Selected Changes in Urban High School Students After Participation in Community Based Learning and Service Activities

This study measured selected changes in high school students as a result of community involvement and participation in order to realize the goal of responsible citizenship. It was designed to ascertain whether students who experienced community service displayed more positive attitudes toward learning than students who had not experienced community service. The study investigated changes in the areas of: student attitudes toward future life goals as measured by actual behaviors in planning and exploring careers, feelings of personal adequacy or inadequacy as measured by self-esteem in social situations, attitudes toward helping others as measured by social and personal responsibility indices, attitudes toward responsible community and school citizenship as measured by attendance and disciplinary referrals. Three hundred urban high school students who were enrolled in the general course of study were administered pretests. One hundred thirty-six of the original one hundred fifty experimental group students completed the posttest after finishing thirty hours of community learning/service activities. One hundred twenty six control group students completed the posttest. Student attendance and disciplinary referrals were examined, and interviews were conducted with ten students and five teachers. The following research hypotheses were tested: 1. There is a difference in attitudes toward school, toward helping others, and toward future life goals as measured b) three attitude scales between urban high school students who are involved ina community based learning/service experience and those who are not involved in such an experience