Service-learning Course Research Articles

NUDGING ATTITUDE CHANGE THROUGH EXPERIENCE: UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULAR INNOVATIONS

Abstract Drawing students into gerontology and geriatrics remains a perennial challenge in light of negative stereotypes and ageism deeply entrenched in society. Nonetheless, instructors continue to forge ahead with curricular innovations designed to dismantle stereotypes, promote deeper understanding of the later stage of life, cultivate appreciation for the contributions of older adults, and entice students to consider further academic, extracurricular, and vocational opportunities in the field. This symposium brings together scholars and instructors who have implemented and evaluated course innovations with these goals in mind. The first presentation reviews findings from the Bringing Art to Life program that pairs teams of undergraduate students with persons with dementia attending an adult day services program and engaging in structured art therapy and reminiscence. The next presenter describes positive attitude change about aging among undergraduates in an advanced public health service-learning course. Next is a discussion of how health policy education has been successfully built into an undergraduate adult development and aging course. The fourth presentation summarizes results from a randomized educational intervention to undergraduate students to enhance death education and ensure more equitable access to quality end-of-life services and supports. The final presentation describes innovations in training MSTEM undergraduate students in aging. A Discussant will synthesize themes across presentations and engage session attendees to respond and share their own curricular experiences.

THE IMPACT OF A SERVICE-LEARNING COURSE ON UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT ATTITUDES TOWARD OLDER ADULTS

Abstract Undergraduate students often have little contact with older adults, which may result in a lack of interest regarding career options in gerontology or geriatric practice. To combat this problem, the University of Alaska Anchorage’s 300-level Public Health for an Aging Society course introduces students enrolled in the Health Sciences Bachelor’s program to a variety of gerontological concepts. This service-learning course engages public health and pre-clinical students in the community, providing valuable experience working with local senior agencies to provide a product or service. Students work in interdisciplinary teams and have a variety of community-based projects to select from as part of their coursework. Using the Geriatric Attitudes Scale at the start and end of the semester, this presentation reports on improved student perceptions of older adults as a result of this course. With a sample of 22 undergraduates at the beginning of the semester, scores were relatively high in agreement with positive statements about aging (i.e., “it is society’s responsibility to provide care for the elderly”). However, they also report agreement with less positive statements about aging, such as “taking a medical history from elder patients is frequently an ordeal” and “as people grow older, they become less organized and more confused.” At the conclusion of the 15-week course, students report lower agreement with these negative statements about aging as a result of their learning and hands-on experience.

Using Mind Maps to Identify Meaning-Making about ELs in Pre-Service Teachers

The purpose of this research was to examine the use of mind-mapping as a classroom strategy for identifying and assessing the knowledge base of pre-service teachers as they prepare to work with English Learners (ELs) in mainstream classrooms. Using mind maps, the study identified the pre-service teachers’ knowledge base on ELs at the beginning of a 3-week service-learning course and in what areas they were able to grow. Using an action research framework and thematic analysis of the phrases written on mind maps, researchers were able to identify eleven themes prioritized by the pre-service teachers. Analysis of the mind maps revealed that pre-service teachers grew in ways that developed their knowledge of 1) supporting ELs through specific classroom strategies, 2) building awareness of and appreciating cultural diversity, 3) approaching language learning with an asset-oriented mindset, and 4) gaining a basic understanding of second language acquisition. The study found that mind maps are a helpful tool for identifying what pre-service teachers find meaningful about working with ELs as well as a source for data to inform teacher educators as they design and implement curriculum and experiences in teacher preparation that focus on ELs.
 Key Words: Mind Maps, Teacher Preparation, English Learners

“I Felt We Were Actually Learning Things, Then Applying Them”

