Student choice in service learning: relationships between "best practices" and undergraduate student outcomes

Ashley Kathryn Vaughan

The proliferation of service learning throughout universities and colleges in the United States over the past two decades has led to an increased focus on measuring student outcomes, particularly as they relate to students' academic performance in their content areas. Problems arise in the validity of this research, because service-learning practices vary drastically across programs, courses, and locations. Recent literature has focused heavily on developing a standard definition and compiling a comprehensive set of best practices to address this issue. Conversely, this study argues that service learning should not conform to any one set of best practices or be restricted by the strict specificities of any single definition. Doing so would limit service learning's ability to be used in various locations, by diverse groups of people, and in meeting incongruous learning objectives. As an alternative approach, it is suggested that the various components of service-learning practices--particularly those "best practices" recommended with little or no basis in the research--be explored in an effort to understand the consequences and expected outcomes of the various ways service learning is and might be practiced. To begin this conversation, this study assessed for relationships between student choice in selecting placement locations for service learning courses and students' academic and civic learning outcomes. It was determined that a significant correlational relationship existed between student choice and each of the five outcome variables used to measure students' academic outcomes. Civic outcomes shared a significant relationship with student choice on two of the three outcome variables measured. Based on these findings, it is suggested that the different ways service learning is practiced influences student outcomes. Maintaining and expanding service learning's potential to meet varying and competing learning objectives requires that future research focus not on developing a singular method of how to best practice service learning, but that it work to understand the impacts of how service learning is practiced on the student outcomes that might be expected.

Student choice in service learning: relationships between "best practices" and undergraduate student outcomes

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