Abstract:

For decades colleges and universities have engaged students in community based service learning experiences. These experiences have provided students with opportunities to “give back” to the local community in which the students’ college or university resides and have assisted them in engaging with others by bringing that which they are learning in college to their local community. While university faculty and staff have posited that the university students learn and develop from engaging with their community, rarely has research been connected to determine the impact of such experience have on their own development as students. The presented research measures such impact in a university-based service learning opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students. The researchers developed, tested and utilized a questionnaire to measure undergraduate and graduate students’ growth and development while engaging in service learning opportunities. More specifically, the questionnaire has sought to measure students’ communication, leadership and mentorship skills. The questionnaire was developed using adult learning theory, mentorship constructs and communication best practices as constructs and was tested using item response theory as guiding principles. One hundred and nine university students participated in the research. The service learning opportunity in which the university students engaged was a middle and high school students instructional experience in classrooms in science and mathematics. The university students involved in the work were engineering and computer science students at both the undergraduate and master’s levels. The measurement of communication, leadership and mentorship questionnaire was paired with an observational protocol in which the students’ communication, leadership and mentorship with secondary students was directly observed. The questionnaire and observations were administered using a pre-post comparative approach. Results of this comparison revealed that the university students increased their communication in subject matter, their leadership, and their mentorship skills at statistically significant levels after participating in the service learning program for approximately 15 weeks. This student results indicate that not only is service fulfilling, it facilitates skill sets that have been recognized in engineering and other technical fields as professional skills necessary for workforce success, thereby underscoring the importance of such service learning opportunities for college and university students.

Keywords:

Service learning, leadership, mentorship, STEM.