Service and Motivation to Serve: An Exploration and Model

Using data from Eyler and Giles (1999), this chapter presents a preliminary measure of the students' intrinsic motivation to perform community service. This measure is used in a structural equation model to explore whether students' intrinsic motivation is negatively affected by participation in a service-learning course, as cognitive evaluation theory predicts it could be. The results of this analysis suggest that students' intrinsic motivation to serve is not negatively influenced by service learning. The chapter ends with possible directions for future service-learning research concerning intrinsic motivation and it's relationship to service-learning. (Author)