Resources

Service-Learning Research Studies

One of the most comprehensive annotated bibliographies is “A t A Glance: What We Know about The Effects of Service-Learning on College Students, Faculty, Institutions and Communities, 1993-2000: Third Edition, by Janet S. Eyler, Dwight E.Giles, Jr., Christine M. Stenson, and Charlene J. Gray, Vanderbilt University, August 31, 2001.  (Funded by the Corporation for National Service, Learn and Serve America National Service Learning Clearinghouse.) 

Alexander Astin and his colleagues at the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute published an extensive study about the impacts of service-learning on a group of over 22,000 higher education students.  The executive summary of this research can be found here.

Since 1994, the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning (MJCSL) has been the premiere national, peer-reviewed journal publishing articles written by faculty and service-learning educators on research, theory, pedagogy, and other issues related to academic (curriculum-based) service-learning in higher education.

Fresno State’s own Sally Tannenbaum and Richard Berrett published research supporting the effective inclusion  of service-learning in university classes.  This research can be found at here.

As part of Fresno State’s 2005 WASC Accreditation, information was gathered from across the university regarding how community engagement, including service-learning, has impacted our students.  This section of the WASC report can be found here.

A presentation by Dr. Matthew Jendian titled, "Impacts of Service-Learning on Students: Persistence, Graduation, Personal and Professional Development" provides an overview of several studies conducted at Fresno State from 2002 to 2010.

In June of 2009, the Institutional Research, Assessment and Planning Office at California State University, Fresno released the findings of a study conducted to determine the impacts service-learning has on Fresno State students. " Does Service-Learning Help Students Succeed?" indicates that a service-learning experience can significantly improve student retention and graduation rates. The study also concludes that, "although differences are small, SL (service-learning) students rated Fresno State ’ s contribution to their personal and job-related growth higher than did non-SL students."