National associations such as the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and Campus Compact create initiatives that promote service-learning and campus based service programs to improve civic engagement in higher education; they often fail to include Greek-letter organizations, especially Latino Greek-letter organizations,…

This paper offers a historical theoretical discussion and practical perspective on the qualitative paradigm of inquiry referred to as Naturalistic Inquiry (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Moreover, it endeavors to demonstrate the paradigm's versatility and usefulness when attempting to illuminate phenomena that specifically occur when students…

As community engagement continues to be institutionalized within colleges and universities, it is increasingly important that it retain its founding mission to prepare engaged citizens to address societal issues and contribute to the public good. Unfortunately, dominant models of community engagement remain charity focused and thereby reinforce…

Existing research on international service-learning (ISL) only implicitly alludes to emotions or considers emotions as a limited vehicle through which the more important work of learning occurs. This study set out to shift this focus on emotions to show how emotions are an integral part of the overall ISL experience. The aim was to understand how…

This paper examines how the structural features of engineering engagement programs (EEPs) are related to the nature of their service-learning partnerships. "Structure" refers to formal and informal models, processes, and operations adopted or used to describe engagement programs, while "nature" signifies the quality of…

This article represents the culmination of a two-year qualitative case study concerning how 33 students in a service-learning course understood poverty as they prepared taxes for low-income families through the IRS's Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program. Because the tax site communities are seen as community partners in their own right, this…

Service learning is an experiential pedagogic approach that is predicated on students learning in authentic situations. It is often problem-orientated and provides opportunities for community engagement in ways that enhance a student's capacity as a socially aware individual. There is evidence that such learning opportunities can enhance personal…

As stated in APA Learning Outcomes 2 and 3, two central goals of higher education instruction are promoting students' critical thinking skills and connecting student learning to real-life applications. To meet these goals, a community-based service-learning experience was designed using task value, interpersonal accountability, cognitive…

This article chronicles a service-learning (SL) subject on community psychology in Hong Kong (n = 26) and elaborates on how students experience concepts, frameworks, and values in community psychology and put them into practice at servicelearning settings. Upon acquiring basic concepts in community psychology, including sense of community,…

We developed and tested a pedagogical strategy--asset-based design challenges--to enhance diversity in early chemical engineering coursework. Using qualitative methods, we found first-year students justified high-cost solutions with ethical arguments; teams that included rural expertise argued instead for economically-viable solutions. In the…

How does participation in a service-learning program impact the way students think about politics and political engagement? There are reasons to expect that service-learning can contribute to the development of a political consciousness and the skills necessary for political participation. The author uses participant observation, in-depth…

Intergenerational service-learning initiatives are an increasingly common educational practice designed to engage college students and older adults with one another. The growth of the baby boomer population and a growing interest in lifelong learning opportunities among older adults have the potential to create new models of multigenerational…

The use of structured reflections for promoting personal understanding and community self-efficacy was examined in 65 occupational therapy college students in a service learning course. Students in the experimental group wrote structured reflections throughout the semester while students in the control groups used non-structured reflections.…

Service to others plays a key role in the development of one's worldview. To study this key role, authors examined a sample of 38 student narratives in three phases: before, during, and 45 days after they served at an alternative break site around the United States. Students kept a prompt-based journal inspired by the tenets of the social change…

While service learning platforms hold great potential for adult learners of English as an additional language (EAL), there has been little research to date related to the impact of these programs on adult newcomers' linguistic and social development. The Multicultural Café was a food service learning platform for adult EAL learners operated over a…