ABSTRACT

There has been an increasing amount of work done on the effectiveness of service-learning in meeting the goals of the first-year experience (FYE) course.  This paper explores whether SL activities are effective in meeting some of the goals of the FYE course including facilitating critical thinking skills—particularly concerning the topic of poverty, improving students' connection to other students and faculty, and promoting civic engagement.

Key Words: Service learning, first year experience course, critical thinking

Many universities have integrated some type of first-year experience (FYE) course into their freshman curriculum.  Though FYE courses take many forms, one approach is to take a course which is already popular amongst first-year students, such as introductory sociology, and ask faculty to restructure it as an FYE course. This restructuring may include, but is not limited to, activities which introduce students to university services (e.g. career development, tutoring services, study abroad), co-curricular activities to foster ties to other students and faculty at the university and the larger community, and an emphasis on teaching skills necessary to do well in college (e.g. familiarizing students with the library, teaching study skills, teaching time management), along with developing activities that improve critical thinking skills. Faculty teaching this type of FYE course may struggle with the dilemma of how to accomplish the goals of FYE while still keeping the content of the course in tact. 

Integrating service-learning (SL) into the FYE course is one approach that may be helpful in solving this dilemma.  In this paper, I will argue that integrating SL into an introductory sociology FYE course can be useful both in meeting some FYE goals and in teaching various sociological concepts and fostering the sociological imagination.  What follows is a description of a service-learning project used in an FYE section of introductory sociology along with an assessment of the effectiveness of these activities in meeting the goals of the FYE course and teaching about poverty.  Although a specific project is outlined and assessed, it is hoped that this paper will add to the growing body of research about the benefits of SL, in general, in meeting the goals of the FYE course.

Goals of the First-Year Experience Course

First-year experience courses were introduced and designed to function as a way to increase retention beyond the first year of college (Mandel and Evans, 2003).  Though there is some variance by type of institution, more than three quarters of four-year degree granting institutions offer some form of FYE course (Barefoot, Swing, and Gardner, 2000).  Of the often cited Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education (Chickering and Gamson, 1987), it has been suggested that at least six principles can be addressed by quality FYE courses, namely: encouraging contact between students and faculty, developing reciprocity and cooperation among students, encouraging active learning, giving prompt feedback, emphasizing time on task, and communicating high expectations (Barefoot, 2000a).  Not surprisingly, many of these principles are consistent with the goals of the FYE course.

            Typical goals of FYE programs involve integrating students into the college community by creating an environment conducive to making friends, meeting faculty, and learning about what is available to them in the university.  Since many students are away from home for the first time, making connections to the larger community can also be important. Still other common goals include developing both critical thinking skills and a sense of ethics or what is sometimes called value learning (McInnis, 2001; Mandel and Evans, 2003; Barefoot, 2000b).

      It is thought that by creating an environment where first-year students can feel comfortable and connected and where they are given the opportunity to better develop critical thinking skills and other higher order learning skills, they will be more likely to remain in school and will be more successful students while in school.  Many formats have been explored and implemented with regards to how best to meet these goals. In this paper, I propose that service-learning can be an ideal approach to meeting many of these goals.  Though not specifically directed at FYE courses in particular, Gallini and Moely (2003) found that SL can increase retention by promoting greater engagement with the larger community, greater academic engagement, and greater interpersonal engagement.  Other have argued that the integration of SL into the FYE classroom can increase student learning and interest, heighten respect for diversity, and increase students' sense of social responsibility (O'Byrne and Alva, 2002; Barefoot, 2000b; Zlotkowski, 2002).

