A Meta-Analysis of Collegiate Service-Learning Teaching Strategies

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Contemporary Ecologies and Strategies of Service-Learning

Abstract

Undergraduate students in service-learning (SL) courses demonstrate higher gains than their peers in academic achievement (AAO), civic engagement (CEO), social skills (SSO), and attitudes toward themselves (ATS) and learning (ALO), but these gains are inconsistent across SL literature. Diverse SL strategies are thought to be a leading cause for the disparity. We synthesized findings from 62 studies that compared undergraduate SL to a control group. Results indicated that SL had a positive effect on student outcomes (d = 0.37, p < .001) and this effect was moderated by study-level factors, including the study’s design, the type of instrument used to measure outcomes, and four common SL strategies.

Authors

• Ashley K. Vaughan, Northern Arizona University

• Kira Joy Carbonneau, Washington State University - Pullman