International Service-Learning: Does It Transform Students? The Answer Is YES!

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What impact does service-learning have on students? How are they transformed by the experience? There is a growing body of research in academic service-learning that is trying to answer these questions. And, so far, the answer is YES!

According to Dr. Richard Kiely of Cornell University, there has been extensive research and documentation on domestic academic service-learning and its positive effects on student's learning, personal and professional development. However, when it comes to international service-learning, systematic research on the impact of the ISL experience on students is needed(Kiely, 2004).

What we do know is that involvement in an international service-learning program "...increases students' intercultural competence, language skills, appreciation of cultural difference, tolerance for ambiguity, and experiential understanding of complex global problems related to their academic program of study" (Kiely, 2004).

Recent research on international service-learning has focused on "transformational learning" and have incorporated a model from transformational learning theory called "perspective transformation", which Mezirow (1991) defines as the process of becoming critically aware of how and why our presuppositions have come to constrain the way we perceive, understand and feel about our world; of reforumulating these assumptions to permit a more inclusive, discriminating, permeable and integrative perspective; and of making decisions or otherwise acting on these new understandings. (p.14)

Works Cited

Kiely, R. (2004) A Chameleon with a Complex: Searching for Transformation in International Service-Learning Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, Spring, pp.5-20.

Mezirow, J. (1991) Transformative dimensions of adult learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

"Perspective Transformation" in Service-Learning

How does service-learning transform students?

Numerous studies have shown the positive effects --academic, interpersonal, personal and professional --of academic service-learning (Kiely, 2004).

In their book, Where's the learning in service-learning? (1999), J.S. Eyler and D.E. Giles, Jr. argue that service-learning supports education that "raises fundamental questions and empowers students to do something about them" (p.133). Academic service-learning, they argue, is "not about accumulating more knowledge, but about seeing the world in a profoundly different way, one that calls for personal commitment and action" (p.129).

One study by W.A. Kellogg (1999) examined moral, intellectual and political dimensions of the transformational impact of service-learning by analyzing data collected through papers, surveys, and student journals. Kellogg describes the students' moral perspective transformation as "an enhanced sense of empathy and caring about urban neighborhoods...in which students would identify themselves and residents of these neighborhoods as members of the same community" (p. 64). The study also found a longer-term moral transformation in some students who continued to work in the service community after the semester ended.

For more information on research in this area, I suggest starting with this website:
Learn and Service America's National Service-Learning Clearinghouse (http://www.servicelearning.org/) has a library of resources on academic research studies of service-learning.

Works Cited
Eyler, J.S. & Giles, Jr. D.E. (1999) Where's the learning in service-learning? San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Kiely, R. (2004) A Chameleon with a Complex: Searching for Transformation In International Service-Learning. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, Spring, pp. 5-20.

Kellogg, W.A. (1999) Toward more transformative service-learning: Experiences from an urban environmental problem-solving class. Michigan Journal of Service Learning, Fall, pp. 63-73.