Building Ethical Citizen Scholars: Student Success in Service-Learning

The research investigates the extent to which service-learning impacts the moral development of college students, and in particular their personal interests, concern for humanity, and beliefs about justice. Using a quasi-experimental design, survey responses of 56 students who participated in a service-learning course were compare to 35 students who did not participate in a service-learning course to determine if there were differences in moral reasoning and ethical standards applied to a set of prompts representing ethical dilemmas. In addition, the study compared students' responses to the survey with responses provided by community members and business partners to compare moral development levels of the 3 groups. Results indicated that service-learning had a positive impact on students' sense of ethics, community partners were highly developed in post-conventional moral reasoning, and business leaders were highly developed in conventional reasoning.