Benefits of service-learning for freshmen college students and elementary school children

Abstract: Freshman honors students in a service-learning course tutored low-income English Language Learning kindergartners, first-, and second-graders in reading. We conducted two separate data collections, one assessing college students ’ attitudes and motives (Study 1) and one exploring the benefits for elementary school children (Study 2). We measured changes in college students’ motivations for volunteering and social attitudes, and we measured changes in children’s reading performance and achievement goals. Comparisons with non-service-learning college students revealed that the service-learning students volunteered more hours, showed larger gains in esteem and protective motives (volunteering made them feel better about themselves and helped them cope with personal problems), and showed a marginally significant increase in motivation to volunteer in order to promote professional growth. We found a positive correlation between hours tutored and increases in children’s reading scores, and the children showed increases in adaptive achievement goals. Although service-learning benefits for children were non-significant due to small sample size, findings suggest that benefits of the service-learning project were reciprocal