Employing critical incident technique and the constructivist grounded approach, this study conducted individual in-depth interviews with 13 undergraduate students who had experiences studying abroad in China to find out how American college students perceived their new learning environment in China, and to examine the strategies students employed…

Service Learning (SL) is a pedagogy aimed at combining academic studies and volunteer community action. The advantages of SL are numerous and are discussed elsewhere. The article points to some of the less studied aspects of service learning programs: the price that students pay for their volunteer service in the community. The discussion will be…

The objective of this study was to examine whether continuing education that focuses on service learning could provide older students (over the age of 50) with knowledge and skills that increase their life satisfaction, confidence, and community integration. We also examined whether it could provide them with meaningful and purposeful experiences.…

The purpose of this study was to examine the possible enhancement of compassion in college students as a result of participating in community-based learning immersion trips. In two separate experiments, a total of 123 college students were given a series of questionnaires immediately before and after university-sponsored immersion experiences to…

This essay addresses how to cope with several potential barriers to implementing effective service-learning projects. The discussion builds on experiences of developing and refining service-learning in upper-division communication courses. Difficulties arise in three areas: the institutional and physical setting, student attitudes, and community…