The Pre-Career Consequences of Public Service Motivation: Exploring Service Orientation Among College Freshman

Abstract

Before an individual makes a job choice — or even a college major — public service motivation (PSM) surfaces among college freshman as an influential motivator for public oriented behaviors. In this paper we explore how PSM is related to the service orientation of college freshman. More specifically, we ask whether PSM is related to two dimensions of a student’s service orientation: 1) curricular service orientation (service learning) and 2) extracurricular service orientation (volunteering frequency). While PSM’s relationship with prosocial behavior has been established among adults, we have yet to examine how it affects the behavior of individuals who are pre-career or pre-service. An additional innovation of this study is that we use four different operationalizations of PSM. Using survey data from undergraduate students in a required political science seminar we estimate models of PSM’s relationship with the two dimensions of an individual’s service orientation. Our results indicate that PSM has a positive relationship with both curricular service learning and extracurricular service learning in the sample. We discuss the implications of these findings for public service education and training.