Academic journals continue to produce articles that highlight record levels of student disengagement and lack of motivation. Faculty have been encouraged to use high impact, active learning strategies to increase student engagement and success (Patrick et al., 2016). One technique, service learning, allows students to become active learners through applying learned skills and theory from the classroom to community settings (Connolly, et al., 2017). The purpose of this study was to highlight students’ perceptions and experiences through three semester-long service-learning courses where students provided a fitness and mindfulness program to local teachers to help them address stressors. Undergraduate sports management students enrolled in a service-learning course for sport development were tasked with planning, organizing, implementing, and evaluating three 9-week long programs. Students were given increased responsibility and control over the semester which resulted in real-world experiences. The students gave their perceptions and experiences in an end of semester paper. Three independent coders reviewed the papers using thematic analysis. Emergent themes were consistent with the service-learning literature suggesting increased engagement, sense of purpose, and applying knowledge. The service-learning course proved to have a positive impact on the sport management students and produced high levels of engagement. Sport management faculty could implement service-learning courses to increase student engagement and opportunities to apply theories, skills, and knowledge in real-world settings. Sport management courses should further explore using high impact, active learning environments to increase student engagement and enhance student learning outcomes.

Purpose in Life in Higher Education: Is There a Role for Service-Learning?

The current study analyzed university students’ purpose in life in the context of service-learning (SL) courses developed in a university in Portugal. Briefly, 112 graduation and master students, from different areas, involved in 15 SL courses (82 female; 73.2%; age ranging from 18 to 51; M = 23; SD = 6.51) participated in this study. Questionnaires included an open-ended question about students’ purpose in life. Four closed-ended questions were included to understand student’s perceptions of change in their purpose in life arising from the SL courses and other perceptions about their SL course. Qualitative data were analyzed via content analysis with NVivo. Results indicated that students’ purpose in life ranged from social-related goals, such as helping or caring for others, to personal-related goals, including personal growth and well-being. Most of the students (71.4%) reported that their purpose in life changed moderately or a lot after participating in a SL course. Findings are discussed in light of the literature, identifying implications for the development of SL courses in higher education, considering the contribution of this pedagogic methodology to the definition and reconfiguration of young people’s purpose in life.

Civic-Mindedness Is More Than Personality

Abstract: Many colleges and universities have embraced the goal of increasing students’ civic-mindedness. The research associated with theorizing and measuring civic-mindedness, however, has thus far progressed in a silo away from the established literature of personality psychology. This paper bridges this gap – adopting civic efficacy and service motivation as two measures of civic-mindedness – and examines how well they are explained by the five-factor model of personality (FFM). Using survey data from undergraduate students at a large, public research university, we estimated a structural equation model to measure personality traits from the FFM, service motivation, and civic efficacy. Results showed that variation in personality accounts for approximately 40% of the variation in Service Motivation and 53% of the variation in Civic Efficacy, which does not support a clear assertion that either construct can neatly be categorized as a facet of the FFM. Our findings provide an additional theoretical basis for community service learning courses and other educational opportunities that blend traditional pedagogical strategies with experiential and reflective opportunities aiming to produce change across state-like and trait-like attributes.

Developing and teaching an interprofessional service-learning undergraduate course for pre-health and human services students

This interprofessional service-learning course focused on exploring how social determinants of health such as economic stability, education, social and community environment, and health and health care affect populations. Through reading narratives and eliciting stories from participants and students during their volunteer hours at a local hospital, students increased their understanding of social determinants and learned effective interprofessional communication and collaboration strategies. The paper outlines the process and steps to building a partnership with a health care institution and supporting students as they engaged in service learning. Reflections from the instructors, facilitators, and students are discussed.

Evaluation of an Electronic Service-Learning Course Utilizing Regular and Intensive Delivery Modes: The Hong Kong Experience

Purpose: This paper evaluated an electronic service-learning (e-SL) course utilizing regular and intensive delivery modes offered to undergraduate students in the 2020–2021 academic year. Methods: We collected pretest–posttest data ( N = 130) and students’ subjective evaluations of the course ( N = 148) and the services they had provided ( N = 160). Results: Students showed significant positive changes in both e-SL modes on positive youth development attributes, service leadership qualities, and life satisfaction, with greater changes among students taking the intensive mode. Students’ views towards the e-SL course and the services they provided were positive, and students in the two e-SL modes did not differ significantly in their subjective evaluations. In addition, students’ changes in outcome measures were positively associated with their subjective evaluations. Conclusions: The study provides additional support for the potential effectiveness of e-SL and suggests the promising application of intensive mode in implementing e-SL projects.

