C3IRG  C3A2SLC2S
CROSS-CUNY COLLABORATION
ASSESSING ACADEMIC SERVICE-LEARNING (SL) ON
COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS
FACULTY DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP
JOHN JAY COLLEGE
JANUARY 13, 2016
Sharon Ellerton – Queensborough CC
Sandy Figueroa – Hostos CC
Debra Greenwood –Borough of Manhattan CC
Peter Fiume – Kingsborough CC
What we know about
Academic Service-Learning (ASL)
 Baccalaureate institutions
• transformational, high-impact pedagogy
• multiple positive impacts on students
academic learning
general objective learning
retention rates, and
student’s sense of social responsibility
• greatest benefits for historically under-served
•
•
•
•
 Community colleges
• few empirical studies
• less known about benefits to CC students
•
important since CC students are the historically
underserved
Research Questions
 Does ASL benefit urban, historically
underserved community college students?
 How do benefits to these student compare to
known gains for students in Baccalaureate
granting institutions?
Objectives
 develop rigorous ASL courses in four CUNY
community colleges in multiple disciplines.
 provide pedagogical training to ASL faculty and
reflection practices
 develop IRB approved common research instruments
 assess impact of ASL on gains in general education
objectives and academic learning, across disciplines
 Courses studied from:
 Education, Art, Student Development, English, Dental
Hygiene, Gerontology, Biology, Speech,
Biotechnology, Psychology, Sociology, Media Arts &
Technology, Cooperative Education
Narrative Sampler
campus/
course
BMCC
Intro to Bio
Community
Partner
NYC Parks
Project
Proper disposal of refuse;
present on biodegradation
Career Planning
Career Gear/Dress Clothing drive for interview
for Success Agency clothes for low income people
Hostos
Grassroots
Created community survey &
Expository Writing Environmental Ed brochure for Farmer’s Market
Gerontology Thera- Nursing Home
Apply intake techniques learned
peutic Recreation
in class to nursing home
QCC
high school
DNA testing
Biotechnology
students
Abnormal
psychiatric facility Assisted in the care of
Psychology
psychiatric patients
METHODOLOGY
Three faculty from each campus taught:
- Experimental class: with academic service-learning
- Control class: without service-learning
IRB approved pre- and post-service survey
- quantitative questions: 5 point Likert scale
- qualitative questions:
yes/no with further
reflective free response.
questions were designed to answer whether servicelearning impacted on the student’s perception of:
• civic responsibility
• collaborative skills
• academic interest and learning
• retention at the college
Comparing Service-Learners to non SL
sample paired t-tests compared the means of the pre- and post-test
scores between the Service-Learning group and the control group.
• pre-test findings weren’t statistically significant.
• post-test:
• Community engagement: statistically significant
difference between the mean scores of the servicelearners and non-service-learners post-survey items
• Academic and general education: post-survey means of
the service-learners were higher than those of the nonservice-learners but did not reach statistical significance.
• Service-learners were more comfortable:
• speaking up in class
• communicating with professor
• more likely to interact with diverse groups
within and outside of the college
Comparing SL Students Pre- and Post-Service
 paired samples T-tests were conducted on survey responses pre-
and post-service
 Many responses were higher post-service
 Only a few reached statistical significance
Comparison of the means
Comfortable making presentations
How often do you interact with people
different from yourself
Aware of opportunities to become involved
in the community
p
0.002
0.008
0.002
STUDENT REFLECTION
“Some students learn better hands on then in a
classroom setting and I am one of them that enjoy this
form of learning. I got a tremendous sense of pride in
helping my community and learned a wealth of
information on why they make certain food choices
and what affects them. Stepping out of the class room
and being able to inform them of healthier ways of
eating and how what they consume today harms them
tomorrow made me feel very empowered.”
- Hostos Student
Faculty Reflections
 “Students seemed to learn the course material in a more
concrete way with the SL experience. For example,
students were able to connect academic material to the
SL experience … this seemed to make them more
interested in their course work”
 “.. students shared that because they had to teach the
protocol to someone else, they made sure they knew all
the details.”
 “… (students) did research, prepared presentations and
used persuasion to attract attendees to our table and
participate in an experiment.”
Conclusions
Study supports the positive impact of Service-Learning on
urban community college students with respect to:
-civic engagement
- some General Education objectives
- learning of content
Limitations
 Relatively small sample size (N=243)
 Classes taught by different faculty working on different
class projects, though there was careful professional
development and mentorship to assure best practices
 Student response may be influenced by wording of
questionnaires – need to clarify questions and
streamline the survey
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was supported by the CUNY C3IRG
grant. Through this research we had the opportunity to
present our results at
- the CUNY CUE Conference, 2015
- article accepted with revisions for publication
We are also grateful for the institutional support of :
Borough of Manhattan Community College
Hostos Community College
Kingsborough Community College
Queensborough Community College