Based on quantitative survey data and qualitative data from journal entries by students in a seminar focused on community-based research, undergraduate student perceptions of community partners are explored in the context of debates about the politics of knowledge. Student perceptions that frame community partners as the recipients of academic…

Approaching reflection from the perspective of a teachable skill set implies that research may inform how to help students reflect. Employing a framework of making connections often used in reading comprehension, this study aimed to characterize how making connections between the service-learning experience (SLE) and prior experiences in similar…

Introduces the Web-based, interactive group journal as a potent, highly efficient, and research-based alternative to traditional, privately-kept journals. Describes this journaling alternative in detail as it has been used in the last four semesters of an undergraduate service learning course, and presents instructor and student assessments of…

A theoretical model is developed for the process relatively privileged white students go through as they become more aware of their own socioeconomic and other advantages and come to terms with these within their community service learning placements. The model is supported with journal reflections from service-learners placed in inner-city…

Data from 50 daily reflection journals of college students participating in service learning were used to draw a descriptive map of the social-psychological stages that occur during service learning. Textual analysis revealed that students progress through three identifiable stages of development: shock, normalization, and engagement. (EV)

Student journals contribute to service-learning by focusing student attention on elements of community service and providing an opportunity for reflection. A project in which upper-class college students mentored children in an urban school system illustrates how journal entries help students document observations, question, speculate, develop…

Reports on a community service learning project in which 11 college students participated in conflict-resolution activities in a middle school. The students' reactions to the experience varied according to their different motivations for participating. Training and close supervision, partially accomplished through meetings and reading weekly…

Study investigated the effects of a service-learning component in an undergraduate occupational therapy course. Comparisons were made between students involved in service-learning and those not involved of how they perceived institutionalized older adults' perspectives on disease and aging. Also evaluated were weekly journal entries of the…