Haciendo Espejos: Multicultural Children’s Literature as Mirror Making

ABSTRACT This study analyzes the outcomes of a service-learning course where Latinas in a higher education setting created a 16-page children’s book for at-risk students as part of their education coursework in a regional public Hispanic-serving institution (HSI). There is a well-documented lack of Latina/o/x representation in children’s literature, which has impacts on literacy gaps and student confidence, but little research on the potential of creating children’s literature as a means to bridge divides. A series of qualitative focus groups at an HSI in a U.S.–Mexico border community were utilized to define the process of mirror making. Mirror making occurs when students draw from their own literacy journeys as the basis for writing while attempting to represent the experiences of emerging readers. As such, the process of mirror making represents a way of narrativizing sociopolitical issues of language, gender, and family that are relevant to their formative experiences.

Developing the Civically Engaged Student Through Interprofessional Education and Community-Placed Service Learning: Three Years at Cardinal Wellness

While studies have examined the outcomes of interprofessional service-learning activities, the use of interprofessional, community-based health programming as an opportunity for fostering civic engagement in today’s public health students is less studied. This article examines the benefits of a student-run exercise and nutrition program as an interprofessional education and service experience for undergraduate students participating in a service-learning course, degree-required practicum, capstone project, volunteer experience, or internship. An online survey with items from the Volunteer Functions Inventory, Civic Attitudes Scale, and Social Responsibility subscale of the Prosocial Behavior Battery was administered to 233 students from a diverse variety of majors. A significant increase in positive civic attitudes, volunteerism, and social responsibility scores was observed for students participating as part of one of two course-based service-learning projects, and scores on all three measures persisted at moderate-to-high levels for all students across six-semester cohorts and 3 years of program implementation. These results suggest that interprofessional service experiences are essential to the development of civic engagement competencies in today’s students, largely through the focus on collective action for social change.

Application of project-based service-learning courses in medical education: trials of curriculum designs during the pandemic

BackgroundDue to COVID-19, face-to-face service activities in service-learning courses have become unfeasible. To address this challenge, this study aims to integrate project-based learning into medical education’s service-learning curriculum. This study also seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of this instructional approach and identify factors that influence its success.MethodsA total of 135 first-year medical students enrolled in a mandatory 1-credit service-learning course were recruited. The course involved various service activities aligned with the needs of the local community. The students were organized into 12 groups, each working on different service-learning projects, such as raising health awareness or educating the public about specific diseases. Following the completion of the course, a questionnaire was distributed among the students to gather feedback on the course, and 122 (valid responses were collected, representing a response rate of 90.3%).ResultsThe results indicated that the project-based service-learning course significantly improved students’ “interpersonal communication skills,“ their ability to “learn and grow from work,“ and their sense of “professionalism” (all p ≤ 0.037). Among the various aspects of service learning, the highest agreement was observed for “executing the project,“ followed by “group discussions and project formulation,“ “overall course review,“ “review of project outcomes,“ “outcome presentations,“ “teaching proposal writing and project brainstorming,“ “sharing of service-learning experiences by teachers,“ and “sharing of service-learning experiences by teaching assistants.“ Students also found certain factors to be beneficial in enhancing the learning effectiveness of service-learning courses, including “prize money for service-learning outcomes,“ “funding for service-learning activities,“ and “consultations from medical personnel” (all p ≤ 0.01). However, “course credit” and “photography software” did not show significant effects (both p > 0.05). The most preferred resources or activities for future service-learning courses were “course credit” and “face-to-face service-learning activities.“ConclusionsThe project-based learning method improved the learning effectiveness in service-learning courses. Students perceived that the number of course credits reflects the course value and plays a pivotal role in enhancing the learning effectiveness in service-learning courses. During the epidemic, students still expect to have face-to-face service activities in service-learning courses. Therefore, without the impact of the epidemic, service learning courses should return to face-to-face service activities.

