As communities continue to face issues relating to sustainability and with students demanding more university courses focused on solving these issues, a program that works to address both factors could prove beneficial. Modeled after the University of Oregon’s Sustainable Cities Initiative, the Community Bridge Initiative (CBI) at Utah State University aims to tackle specific community sustainability concerns by enlisting student and faculty expertise to create innovative ideas and provide increased capacity. While CBI is still in its pilot year, this thesis identified the benefits and challenges associated with the application of this program and provided recommendations to best implement this program once it leaves the pilot stage. Data were collected from a community needs assessment and from students enrolled in CBI pilot classes. The community needs assessment revealed that of 35 local organizations surveyed, 91% wanted to partner with USU in efforts to address current and future issues, showing that CBI would have the needed community support should it choose to partner with local organizations on various issues. Organization needs included improving the communities of Cache Valley, educating the public about important issues and spreading awareness of their specific programs, and mitigating funding and physical resource issues. For partnerships, organizations were most interested in pairing with USU on education and volunteer initiatives and sustainability-based efforts. In regard to students enrolled in CBI courses, the program also gained student validation as 92% of the students reported that the class positively impacted them, 88% would take a CBI course again, 63% would list the experience on their resume, and 73% felt that the class was more effective in communicating course content in comparison to traditional USU courses. Following these results, full implementation of the CBI program at Utah State University is recommended.

This research explores participant experience of the Service Learning Program in the context of an Australian Catholic Boys’ Secondary School. The research aims to explore what is happening as adolescent participants engage in working and relating with homeless people over an extended period of time. What are they learning? What sense or meaning are they making of their experiences, and are they deepening their value and belief system towards existential change? Service Learning is a curriculum initiative that Australian Secondary Schools are implementing to assist in the development of both the ethos of schools and in attempts to meet the needs of Twenty-first Century youth for a relevant education. While the benefits for participants in Service Learning are well documented, the effects upon recipients of the services provided, and whether the benefits for participants are the result of prior learning, family factors, or predispositions to this type of experiential learning, remain unclear. While Service Learning Programs are proving to be increasingly popular for school administrators, there appears to be a lack of clear models for Service Learning, its links to academic curriculum, or clearly articulated goals to assess success and achievement. A real danger of an adhoc approach to Service Learning in schools exists. The discussion of benefits to participants has not clearly identified links between program elements and hoped for benefits, nor has it examined the process or journey that participants have engaged in. Critical reflection on these issues has informed the purpose of this research and helped to shape the following research questions that focus the conduct of the study: Research Question One What features of the Service Learning Program at Holy Family College impact on participant experience? Research Question Two What changes are there in the meanings participants give to their experiences in the Service Learning Program over time? Research Question Three How do participants perceive their Service Learning experience in terms of their personal world view and the world view promoted by the school? The theoretical framework for this study was that of Constructionism as the criteria for judging that neither ‘reality’ nor ‘validity’ are absolute; rather they are derived from community consensus of what is ‘real’, what is useful, and what has meaning. In exploring participants’ experience as they served and related with homeless people ‘reality’, ‘usefulness’ and ‘meaning’ were derived from the student’s reflection upon their experience and their communal dialogue. Hence this study used Symbolic Interactionism as the perspective to explore experience. An interpretive approach was utilised, as humans interpret their environment, evaluate beliefs in terms of their usefulness in situations, select what they notice in every situation and focus on human action and interaction. A case study approach was used as it acknowledged the unique setting of a ‘van site’ for homeless people. Using personal journaling and focus groups data was collected from fifty-three Year 11 students who had volunteered to participate on the van for a period of six months. All fifty-three participants in the Service Learning Program experienced particular phases regardless of prior service experience, variables linked to family or personality type. These phases were: Expectations, Exposure, Reframing, Disillusionment, Awareness and Agency. This study concluded that within these phases, participant experience was influenced by the length of time of the program, the presence of active mentors facilitating the experience, ongoing reflection upon experience and situating the experience in a clear ideological framework. While each participant experienced the phases mentioned above no two students derived the same meaning or level of meaning from their experiences. The research concluded that each participant will exit a Service Learning Program with varying levels of internalisation of the core values of the program. Some will exit with a surface appreciation of what the program was about; others deeper, others tacit; some will arrive at a point of existential change. While acknowledging the influence of family and personality factors in this journey, this research shows that the presence of active mentors, reflection upon experience, a clear ideological framework and a significant length of time to allow for the maturation of both reflection and experience will move participants further along towards existential change than would otherwise have occurred. A model; the Spiral Model of Service Learning is proposed to support these findings.

