Academic Service Learning Research Articles

Teaching Civics: An Overview of Instructional Strategies Using Primary Sources, Role-Play and Simulations, and Academic Service Learning for Teaching Civic Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions

Civic education is essential to the perpetuation of American self-government. Despite this important role, civic education in the United States has been neglected for several decades and is only recently seeing a resurgence in the classroom and as a focus of research. Conceptions of what constitutes effective civic education vary widely, creating a great multiplicity in what is measured and how, and obfuscating which pedagogical practices are most effective. This paper provides an overview of civic education and the outcomes—including civic knowledge, civic skills, and civic dispositions—that are the goals of such education. We then examine three pedagogies—instruction through primary-source analysis, simulation-based learning, and academic service learning—and review examples of the civic outcomes of these pedagogies. We seek to answer several questions: How are these instructional practices defined? What debates and challenges surround their implementation? What evidence is there that such techniques result in civic outcomes? Finally, what implications are there for the social studies classroom? We demonstrate that these three pedagogies have the potential to improve civic learning, and that a mixture of engaging and effective pedagogies is ideal. We encourage further research on the civic outcomes resulting from the implementation of various pedagogies.

From Faith to Global Understanding.

This is an introduction to a manuscript by the faculty and the Dean of the California Baptist University on their International Service Project (ISP) and Academic Service-Learning project.

Two Decades of Academic Service-Learning in Chinese Higher Education: A Review of Research Literature

Two Decades of Academic Service-Learning in Chinese Higher Education: A Review of Research Literature

Bridging Literacy Theory with Practice: Differentiated Academic Service Learning Projects with Children's Literature

AbstractThis academic service learning initiative enabled teacher education candidates to create research‐based family literacy activities around a diverse selection of children’s books. Each project included a detailed parent or caregiver letter, which provides an overview of the family literacy activity; materials and props; step‐by‐step procedures; prompting questions; ideas for differentiation to meet the needs of varied learning styles; and real‐world extensions. As pre‐service teachers selected from a menu of literacy strategies that fit their individual letter and project design, the concept of differentiation was being actively implemented. Pre‐service teachers reflected on the experience of creating the family literacy project and their future plans for involving families in their students’ literacy learning.

Integrating academic service learning into higher education business curriculum

This paper discusses an Academic Service Learning (ASL) approach as a teaching method to combine meaningful service to the community and core academic requirements for learning accounting. The Academic Service-Learning approach offers an opportunity for the students to enhance what they are learning in the classroom and combine it with the benefit of providing a service to the community. This study shows how service learning offers a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between academic accounting core curriculum requirements and the need of society to have individuals willing to give their time and effort to benefit others in need. This article aims to understand the benefits of High-Impact practices (HIPs) for students in the classroom, particularly, using Academic Service-Learning as a pedagogical tool. The goal is to understand the benefits of using a Service-Learning approach to teach accounting. As part of the course learning requirement, students engaged in a project whereby a not-for-profit organization's income statement was forecasted and evaluated using a vertical analysis. A post-survey was administered, which focused on how the Service-Learning project helped the students connect what they were learning in class with the actual accounting practice meaningfully.

Impact of Academic Service-Learning on Students: an Evaluation Study of a University-Level Initiative in China

Impact of Academic Service-Learning on Students: an Evaluation Study of a University-Level Initiative in China

Seva +: A Framework for ASLCE Practice and Research

In this manuscript, the author shares a theory-building approach by tracing the development of the seva + framework as a call for a necessary epistemological redefinition, with which to approach the practice and research of academic service-learning and community engagement (ASLCE). In tracing the inspiration and intention of the seva + framework, the author calls attention to the imperative for broadening the golden standards, against which most traditional research, scholarship, and service are measured. The seva + framework connects ancient wisdom with current research to argue for a different paradigm for service-learning, one that acknowledges and makes possible mutually liberating, relationally focused collaborations, and actively resisting ways of being and doing that are shaped by dominator systems. In addition, the manuscript offers guidelines for adapting the seva + framework so as to reflect the unique positionalities, experiences, and agency of the person/community adopting this ASLCE framework.

Wikipedia as an academic service-learning tool in science and technology: higher education case from Siberia.