Service-Learning

Though often viewed as a relatively new phenomenon, the roots of service-learning can be traced as far back as John Dewey (c.f. Giles and Ehler, 1994; Jacoby, 1996; and Myers-Lipton, 1998 for good overviews of the theoretical and pedagogical development of SL).  Despite long historical roots, there remains a great deal of controversy over the definition of SL.  The definition that I have adopted is the one best articulated by Jacoby (1996).  She writes, "[S]ervice-learning is a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development" (Jacoby, 1996, p. 5).  Thus, she argues, service-learning must be both reflective in that it requires students to think critically about the issues being addressed by the service provided, and reciprocal in that both the servers and those being served learn from the experience and from each other.  Service is thus a shared activity with both the server and those being served playing active roles.   As Rachel Naomi Remen (1996, p. 24) writes, unlike fixing or helping behaviors, "[s]ervice is a relationship between equals."  Additionally, Eyler and Giles have characterized the learning associated with SL as aiming to

"…connect the personal and intellectual, to help students acquire knowledge that is useful in understanding the world, build critical thinking capacities, and perhaps lead to fundamental questions about learning and about society and to a commitment to improve both.  Service-learning aims to prepare students who are lifelong learners and participants in the world" (1999, p. 14)

Meeting FYE Goals with the SL Experience

Research on service-learning has documented the positive effects of actively engaging students by moving learning outside the classroom and into the community (McKinney et al., 2004a; Mooney and Edwards, 2001).  Some of the benefits of SL include cognitive-skills development, moral development and values formation, greater civic involvement, and a greater appreciation for diversity (Marullo, 1999). 

Sociology as a discipline is especially well-suited for this kind of venture due the nature of the subject matter involved and the applicability of sociological knowledge to community interests.   Some have argued that the theories and concepts that are taught in sociology, because they apply to the larger society, are particularly easy to link to practical experience (Marullo, 1999; Vann, 1999).  Indeed, one need only look as far back as Jane Addams' work at Hull House or the foundations of American Sociology as it emerged through the Chicago School tradition to see the historical links between sociology and community service (c.f. Hironimus-Wendt and Lovell-Troy, 1999, for an excellent overview of the sociological links to the history of experiential learning).  In particular, topical areas such as deviance, family, social movements, stratification, among others are very conducive to community applications (Marullo, 1996). 

Additionally, Zlotkowski (2002) argues that integrating SL into the FYE course could potentially "fix" a problem that plagues many introductory courses, that is, the failure to generate student interest.  Indeed, most students who take an introductory sociology course never take another sociology course (McKinney, Medvedeva, Vacca, & Malak, 2004b).  Thus, one potential side-benefit of integrating SL into an introductory sociology FYE course could be the generation of increased attraction to the major.

SL as a Way to Form Connections

Forming connections to peers and faculty is seen as a crucial element for retention—especially for women, students of color, first-generation students, and students who do not otherwise fit the traditional college student description.  Thus, faculty who teach FYE course are often encouraged to involve students in co-curricular activities such as faculty-student research collaborations, shared meals, and activities in the faculty's home as a way to foster relationships amongst students and between students and the instructor (Barefoot, 2000b).  Gardner (2002, p. 147) has suggested that SL experiences are ideally suited for developing community within the FYE classroom by providing a set of experiences that students can share as "common" experiences.  Thus, SL activities appear to be directly in line with the goal of connecting students to other students and the instructor.

SL as a Way to Promote Civic Engagement

Service-learning can also provide students with great opportunities to explore what it means to be civically engaged.  There has been much written over the past decade about the need for institutions of higher education to take the lead in promoting values of citizenship, democracy, and civic engagement (Battistoni, 2002; Colby, Ehrlich, and Beaumont, 2003).  Civic engagement can be understood in many ways.  It can be as minimalist as voting or as extensive as a life committed to community service.  Battistoni (2002) suggests that civic engagement necessitates a range of skills including critical thinking skills, communication skills, public problem solving skills, civic judgment, civic imagination, collective action, and organizational analysis.  While one single SL activity will not necessarily build all of these skills, Battistoni argues that SL activities can be an important element in educating citizens.  Though civic engagement is not necessarily a specified goal of most FYE programs, there is a movement to increase the promotion of civic engagement within the university setting and FYE courses are viewed as a prime target to initiate this kind of involvement (Colby, et al., 2003).

SL as a Way to Teach About Poverty

The purpose of integrating the service-learning projects described below into the FYE course was only partially motivated by a desire to meet the goals of FYE courses in general.  Many studies have been done outlining the effectiveness of SL in teaching students to take on a sociological imagination along with teaching various sociological concepts and learning to apply theories (e.g. McKinney, et al., 2004a; Lewis, 2004; Sullivan-Catlin, 2002).

