Effectiveness of Service-Learning

• Main Authors: Peter Slepcevic-Zach (Author), Karina Fernandez (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: Forum Neue Medien in der Lehre Austria, 2021-03-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.
• Notes: 10.3217/zfhe-16-01/05; 2219-6994
• Keywords: Education; L
• Source: Zeitschrift für Hochschulentwicklung, Vol 16, Iss 1 (2021)

The benefits of service-learning are explicitly mentioned in plenty development plans of different Austrian universities. To proof those benefits, effects of service-learning courses are often measured at the end of a specific course. Studies measuring effects a few years after completion of the course are rather rare. In this paper results of a study are presented, that focus on long-term effects. After a literature review focusing on service-learning as an instructional intervention as well as on the effectiveness of different Service-Learning courses, the implementation of the service-learning course discussed in this paper is described. 82 students, who had participated in service-learning-courses at the University of Graz, were interviewed three years after completing the course by means of a questionnaire. The results indicate the impact the service-learning-course had on the students in a long term run. The paper ends with the limitations of the presented research and the resulting outlook on further research.