Student outcomes of community service learning: A comparative analysis of curriculum-based and non-curriculum-based alternative spring break programs.

Since their inception, institutions of higher education have purported that teaching, research, and service are their priorities. Unfortunately these institutions have historically tended to focus on and reward primarily only teaching and research. There has recently been a re-emergence of community service learning as a viable pedagogical tool to address this overall mission. This study investigates the student outcomes of a community service learning program. It is a comparative analysis, using triangulated qualitative methods, looking at two distinct groups: a curriculum-based group of students enrolled in an academic course, of which community service was a component; and a non-curriculum-based group, in which community service was a co-curricular activity. After an extensive literature review, the outcomes of these programs are viewed and compared through Astin's student outcomes typology (types of data and outcomes), and indirect outcomes are investigated using Kirby and McKenna's hurricane analysis. The results show that both groups experienced more psychological outcomes than behavioral ones. Challenging previously held attitudes and values was the strongest outcome for both groups, including the challenging of stereotypes. The students interacted with and befriended individuals who were very different from themselves, and with whom they normally would not have initiated relationships. The curriculum-based group experienced more outcomes overall, specifically in the cognitive psychological realm. Understanding community issues, connecting learned theory to practice, broadening career and educational choices, and learning problem-solving skills were among the most significant outcomes for this group. Having grounded theory before the service week and having a structured learning environment afterwards seemed to have added to their overall learning experience. In contrast, the non-curriculum-based group experienced more interpersonal, friendship, and bonding outcomes, but fewer learning ones. Finally, I used Gardner's Multiple Intelligences theory to explicate the problem of evaluating the outcomes from service learning, a non-traditional pedagogical method, through traditional academic frameworks. In particular, service learning's effects on interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence outcomes is discussed, and a call is made for researchers to study and recognize these outcomes as valuable and desirable student outcomes from an educational experience.PhDCurriculum developmentEducationEducational psychologyHigher educationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/131276/2/9840602.pd