The Influence of Service Learning O N Students' Personal and Social Development

An explanatory methods design was used to evaluate the influence of a service learning course on learning, personal, and social outcomes for service learning (n = 142) students. These students showed improvements in diversity and political awareness, community self-efficacy, and civic engagement scores from the beginning to the end of the semester. In addition, the students' academic learning, personal and interpersonal development, and community engagement were detected as the major benefits from engaging in service learning. The findings of this study suggest that service learning contributes to students' academic learning and personal and social development through social-emotional processes. T here has been an increase in the number of investigations into service learning over the past few years (Eyler 2000; Harkavy et al. 2000; Moore 2000). Service learning refers to a method under which students apply particular course concepts to real-life situations (Furco 2003). Service-learning programs are distinguished from other forms of experiential learning Lori Simons is an assistant professor of psychology in the Social Science Division at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania. Beverly Cleary is a research assistant at Widener University. Copyright © 2006 Heldref Publications (i.e., community service, volunteerism) by their intention to benefit students and recipients of service equally (Sigmon and Pelletier 1996). The majority of previous investigations have measured service learning outcomes for students using either quantitative or qualitative methodologies. The quantitative studies have measured changes in students' personal and interpersonal development (Eyler and Giles 1999; Eyler et al. 2003; Moely, Mercer et al. 2002); academic learning (Eyler 2000; Vogelgesang and Astin 2000); and civic engagement (Eyler et al. 2003; Gallini and Moely 2003; Moely, Mercer et al.), while the qualitative research has explored the processes linked with students' reduced stereotyping (Howard-Hamilton 2000; Rockquemore and Shaffer 2000; Root et al. 2002) and increased community involvement (Eyler et al.; Reinke 2003). Several researchers suggest that service learning research is fairly rudimentary and outcomes need to be further examined with more rigorous methods (Eyler; Moore 2000; Ramaley 2000). The present study addresses methodological limitations by evaluating an academic service learning model on learning, personal, and social outcomes using a dominant-less-dominant quantitativequalitative explanatory methods design. An explanatory methods design refers to a sequential phase of data collection and an integrative analysis of quantitativequalitative data where quantitative results are used to generate questions and provide a context for the qualitative analysis (Creswell 1994; 2005). The first section of this article defines what an academic service learning model is, and reviews previous research on service learning. Next, an explanatory methods design is described in terms of both the quantitative analysis and the qualitative analysis. Einally, the two sets of findings are synthesized through a single discussion. Service Learning Model Eyler and Giles (1999) and Furco (2003) describe Sigmon and Pelletier's