 The topic of inequality is one of the more difficult topics to teach, primarily because students tend to focus on the individual and not structure in their understanding of the causes and consequences of inequality (Coghlan and Huggins, 2004).  Many techniques have been suggested to reduce individualistic thinking and refocus attention on the role of structure in the area of inequality. Hollis (2002) has documented that within the area of stratification, service-learning activities can lead to a better understanding of the difference between personal problems and social issues and less blaming the victim type of responses to inequality issues.  Others have argued that SL can have a transforming effect on individual student perspectives by providing students the opportunity to interact with people and enter into situations that allow students to test their predisposition towards others (Ehler and Giles, 1999). 

The primary sociological learning goal for this particular project was to promote in students a greater understanding of the nature and extent of poverty in our Midwestern, rural community.  Thus, I hoped to challenge common assumptions held by many students in this region that poverty is something that you find primarily in large urban areas and that the poor are simply lazy and unwilling to help themselves.

Only a few of the many potential benefits of the integration of SL into the introductory sociology FYE course have been outlined above.  In summary, this paper addresses whether or not the service-learning project described below is effective in:

1.      meeting specified goals of first-year experience courses including:

a.       building connections amongst students,

b.      building connections between students and the instructor,

c.       promoting civic engagement.

2.      educating students about the nature and extent of poverty in the local community.

Project Description

Mooney and Edwards (2001) differentiate between a number of different community-based learning activities and suggest that SL activities should involve five components including: involvement in the community, providing a service, offering curricular credit for the activity, applying skills learned and/or learning new skills, and requiring structured reflection.  Applying these components, the project described below can be defined as a service-learning activity. 

The service-learning activities were designed to accompany the unit on inequality.  A thematic approach is used, similar to the one described by Sullivan-Catlin (2002). Early in the semester, students chose general topics related to poverty and inequality to research such as welfare reform, homelessness, or the minimum wage.  Students kept a portfolio of information from various sources related to their topic.  Each source selected by the student is placed in the portfolio along with a critical essay summarizing and assessing the information given in the source (see appendix A for specific assignment guidelines).  Students in my FYE section of the course are given access to free national newspapers that are distributed daily.[1]  At least five of their sources are required to come from the national newspaper.  Additionally, students read about the topic of inequality in their textbooks and were given lecture material about poverty prior to engaging in the service aspect of the project. 

Students had a choice between several service-learning projects but ultimately chose to serve meals at an organization that provides meals to local residents.  Projects used in other semesters include working with Habitat for Humanity building homes, researching and constructing election issue booklets to distribute to other FYE students, and volunteering with the Boys and Girls Club.  Though the actual service has varied from semester to semester, the structure and requirements for the project, including the portfolio research required, the panel discussions, and reflection pieces remain unchanged across semesters.  Additionally, each semester the project chosen involves a significant amount of what could be termed, "non-service" activities in the strictest sense.  These activities have included cooking parties, bake sales, and tours.  These activities are important because the goals associated with this project go beyond specific topical learning goals (e.g. building connections).  Though different service projects have been implemented across semesters, what follows below is a description of the project done the semester the surveys were distributed.

The meal serving option selected by students required more than just showing up and distributing food, as there is no central cooking staff at this organization.  Teams sign up to plan, cook, serve, and clean up after a meal.  Thus, students needed to plan the menu and then, because there were no designated funds for this kind of activity, students planned fund-raising events to raise money to purchase the food they would serve.  They then bought, prepared, and served two meals.  The setup of this organization also facilitates extensive interaction between the students and meal recipients as many recipients use the organization as a gathering place and frequently show up early to socialize.  Additionally, students had "baking parties" at the homes of the instructor and the student mentor to bake items used both for fund-raising bake sales and to serve as dessert items at the soup kitchen.  

After the project was completed, a panel of local service providers was invited to speak and answer questions about the extent of poverty and homelessness in the community, what their services provide, and how they became involved in their respective services.  Each semester, students have expressed that they are most surprised that people like the panelists are willing to sacrifice a higher paying, higher status position to do this kind of work.  After listening to the panel, students then write reflective essays on their service-learning project, on the service providers panel, and a final paper integrating all their thoughts and ideas from the service-learning project, the panel, and their research on inequality (see appendix A).  Thus, this project incorporates all five components discussed by Mooney and Edwards (2001) as students provide service in the community, utilize skills learned through class materials, complete numerous reflective pieces, and are given curricular credit for their efforts.

