USING IMPORTANCE-PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS IN EVALUATING SERVICE LEARNING EDUCATIONAL QUALITY

Abstract

Importance-performance analysis enables education to evaluate and identify the major strengths and weaknesses of a courses? key success factors. This study attempts to understand instructors? expectations and perceptions of students? learning attitudes and shows the usefulness of the Importance-performance analysis grid in evaluating service learning projects benefits from instructors? perspectives in Indiana higher education. The study identified a list of 15 items from the service learning educational literature reviews, and each item was rated using a 5-point Likert scale. The importance-performance grid shows that 4 items fall into the ?Keep up the good work? quadrant, 5 items fall into the ?Concentrate here? quadrant, 4 items fall into the ?Low priority? quadrant, and 5 items fall into the ?Possible overkill? quadrant. The result of this study is expected to serve as a useful guideline for service learning course designers and future research. Implications of these results for practice and research are provided as result.