Sociology Commons^™

Inducing Voluntary Community Service In Undergraduates: The Relative Contributions Of Prior Experience, Coursework, And The Dispositions Of Empathy And Moral Development, Susan M. Hudec

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

In the past twenty years, higher education has been criticized for what is perceived to be a failure to create better citizens. As a result of this criticism, a variety of pedagogical and curricula innovations have been attempted. One of these innovations is service learning, a form of experiential learning, which engages students in activities that combine fulfillment of community needs and opportunities for promotion of student learning and development (Kendall, 1990). This study hypothesized that moral development and empathy would increase over the course of the required service learning experience in the first semester of college and that required …

Service Helix: A Grounded Theory Of College Student Development And Outcomes Through Involvement In Community Service, Mary Kay Schneider

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

Community service and service learning have been lauded as ways of teaching civic and social responsibility during college. In order to better understand the concept of social and civic responsibility and whether students gravitated toward these concepts, this study was undertaken. The grounded theory was designed to understand students' experiences with community service, what they see as outcomes from their involvement, and the role of responsibility in this dynamic.

Grounded theory was utilized as the methodology because of the lack of research and theory regarding service and the outcomes for the servers. To achieve depth of understanding, information-rich participants were …