Comparing the Effects of Community Service and Service-Learning

Service-learning represents a potentially powerful form of pedagogy because it provides a means of linking the academic with the practical. The more abstract and theoretical material of the traditional classroom takes on new meaning as the student tries it so to speak, in the real world. At the same time, the student benefits from the opportunity to connect the service experience to the intellectual content of the classroom. By emphasizing cooperation, democratic citizenship and moral responsibility through service-learning, higher education connects to the wider community and enables students to contribute to the alleviation of society's urgent needs. There is a mounting body of evidence documenting the efficacy of participating in service during the undergraduate years (Astin, Sax & Avalos, 1999; Batchelder & Root, 1994; Eyler, Giles & Braxton, 1997; Eyler & Giles, 1999; Hesser, 1995; Rhoads, 1997; Sax, Astin & Astin, 1996). Yet, though there is broad support for engaging students in community service, there has been some resistance to incorporating service into academic courses. The thinking has been that the place for service is outside the classroom--done on a student's own time. Those who doubt that belongs in undergraduate curricula ask, What is the value-added for course-based service? For proponents of service-learning, it is important to be able to know whether engaging in service as part of an academic course has benefits over and above those of co-curricular community service. This study directly compares and co-curricular community service, in order to identify the unique contributions, if any, of course-based service beyond those of community service.1 We address these issues through a quantitative longitudinal study of a national sample of students diverse colleges and universities. Research that contributes to understanding the educational value of course-based service is important for several reasons. First, it contributes to our understanding of how student learning takes place. Second, such understanding directly addresses faculty concerns about the value of participating in service as part of a course. As a recent study of federally funded programs points out, at the institutional level, the most serious obstacle [to expanding and sustaining service programs] is faculty resistance to service-learning. Faculty are reluctant to invest the extra time that teaching courses entails, and many are skeptical of the educational value of service-learning (Gray et. al., 1999, p. 103). As a result of research on service-learning, faculty may not only gain a broader understanding of how learning takes place, but also be more likely to support if they see evidence documenting its educational value. Method In this article, we report the results of quantitative analyses which directly compare and community service. For this purpose we do a longitudinal comparison of three student groups: participants, generic community service participants, and non-service participants. Participants The data from this study were collected as part of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP), with sponsorship from the American Council on Education. Conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) the University of California, Los Angeles, the CIRP annually collects data on entering first-year students using the Student Information Form (SIF), a questionnaire which is designed as a pre-test for longitudinal assessments of the impact of college on students. The College Student Survey (CSS), which provides longitudinal follow-up data, is typically administered four years after college entry. This study uses 1998 CSS data, and draws on SIF data from 1991 through 1997. Most students who participated in the 1998 CSS completed their SIF in 1994 (69%). …