Wikipedia, the open crowdsourced encyclopedia that anyone can edit, ranks among the top ten most-visited websites globally. Its integration into university curriculum as an innovative educational tool is a slowly growing trend; however, many higher education institutions have yet to fully grasp its potential. In response, a specific optional module for Wikipedia editing, designed for the selected undergraduate science courses at the School of Advanced Studies, Russia, was implemented as an optional extra credit service-learning activity, a teaching methodology combining meaningful service to the community with curriculum-based learning. Students who chose to participate and those who preferred not to participate in the activity were invited to participate in a research project to explore their perspectives and experiences. In total, five sessions of focus group discussions were conducted with participants (12 females and 2 males) in one set and non-participants (5 females and 4 males) in another to identify students' perspectives on themes such as their interest in science, reasons for their choices, and their expectations before the activity while post-experience focus group discussions were used to identify the perspectives of participant students on themes, encompassing contribution of the service-learning activity, acquisition of new skills, and the development of prosocial behaviors. Students' opinions on integrating social responsibility topics into the curriculum were also explored. The results extracted from these focus group discussions, analyzed through consensual coding, revealed factors promoting student participation, like interest in the subject, novelty of the activity, and grade improvement opportunities, as well as factors deterring participation, such as concerns about academic benefits, workload, and time constraints. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that Wikipedia editing serves as a novel teaching methodology, promoting student learning and development in digital literacy and information literacy, which are among the twenty-first-century skills. Interestingly, at the same time, not all students could address the value of contributing to open, crowdsourced knowledge for public service or interpret this activity as an academic service-learning. These suggest that Wikipedia editing is an innovative teaching approach, fostering students' learning and development while also indicating its potential to enhance students' understanding of responsible citizenship and public service in the digital age.

Integrating Pedagogy and Practice: The Impact of Academic Service Learning in the TEFL Context in Higher Education

This study explored the transformative potential of academic service learning (ASL) within a Taiwanese university setting in the context of teaching English as a foreign language. The participants were students majoring in English, enrolled in a semester-long English teaching course. Their academic service-learning project involved teaching English to students in rural primary schools. By adopting both quantitative and qualitative approaches, this study illuminated how ASL influences students’ academic, personal, and interpersonal development. Quantitative findings revealed a significant level of satisfaction with the ASL course and noted substantial gains in personal growth, professional development, and civic engagement domains. As for the qualitative data, the study brought forth the concrete ways in which the academic service-learning curriculum has augmented students’ professional knowledge, skills, and attitudes. While the results aligned with many previous studies asserting the benefits of service learning in enhancing academic and practical learning outcomes, they also shed light on the potential areas of improvement, particularly in fostering civic engagement. Overall, this study underscored the transformative potential of a well-structured academic service-learning curriculum in enriching student learning experiences, bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and real-world application, and cultivating a deeper sense of civic responsibility.

How a Christian Worldview Enhances and Interacts with Academic Service Learning

How a Christian Worldview Enhances and Interacts with Academic Service Learning

Undergraduate Nursing Student Reflections on Academic Service Learning Experiences – A Qualitative Study

The provision of nursing care has shifted toward integrated primary care (provision of community health services by an interprofessional team), requiring that nurse educators take steps to ensure students have opportunities to learn and practice the leadership and professional skills required to function as members and leaders of interdisciplinary teams. We developed the Transforming RN Roles in Community Based Integrated Primary Care (TRIP) program for undergraduate nursing students to facilitate this learning. During clinical immersion, students participated in academic service learning (ASL) activities consisting of a minimum of 25 h of clinical agency service each semester. This descriptive qualitative design captures recurring themes in the ASL reflections of eight nursing students participating in the inaugural TRIP cohort. Three themes were identified (1) “Embracing the Nursing Profession” (2) “Utilizing the Professional Skills of Nursing” and (3) “I Am A Nurse”. We urge our faculty colleagues to consider incorporating ASL experiences into their undergraduate activities. We believe the effort to initiate, develop and sustain these partnerships will pay handsome dividends in terms skill and confidence enhancements for our undergraduate nursing students.