Participation in the service portion of the project is not a requirement of the class but across semesters, an average of about eighty to ninety percent of students in each class choose to participate in the service aspect.  Students who do not participate in the service must still complete the written aspects of the project and attend the panel presentation.

Data and Methods

            Though the instrument used in this study is a survey, a quasi-experimental design was implemented in order to try to introduce some controls and separate out the effects of personal teaching style, teaching materials used, and student level from the effect of the SL projects used.  To accomplish this, a total of 91 students were surveyed in three introductory sociology courses (see Appendix B to view the survey instrument).  Two sections of my Introduction to Sociology students were studied—one FYE section (experimental group) and one non-FYE section (control group). Both were presented with similar lectures, similar writing assignments, and read the same readings. Students in the FYE section were given the opportunity to participate in a SL projects as part of the class, which served as the "treatment."  Because students were unaware of the SL option prior to registering for the FYE course, concern over sample selection bias is greatly reduced though there still may be issue of instructor reputation confounding the sample selection process.

            One FYE section of Introduction to Sociology taught by a different instructor was also studied as a second control group.  Table 1 summarizes the curricular differences between the three courses.  The additional FYE section—taught by instructor B—was included in order to observe the differences between an FYE section with SL included in comparison to an FYE section without SL included.  The non-FYE section of introductory sociology, which is also taught by me, was included in order to determine whether the differences observed between the two FYE sections is due to the activities involved or to the materials and teaching style of the instructors.  The students in the two FYE sections were all first-semester first-year students.  The students in the non-FYE course represented a mixed group with 42 percent first-year students.

            To completely control for instructor style, it would be useful to be able to study both an FYE section with SL and an FYE section without SL that is taught be the same instructor.  Unfortunately, both FYE instructors teaching introductory sociology have only one section of FYE students a year. 

Subgroups were also formed by isolating the responses from first-year students in my non-FYE section, students who had completed their required SL hours in my non-FYE section, and students who opted to complete the SL project in my FYE section.  Thus, six comparison groups were ultimately studied:

• A's FYE section (all students)

• B's FYE section (all students)

• A's non-FYE section (all students)

• First-year students in A's non-FYE section

• Students in A's FYE section who participated in SL project

• Students in A's non-FYE section who have completed all or part of their SL hours

All courses under the category of being taught by instructor A are courses taught by the author.

At the end of the semester students in all three sections were asked to complete a questionnaire measuring their opinions about SL, their ideas about civic engagement, and their awareness and sensitivity to issues of poverty. Additional questions were asked about students' exposure and use of newspapers in order to assess the impact of the free newspapers my FYE section.  Though the relevance of this data is not as significant as the data collected regarding the impact of the SL project more directly, it is included because it appears to play a role promoting civic engagement—which is one of the key goals of the overall project.  Students in the FYE section were also asked a series of questions about their FYE experience. 

            Civic engagement was measured in several ways.  Not only were students asked about their views on civic involvement and their commitment to future community involvement, they were also asked about the importance of being informed about community and world events and the degree to which they feel the course and elements connected to the course impacted how informed they are (or think they are).  Since students in my FYE section were given free copies of a national newspaper and this was a central element in the portfolio they prepared on the SL activities, I was interested in measuring the impact of having the newspapers so readily available them as opposed to the students in my non-FYE course who did the same writing exercises but lacked the service element and the newspaper availability.

            To measures students' views on poverty, students were asked questions about the need for local services for the poor, the extent of poverty in the local community, potential explanations for poverty, and the portrayal of the poor in the media.

            Lastly, to measure the impact of the SL project on students' connections to the instructor and each other students were asked about the impact of course activities on their relationships with one another and the instructor.  Students who participated in my FYE section were also asked about the role of SL in their feelings of connectedness to each other and the instructor.  It should be noted that the student mentor for my FYE courses is given SL credit for assisting in the planning and implementation of SL activities so several of the activities are commonly led by the mentor which may impact students' view of their connectedness to the instructor.  Several questions on the usefulness and importance of SL were added to the survey as well.