CISing Up Service Learning: A Systematic Review of Service Learning Experiences in Computer and Information Science

The benefits of service learning in computer and information science (CIS) are believed to be significant, ranging from providing students with real-world experiences to retaining students to positively impacting community partners. Although there are many benefits of service learning, the CIS domain does impose unique costs for integrating service learning into the curriculum. Yet there is little systematic research to help the CIS community understand best practices for maximizing benefits while minimizing costs. Experience reports about service learning courses in CIS have appeared in the literature annually since 2000, and thus we address this gap in knowledge by conducting a systematic review and content analysis of 84 experience reports from the The ACM Guide to Computing Literature . We synthesize the current state of service learning in CIS as well as derive recommendations for best practices and future research directions.

Student perceptions on learning from participating in low-cost service-learning course assignments

ABSTRACT There exist many descriptions of how service-learning benefits higher learning. However, these usually involve large-scale and well-funded projects that are not easily exported. We conducted a secondary analysis of student reflection papers to better understand what was learned from participating in low-cost service-learning projects. Through collaborations with community-based organizations, student learning goals were to enhance aptitudes for research literacy, self-organizing, and teamwork. We also examined factors that encouraged and hindered student learning. Projects were embedded in bachelor of social work courses on community development. Student narratives described: growth and professional development, enhanced awareness of community issues, the importance of community partner engagement, and processes that encouraged teamwork and learning. Some students partnered with previous workplaces; this impacted group dynamics. Narratives highlight students’ conscientious effort to facilitate peer learning. Implications for teaching, educational policy, and the place of service-learning within professional programs, are contemplated.

Implementing a College Service-Learning Model to Increase Music Appreciation and Narrative Skills of Students with Intellectual Disability

We developed and applied a Music and Narrative Curriculum for a college community service-learning course in a special education classroom of a local secondary school. The development of the curriculum stemmed from the music appreciation courses taught at a university. The curriculum consisted of three instructional phases, each with three core literacy. This article presents how to implement an eighteen-week general music education course, including classroom training and four intervention music lessons in a special education classroom at a university.

The Student Experience of a City-University-Community Service-Learning Classroom

The Austin City Hall Fellows Program at The University of Texas at Austin was a student civic leadership program designed to build Austin City Hall’s capacity to reach potential leaders in diverse new council districts. Undergraduate students in this program took a single-semester service-learning course that connected them with partners from the city, the community, and the university. Using Howard’s (1998) framework, our study analyzed student assessments from five cohorts of the class to understand how students experienced a service-learning class based around a multipartner community-university-city partnership. Our findings revealed that students experienced a nonlinear path to engagement in a synergistic classroom. This study offers implications for adjusting service-learning classes and projects to integrate and sustain relationships with multiple partners, even as the context of the service landscape and learning context are evolving.

“I Realize My White Privilege Certainly Has Contributed to This Whole Experience”: White Undergraduate Sport Management Students Engagement With Racism in a Sport-For-Development Service-Learning Course

Sport management classrooms prepare practitioners and decision makers to work in Sport for Development (SfD). A core issue within SfD is a lack of critical racial reflexivity, particularly with racially White professionals, which maintains inequitable power structures and keeps SfD programs from reaching their intended goal of facilitating positive outcomes. This study, informed by critical Whiteness studies, aimed to understand how White undergraduate sport management students critically reflected upon race while participating in an SfD service-learning course. Analyzing written reflections completed in the course, we found that students utilized Race Evasiveness and Race Explicitness, despite course content and SfD practice explicitly focused on race. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Training Medical Students to Recognize, Understand, and Mitigate the Impact of Racism in a Service-Learning Course.