REFRAMING CULTURAL COMPETENCE AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT: A REPLICATION STUDY OF HIGH IMPACT PRACTICES IN UNDERGRADUATE PSYCHOLOGY COURSES

Institutions of higher education require diversity courses so that students can increase their multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skills. Multicultural Psychology courses play a pivotal role in instilling cultural competence in students. The study examined differences in cultural competence and civic engagement for 1,053 undergraduate students exposed to different types of high-impact practices enrolled in educational psychology, multicultural psychology, and psychology internship courses. There was a significant Group x Time interaction effect for cultural skills. Post hoc analyses revealed that students exposed to diversity service-learning in a multicultural psychology course acquired cultural skills compared to students exposed to academic service-learning in the educational psychology course and those students exposed to fieldwork in an internship from the beginning to the end of the semester. Students in the multicultural psychology course were also intellectually challenged, reflected on the course concepts, and gained a deeper understanding of the course content more than students in the educational psychology course. Recommendations for teaching diversity courses are discussed.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0091/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

A Pilot Study: The Impact of COVID-19 on Student Learning in an Academic Service-Learning Course

This pilot study examined the impact from COVID-19 on academic learning. An explanatory mixed-methods research design was used to explore student learning outcomes for 70 students who participated in an academic service-learning course during the pandemic. Student surveys revealed increases in their racial-cultural-ethnic identity development and interest in multicultural work from the beginning to the end of the semester. Student reflections also indicate that they gained confidence and patience, reformulated diversity attitudes, and acquired White privilege awareness through participation in service activities with recipients who culturally differed from them. The impact of COVID-19 on student learning is discussed.

Implementation of Photovoltaic Academic Service Learning at School and Its Impact on Student Schools and Student Facilitators

This paper presents the implementation of academic service learning (ASL) and its impact on secondary school students as the community and the university undergraduate students who act as facilitators. The facilitators are the final year students from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering undertaking a photovoltaic technology course at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. The ASL aims to transfer the knowledge of photovoltaic technology to the school student from the university's students and increase their interest in pursuing tertiary study in the science, technology, and mathematics (STEM) stream. At the same time, it will benefit the facilitators by enriching their communication skills, personality, and academics. The objective achievement of the activity is measured qualitatively through a set of questionnaires after the activity. It was found that ASL has positively impacted the school student's knowledge of photovoltaic technology. To measure the impact on the facilitator, questionnaires were given to them after a year of graduation. The majority of them agreed that ASL improved their communication skills and personality. However, most facilitators agreed that ASL has minimum impact on enhancing their knowledge of photovoltaics.

Collaborating within a Lockdown: Students' Online Collaboration to Develop a College Readiness Workshop during the COVID-19 in-person restrictions.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic created significant disruption within the educational setting, including the rapid shift to a fully online learning environment. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore how graduate students collaborated synchronously and reimagined an in-person academic service learning project into an asynchronous workshop format. Methodology/Approach: An explanatory single case study approach was used to explore how educational leadership doctoral students developed content for and transitioned the modality of an academic service learning project—a college readiness workshop for middle school students—during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings/Conclusions: Overall, the development of and transition to a fully online workshop website format highlighted the importance and additional need for technology to support project content, the challenge of how to best incorporate audience engagement through an asynchronous platform, and the shift in roles and expectations of the graduate students throughout the workshop development process. Implications: Although this learning experience was adapted due to pandemic-related restrictions, this reimagined student-led project provided additional and unique opportunities for collaboration and technology integration that can be useful and applicable to the students’ post-lockdown lives.

Academic Service Quality And Learning's Influence On Student Satisfaction In The IAIN Curup Graduate Program

This research is motivated because there are study programs in the IAIN Curup postgraduate program that have not been nationally accredited. However, in 2019 this accreditation problem can be overcome with the issuance of B accreditation for the MPI, PAI, and HKI programs, while the BKPI study program is still at minimal accreditation, as a study program that has just received an establishment permit. Another problem is that there are some students who are dissatisfied with the postgraduate services of IAIN Curup, especially the performance of several lecturers. There are lecturers who do not provide information regarding absenteeism, and some students admit that they tend to experience difficulties when conducting thesis guidance. This study aims to determine the quality of academic and learning services on student satisfaction of the IAIN Curup postgraduate program. The sample used was 30 respondents from each study program in the IAIN Curup postgraduate program with non-probability sampling. The data analysis technique used is linear regression analysis. The results showed that the variables of academic service and learning had a significant effect on student satisfaction of the IAIN Curup postgraduate program. The results of this study are expected to provide a positive significance for academic services and the learning process so that students can complete their studies on time and students become more total in carrying out the learning process.