Results

Tables 2-5 present student responses to these questions according to the instructor for the course, whether or not the course was an FYE course, first-year status, and whether or not they had completed their service-learning requirement. At this particular institution, all students are required to complete 30 hours of service-learning. Bivariate crosstabulations were done and  percentages given in Tables 2-5.  Chi-square independence test statistics and significance levels of the bivariate comparisons are also given.  A significant chi-square statistic indicates that the null hypothesis of independence can be rejected.

Results Relating to the FYE Goal of Civic Engagement

Table 2 gives the results related to civic engagement.  Looking first at the rate at which students read a national newspaper it is clear to see that having a newspaper readily available to students is strongly related to frequency of reading the paper which suggests that having the paper readily available may increase the likelihood that students will take the time to read it.  Comparing my FYE to my non-FYE course, where students in both sections were required to complete the portfolio project and required to include the same number of resources from national newspaper sources, students who received the newspaper in hard copy for free (FYE section) were significantly more likely to report reading the paper regularly than their non-FYE counterparts.  Similarly, comparing my section of FYE to the FYE section taught by instructor B, there is an even greater difference in the percent of students reporting that they regularly read the paper (72.2% vs. 12.5%).  The fact that the rates of regular readership in my non-FYE section are nearly three times higher than B's FYE rates of readership would seem to indicate that at least some of the difference (though not all) between my FYE and B's FYE can be attributed to the portfolio assignment and not to newspaper availability.

Students who had participated in my section of the FYE course reported being significantly more interested in becoming a good citizen and more informed about world events than FYE students who did not have the SL option.  Interestingly, there is very little variation across groups on students' likelihood of volunteering in the community on their own, with students who had participated in the SL activities associated with my FYE course only slightly more interested in continued service than their counterparts.  However, because there are not significant differences between my FYE section and my non-FYE section on these items, I must conclude that at least some of the differences between FYE groups is due to either teacher style or on required assignments rather than by the service activities alone.

Results Relating To FYE Goal of Building Connections

            Students responded very favorably to the SL activities offered in the FYE section.  Table 3 presents the results related to building connections.  In my section of the SL course, the strength of the ties created throughout the course between students and the instructor and between students and their classmates appears to be equally strong.  That is, 78.6% of students either agreed or strongly agreed that the SL activities associated with the class facilitated the creation of stronger ties between both the instructor and other students.  There were no significant differences between the two FYE sections with regards to the impact on faculty-student connections (78.6% vs. 56.3%).  However, the item measuring bonds between students does show a significant difference between the two sections, with my section significantly more likely to say that they had stronger bonds to each other (78.6% vs. 37.6%). Additionally, students in my section reported in classroom discussions that the SL activities were preferable to alternative methods of building relationships that are commonly used by FYE faculty at this institution, including attending public lectures, concerts, and sporting events.

Results Relating To Poverty

            Table 4 presents the results related to poverty.  In general, very few differences across comparison groups were observed with the exception that students in all the comparison sections were significantly less likely to recognize the local need for services the poor.  Thus, it appears that the activities associated with the SL project did function to dispel the belief that poverty is something that only happens in other (much larger) communities.  The lack of significant differences in the other measures may be a reflection of the types of material commonly covered in the introductory level sociology course.

What the survey results do not reflect are the comments made in the debriefing sessions conducted after the service activities.  Here, the debunking of stereotypes about the poor became obvious.  Students reported that they were surprised to see how "normal" the families were, how the people they met did not fit their previously held assumptions about the poor, and how many of the people they met were not unlike the students themselves.  During this semester, they were particularly taken by a young man who had come for the meal who indicated that he was also a college student.  Students reported shock and admiration for this young man and indicated that this individual in particular served to challenge the assumptions they had previously made about the poor (e.g. they are lazy, uneducated, and don't want to work). These types of experiences appeared to have a transforming effect on students' images of the poor and their corresponding responses to them. 

