to collecting data that contribute to an overall environmental assessment of the campus and surroundings areas. While integrating service-learning into the sciences, CEAP has also transformed institutional structures, created an institutional habit of stewardship, and provided a context for meaningful linkages between the college and surrounding community. CEAP is informed by debates in the philosophy of science over the particularity versus the universality of knowledge, exemplifying the science of local knowledge and the importance of the embeddedness of knowledge. CEAP also models educational philosopher Nel Noddings’ Care Theory pedagogy, which calls for learning to be rooted in caring relationships and real life settings.

Service-Learning as Crucible: Reflections on Immersion, Context, Power, and Transformation*
Lori Pompa,
Temple University

This article explores the transformative potential of service-learning through the lens of a particular context: a course held inside a prison. This service-learning example provides an experience of total immersion. Rather than separating the service component from the course, class is held at the actual site with a group of incarcerated classmates. This kind of approach raises many questions, including how service-learning is “done,” the fragile nature of power and our approach to it, how context impacts the educational process, as well as the transformative possibilities of a “liberatory” pedagogy. Interspersed throughout the article, participants’ voices illustrate the conceptual claims and reflect the collaborative nature of the venture. Though specific course elements are discussed in some detail, they are meant to suggest larger themes applicable to service-learning in general.

Community Matters: A Reader for Writers
Marjorie Ford & Elizabeth Schave,
New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 2002