This study examined the effect of service activities on the development of leadership life skills in youth and if having a reflection component as part of the activity makes a difference. Additionally, the study examined the impact of selected demographics including age, gender, type of service completed monthly and 4-H membership on the development of leadership life skills. Participants in the study were from two samples. One group represented the El Paso National Youth Service Day, the other represented the District 11 4-H Leadership Lab in Brenham, Texas. Participants were randomly assigned to a control (no reflection) or treatment (with reflection) group. Youth participants self rated their leadership life skills using a 33-question post-test only questionnaire. Demographics were reported in nine additional questions. The major findings of the study are as follows: 1) Overall, the participants reported their perceived leadership life skills to be high in four of the five subscales; 2) The inclusion of a reflection component did not significantly affect perceived leadership life skills; 3) Type of service, whether direct or indirect, had a significant impact on perceived leadership life skills; 4) 4-H membership had a significant impact on the Personal Leadership Development subscale.

This study evaluated the cognitive process of students participating in a 20-hour service-learning experience while enrolled in a collegiate Social Problems course. This study examined student attitudes about social problems and their ability to affect change and examined relationships between demographic variables, student attitudes, and their stages of cognitive process. The population was all students who were enrolled in a Social Problems course during the Fall 2005 semester. Of the 77 students enrolled in the course, 48 completed both the pre-test and post-test questionnaire and 64 completed the service-learning journals and papers. The researcher used a mixed method research design. The quantitative study used a pre-test and post-test questionnaire to evaluate changes in attitude towards service learning. The qualitative study evaluated journal entries and papers using the Constant Comparative Method of Qualitative Analysis to assess stages of cognitive development. The major findings of the study were: 1) Students progressed through six stages of cognitive development - Shock, Guilt, Normalization, Cultural Sensitivity, Engagement, and Empowerment, however no student experienced all stages; 2) Three new stages were discovered - Guilt, Cultural Sensitivity, and Empowerment; 3) All students who had not volunteered before experienced Shock; 4) Shock occurred for some students who had previously volunteered; 5) Students experiencing Guilt were primarily White and from families with parental incomes greater than $75,000 a year; 7) A majority of students experienced Empowerment; 8) Most students volunteering more than 10 hours a month experienced Empowerment; 9) All People of Color experienced Empowerment; 10) Results from pre-test and post-test questionnaires did not indicate a significant change in attitudes towards service-learning as a result of participating in the service-learning experience. Educators should: 1) Be prepared to assist students as they experience multiple stages of the cognitive process during their service-learning experiences; 2) Give instruction in reflective journaling, provide students with guided journal questions, and monitor stages of the cognitive process; 3) Incorporate service-learning into curriculum to enhance cognitive learning and empower students; 4) Replicate with a more diverse population and larger sample size.

Thesis (M. Nurs.)--Washington State University, December 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Feb. 12, 2010). "College of Nursing." Includes bibliographical references (p. 36-40).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2003. / "July 21, 2003." Title from electronic submission form (viewed October 22, 2007). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 227-247).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 162-173). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Mar. 3, 2008). Directed by Tom Martinek; submitted to the School of Health and Human Performance. Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-142).

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Georgia Southern University, 2007. / "A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Georgia Southern University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Education." Under the direction of Ming Fang He. ETD. Electronic version approved: May 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 96-102) and appendices.