However, during this particular semester, one student reported that all his previously held stereotypical assumptions about the poor had been confirmed by his experience.  Strand (1999) has indicated that this type of problem is more pronounced with SL projects of this particular type, which may expose students to a non-representative sample of the underclass.  However, because students in my class do not participate in these activities in a vacuum, but as part of a much larger semester-long project, I find that this type of anomalous response is rare.  My previous encounters with this kind of reaction has demonstrated to the me the necessity of having debriefing sessions as a group rather than relying only on individual reflections for student feedback.  In this particular situation, as has happened in other similar situations, other students were quick to challenge the observations made by this individual student and to question whether he had fully immersed himself in the experience.  What typically transpires in these discussions is a process whereby students are challenging each other and taking an active role in figuring out how they could each come to such different conclusions about the experience. 

The results of these debriefing sessions parallel research done on the effectiveness of structured student reflections in maximizing the benefits of the SL experience (Parker-Gwin and Mabry 1998). Ehler and Giles (1999) in their survey of eleven hundred SL participants found that respondents reported having a reflective discussion was a good way to gather new insights.  However, Ehler and Giles argue further that discussions that don't go beyond sharing feelings are not as effective as discussions that relate the experience to class material.

Results Relating to Service-Learning

Lastly, because I frequently encounter some amount of resistance from both students and faculty regarding SL, I wanted to assess the general reactions to the SL project and the students' views about SL and compare the results of students who had completed their SL with students who had not.  Table 5 shows that students in my FYE class that had completed their SL were significantly more likely than B's FYE students to see SL as worthwhile (100% vs. 70%) and more likely to see sociology as a good venue for SL projects (100% vs. 68.8%).  However, comparing the students in my FYE course who had completed their SL with students in my non-FYE course who had also completed their SL (through some other venue), I find that there are no significant differences in the extent to which students found the activities educational (78.6% vs. 75%) and students' willingness to volunteer again.  Though there are not significant differences, I am particularly pleased that a large percentage of both groups reported the activities to be educational.

Lessons Learned Along the Way

            Over multiple semesters of experimenting with these types of SL projects in my FYE section, I have learned a number of lessons.  Choosing SL as an option for any course requires an enormous amount of flexibility on the part of the instructor.  Scheduling events outside of class can be an organizational nightmare given the large number of students who work and/or have other extra-curricular commitments.  Thus, I frequently offer several activities scheduled at different times to better accommodate student schedules.  For example, the students who participated in the projects described above prepared two meals for the local organization which required numerous bake sales, numerous cooking parties, and at least two shopping trips.  Students were able to sign up for a number of events according to their schedules.  Each event typically drew 4-6 students (though all students must participate in at least one of the actual "service" activities in order to have their SL hours be counted towards their graduation requirement.  Additionally, because the organizational elements can be very time-consuming, I have begun recruiting more advanced students to serve as student mentors.  These student mentors assist with creating the schedules, planning with the community partners, and setting up the panel of local service providers.

            Flexibility is also key in working with community partners as well.  On two separate semesters, I have had SL activities set up with the local branch of Habitat for Humanity, only to find that building had been delayed and there was no work for the students.  Thus, I no longer work with community partners that do not have an ongoing regular service being provided.

            Lastly, I continue to struggle with the issue of hesitation on the part of students in their interaction with individuals benefiting from the service being provided.  For example, at the local organization where the students prepared meals, clients begin showing up approximately two hours before the meal is served.  These individuals come to socialize and to help out with meal preparation and in the maintenance of the building.  Typically, students are hesitant to engage these individuals in conversation and require some assistance in beginning the process.  So far, the approach I have used has been a modeling approach whereby I begin and instruct the mentor to begin the process by striking up conversations with patrons and trying to draw students into the conversation.  This has had limited success.

Discussion

            There have been many studies about the usefulness of SL projects in fostering the sociological imagination and teaching various other sociological concepts (e.g. McKinney, et al., 2004a; Lewis, 2004; Sullivan-Catlin, 2002).  Some may be critical of the project outlined here as falling too much in the realm of charity and not involving enough in the way of promoting social change.  The "charity model" as it has been called, has been criticized by some, which has led to a movement away from this model to a more "social justice/social action" approach to SL (Strand, 1999; Lewis, 2004).  However, the FYE course offers some unique challenges that may not be easily met with a social justice approach.  Most importantly since most are non-majors, students at this level will likely not have the sociological knowledge necessary to move to this level of sophistication.  Additionally, unlike my upper-division students, who also have the option to participate in SL activities, first-year students tend to need more direction and are frequently more tentative about the service components of the project and do not have the connections to the community that are necessary for a social action approach.  Lastly, many first-year students are unprepared for the type of long-standing commitment that a social action approach would require (although McKinney, et al., 2004a, find that there are motivational issues even at the senior levels). 

