This article, written by four undergraduates with extensive experience in community-based research (CBR), summarizes each author's project and offers their views on conditions necessary for CBR success and benefits of CBR for students. (Author)

Compares seven multi-institutional community-based research networks in Appalachia; Colorado; District of Columbia; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Philadelphia; Richmond, Virginia; and Trenton, New Jersey. After reviewing the histories of the networks, conducts a comparative SWOT analysis, showing their common and unique strengths, weaknesses,…

Examines benefits and challenges of undertaking assessments in community-based research (CBR). Such assessments are compared and contrasted to more traditional research processes. Further, the challenges of integrating CBR assessments into an ongoing social change initiative are analyzed. Five principles to guide CBR assessments are articulated. A…

This faculty survey found "remarkable" consistency in the various motivators and deterrents to service-learning, both for faculty who do and do not use it. (EV)

Responses to the Civic Attitudes and Skills Questionnaire indicated that students doing service-learning showed increases in their plans for future civic action, assessments of their own interpersonal, problem-solving, and leadership skills, and agreement with items emphasizing society factors that affect individual outcomes (social justice). They…

Examined outcomes of a service-learning tutoring program with elementary school children. Compared to a non-tutored group, the tutored children had higher 1-year gains in Stanford Achievement Test scores in math and spelling. Teachers and students rated tutoring highly. (EV)

Analysis of focus groups on service-learning experiences indicated that faculty and community organization staff differed in: (1) their commitment to the idea of expertise and their willingness to identify themselves as learners; (2) their attention to words or actions as evidence of learning; and (3) their tendency to represent learning as an…

Draws from self-descriptions of national and community service organizations, and from service-learning history and literature, to reveal and examine underlying metaphors of service. Then describes and develops purposeful metaphors for service, which can be used to clarify service-learning's multiple meanings and facilitate reflective learning.…

Describes the Calvin Environmental Assessment Program (CEAP), which involves regular lab sessions or course projects to collect data that contribute to an overall environmental assessment of the campus and surrounding areas. Addresses the program's exploration of particularity versus universality in knowledge, and its Care Theory pedagogy. (EV)

Explores the transformative potential of service-learning through the lens of a particular context: a course held inside a prison. Addresses questions such as how service-learning is "done," the fragile nature of power and how to approach it, how context impacts the educational process, and the transformative possibilities of a "liberatory"…

Reviews literature on cognitive outcomes of service learning with an emphasis on how convincing the results are to faculty. Explores how self-report measures produce the most consistent positive findings yet are one of the least persuasive measures; other measures based in the cognitive sciences, such as problem-solving protocols, show promise but…

Undergraduates completed the new Civic Attitudes and Skills Questionnaire designed to measure attitudes, skills, and behavioral intentions that might be affected by service learning participation. Factor analyses were used to define six scales. The scales' reliability and validity were found to be adequate. (EV)

Analyzed student reflection papers from a service learning course and uncovered the benefits reported by student participants; also found similarities in responses despite students' higher or lower performances in the course. (EV)

Explored the extent to which community colleges in New York state use and support service learning. Through survey data and document analysis, uncovered how community colleges perceive their mission and are involved in their communities, identified major barriers to and reasons for engaging in service learning, and described service learning…

This multi-site study of candidates in programs in the National Service Learning in Teacher Education Partnership measured gains in participants' teaching efficacy, commitment to teaching, service ethic of teaching, and acceptance of diversity, as well as their intent to personally engage in community service and use service learning in their own…