What Do We Most Need to Know About the Impact of Service-Learning on Student Learning?

Survey research over the past decade gives us ample evidence of the impact of service-learning on the personal and social development of college students: the evidence for its cognitive impact is less well developed. In order to improve the quality of academic service-learning, we need to move beyond surveys and identify the intellectual outcomes best facilitated through service-learning, create measures of those learning outcomes that can be imbedded into the instructional process, and conduct experimental studies of alternative pedagogical techniques to identify those which produce optimal learning and cognitive development.