            The project outlined above involves only a limited amount of actual service linked to numerous other in-class and out-of-class activities.  These kinds of limitations are not uncommon for SL activities associated with the FYE course (Zlotkowski, 2002).  Indeed, Zlotkowski argues further that, "it is clear that service-learning in any introductory course must be designed in ways that stretch but do not break the first-year student's sense of competence" (2002, p. 34).  However, I strongly concur with the prevailing argument that learning goals, including relevant key concepts, theories, and ideas must be spelled out explicitly prior to the service element of the project (Hironimus-Wendt and Lovell-Troy, 1999).

            Performing assessments such as the one presented here serves several functions on a variety of different levels including the institutional level, the faculty level, the student level and the community partner level.  In many institutions SL activities are devalued and seen as either non-rigorous in their approach to learning or irrelevant to future occupational endeavors.  Thus, at the institutional level, assessment can play a strong role in dispelling the belief that SL activities are frivolous.  Assessment can also function to measure the impact of SL activities on student learning.  Faculty may use assessment tools to determine the effectiveness of SL activities with a pedagogical eye towards improving and expanding educational outcomes.  Additionally, students may often question the usefulness of SL activities while community partners may wish to know whether they have played a role in student learning (Gelmon, et al., 2001).   Thus, assessment can serve a variety of interests.  My interest in doing this assessment was primarily pedagogical in that I wished to determine if SL activities could play a role in meeting the goals of the FYE course and if they could facilitate greater understanding of the topic of poverty. 

            A caveat to the research findings presented here involves the difficulty of sorting out the causal factors and attributing them to the SL activities associated with my FYE course.  Because there are so many facets to the overall project—the free newspapers, the portfolio, the panel presentation, and the service—it is still impossible to know for sure whether the finding presented are the result of the service provided or of some other aspect of the project.  However, I believe that it is reasonable to expect this kind of problem if SL has been integrated completely into the overall course curriculum and not simply tacked on as a course add-on.

These results suggest that SL may be a very useful tool for FYE instructors looking for valuable, pedagogically sound activities to integrate into the FYE course. More specifically, the results of this study support the notion that the SL option can be useful in meeting many of the goals of the FYE course including fostering strong ties between students and both the professor and other classmates, introducing students to a liberal education specifically by encouraging critical thought through active learning, and engaging students in meaningful out-of-class activities. Additionally, the project appears to have enriched students understanding of inequality, and poverty especially at the local level.  Lastly, though not all universities include ethics in their FYE goals, many do believe that educating citizens is an important, if often forgotten, role of institutions of higher education (Colby, Ehrlich, and Beaumont, 2003).  The results do suggest that SL activities may be useful in promoting civic engagement.

Additional research in this area is necessary.  As mentioned above, it would be useful to study two FYE courses taught by the same instructor—one with SL and one without—to better control for instructor style.  Additionally, it would be useful to more fully explore the impact of SL activities on the broader sociological knowledge gained by FYE students in this particular course.  Inequality and poverty are frequently the default topics explored by SL activities in sociology.  I am particularly interested in generating and assessing projects that touch on a broad range of sociological topics and function to foster the sociological imagination more broadly.  For example, a project involving volunteer work with head-start children could touch on socialization, education as an institution, poverty, and family.  These types of even more fully integrated SL projects may be difficult with the extra demands of the SL course, but the potential there is immeasurable.

Lastly, for the instructor faced with the challenge of converting an existing course to an FYE course, SL appears to offer a viable option in meeting some the challenges and expectations associated with FYE in a way that maintain the integrity of course content.  It is by no means the easiest or least time-consuming option, though it may very well be one of the most effective and rewarding.

References

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