The Morehouse School of Medicine's Community Health Course (CHC) trains first-year medical students to work with people of racial and ethnic minorities and economically and medically disadvantaged communities. This service-learning course includes the diagnosis/assessment of the health of a community and the development, implementation, and evaluation of a plan to improve some aspect of the community's health. The CHC teaches about the impact of racism on the health of communities through lectures, educational games, and videos focused on social determinants of health, cultural competence, and effective community engagement. Students complete small group assessments, interventions, and service activities at assigned sites. This pedagogical approach integrates the Association of Medical Colleges' Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion competencies and engages many community partners. The course's strengths include a multidisciplinary faculty, a culturally and educationally diverse student body, and community partners with varied backgrounds and resources. Opportunities exist for collaborations with other degree programs to sustain and increase the impact of community interventions and link this community-based educational activity to clinical training years. Course evaluations, exams, and short essays assess students' awareness of racism and the extent to which unconscious bias affects students' completion and interpretation of community assessment data and their engagement with community partners.

MPH Capstone experiences: promising practices and lessons learned.

To ensure workforce readiness, graduate-level public health training programs must prepare students to collaborate with communities on improving public health practice and tools. The Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) requires Master of Public Health (MPH) students to complete an Integrative Learning Experience (ILE) at the end of their program of study that yields a high-quality written product demonstrating synthesis of competencies. CEPH suggests written products ideally be "developed and delivered in a manner that is useful to external stakeholders, such as non-profit or governmental organizations." However, there are limited examples of the ILE pedagogies and practices most likely to yield mutual benefit for students and community partners. To address this gap, we describe a community-led, year-long, group-based ILE for MPH students, called Capstone. This service-learning course aims to (1) increase capacity of students and partner organizations to address public health issues and promote health equity; (2) create new or improved public health resources, programs, services, and policies that promote health equity; (3) enhance student preparedness and marketability for careers in public health; and (4) strengthen campus-community partnerships. Since 2009, 127 Capstone teams affiliated with the Department of Health Behavior at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have worked with seventy-nine partner organizations to provide over 103,000 h of in-kind service and produce 635 unique products or "deliverables." This paper describes key promising practices of Capstone, specifically its staffing model; approach to project recruitment, selection, and matching; course format; and assignments. Using course evaluation data, we summarize student and community partner outcomes. Next, we share lessons learned from 13 years of program implementation and future directions for continuing to maximize student and community partner benefits. Finally, we provide recommendations for other programs interested in replicating the Capstone model.

Immediate and sustained effect of a service-learning course grounded in public problem analysis

This study aims to propound an instructional design for a service-learning course grounded in public problem analysis and verify its immediate and sustained outcomes through the actual instructional process. A quasi-experimental research design was adopted wherein students who were enrolling in a service-learning course were considered as a treatment group, while those not enrolling in the course were categorized into a comparison group. Three-wave surveys were distributed at the beginning, end, and 6 months after the end of the course. Our difference-in-differences (DID) analysis showed that the project-based service-learning experience seems to be negatively related to perceived problem-solving ability but positively associated with students’ public service motivation (PSM) in the short term. However, the above influence did not sustain as time progressed. This study helps to clarify the relation between service-learning courses and students’ problem-solving ability as well as PSM in the field of public affairs education. It can also serve as a foundation for efforts to improve subsequent instructional plans of service-learning courses.

Connecting mind, heart, culture and activity in an undergraduate service-learning course

ABSTRACT This manuscript reports on an educational project that was designed to closely link educational theory and practice – or mind, heart, culture, and activity – in a community-engagement course on sociocultural learning theory and ethnographic research. We identify patterned ways in how students connected theory and practice as revealed through an analysis of field notes written across three quarters of instruction about their experiences in an after-school program at an urban elementary school. We draw implications for how undergraduate education can better foster students’ ability to engage with theory in support of transformative educational practice.