Evaluating the Health of Community/University Partnerships: Experiential Learning Practice with an Aim Toward the Public Good

This article looks at campus and community partner relationships, and how they can be assessed. Specifically, readers will find the results of a case study that explores the “health” of the relationship between an urban university and its local nonprofit partners. Additionally, the Community Partnership Health Assessment Framework (CPHAF) is introduced, which is a six-step process that practitioners engaged in service learning, internships aimed at the public good, and volunteer programs can use to evaluate the “health” of their relationships with community partners for community-based learning (CBL). For our current purpose, CBL includes academic service learning, internships, and volunteer work, however the CPHAF process is a general evaluation framework. A general tool is valuable because many universities have partnerships where students arrive from various programs such as volunteers, service learners, interns, or other. The discussion section provides a detailed description of the Community Partnership Health Assessment Framework (CPHAF), and the case study is provided as an example of its use.

How Students' Motivation and Learning Experience Affect Their Service-Learning Outcomes: A Structural Equation Modeling Analysis.

Guided by the expectancy-value theory of motivation in learning, we explored the causal relationship between students’ learning experiences, motivation, and cognitive learning outcome in academic service-learning. Based on a sample of 2,056 college students from a university in Hong Kong, the findings affirm that learning experiences and motivation are key factors determining cognitive learning outcome, affording a better understanding of student learning behavior and the impact in service-learning. This research provides an insight into the impact of motivation and learning experiences on students’ cognitive learning outcome while engaging in academic service-learning. This not only can discover the intermediate factors of the learning process but also provides insights to educators on how to enhance their teaching pedagogy.

Joining networked society: integrating Academic Service-Learning into formal school

ABSTRACT The gap between students’ formal, school-based learning and informal, social learning has been widely acknowledged. To overcome this gap, academic service-learning (AS-L) pedagogy involves deliberate efforts to interconnect formal and informal learning by enhancing students’ transitions across multiple authentic settings and fostering their participation in various social roles. The aim of this study was to examine how AS-L is practiced among Finnish primary and secondary schools, what kind of stakeholder networks are involved, what the experienced outcomes are, and which factors enable the AS-L pedagogy to be embedded into the Finnish formal school context. The data consisted of semi-structured educator interviews describing nine cases of implementing AS-L practices in diverse Finnish school settings. Empirically driven, thematic data-analysis generated an overall description of the AS-L pedagogies examined. The findings confirm that AS-L pedagogy fulfiled the curricular aims, assisted in meeting the learning objectives and affirmed the fundamental role of external stakeholders in AS-L pedagogy. However, results also revealed challenges related to schools’ operational infrastructures, lesson frameworks, and teacher collaboration hindering the interdisciplinary implementation of AS-L pedagogy, preventing synergies with subject-specific learning contents, and limiting stakeholder networks. Innovative teacher activity, in turn, was identified as a success factor in applying AS-L pedagogy. The results indicate that interconnecting formal and informal learning requires schools’ systemic change, and furthermore, legitimising teacher’s transformative efforts fosters development and implementation of novel pedagogical practices.

Impact of Service-Learning on Student Counselors’ Self-Reported Measures of Program Evaluation, Counselor Advocacy, and Interprofessional Education

Academic service-learning encompasses a reciprocal relationship among university and community partners. Service-learning can familiarize student counselors with future client populations, community resources, and other service providers. Service-learning pedagogy is flexible and may be particularly useful to promote development in counselor competencies more abstractly related to day-to-day client services, including program evaluation and professional advocacy. Interprofessional education serves as a means of enhancing interprofessional collaboration and, in turn, the well-being of individuals seeking healthcare services. Service-learning may provide a vehicle to promote interprofessional education, however, researchers have not yet explored this connection. This quantitative research project evaluates pre- and post- changes of 18 participants using the Effective Practices Survey, Advocacy Competencies Self-Assessment scale to measure experiences in program evaluation, counselor advocacy, and interprofessional education. Results indicate that student counselor scores significantly increased for each of the three variables of interest, with the largest changes observed for counselor advocacy. What is the public significance of this article? Academic service-learning leverages relationships between university and community partners. Service-learning may be a particularly effective pedagogical strategy to promote applied and potentially abstract concepts. This article explores the impact of engagement in an experiential service-learning project on 18 student counselors’ learning outcomes related to program evaluation, counselor advocacy, and perceptions of interprofessional education.