Striking a Balance: Negotiating Service Learning Outcomes Attuned to Student and Community Benefit

Background and Purpose: There exists a large body of research exploring the benefits—to both community and students—of engaged service learning. Although not without its challenges (e.g., time demands), this learning approach is thought to innovatively ground theory and research within everyday life and community issues. Particularly within social work, we find a long and rich history of this approach (e.g., the settlement house movement) as a means to develop critical and multi-systemic analyses of and promising interventions to address persistent and emergent social justice issues. As such, the current research explores the challenges and possibilities of this approach emanating from an interdisciplinary, community-wide engaged service learning opportunity involving first-year, first-semester Masters of Social Work (MSW) students.

Methods: Based on a collaborative partnership among the University and several public and non-profit community partners, 79 MSW students were involved in the collection of primary, neighborhood-level data to support community well-being. Students were organized into neighborhood-level teams of four to five members and partnered with neighborhood leaders (NLs) to conduct data collection. Data collection occurred over the course of eight weeks in the fall of 2016. During weeks four and eight of the data collection, students completed a 24-item survey assessing various domains of interest, including: project enthusiasm, training, group dynamics, and skill development (e.g., communication and conflict resolution). In addition, their final assignment involved a reflective summary detailing their involvement with the project. Quantitative findings were analyzed using SPSS version 24, while the reflective summaries were analyzed thematically via Atlas.ti.

Results: Of the total number of eligible students (n = 79), a total of 54 (RR = 68%) completed both the pre- and post-test, with findings indicating significant reductions in: project enthusiasm (p = .05), effective communications between team and project investigators (p< .001), responsiveness of project investigators to team concerns (p<.01), development of effective communication skills (p=.03), and the analysis of secondary data sources (p<.001). Analysis of the reflective summaries, identified several prominent themes that contextually aid our understanding of the quantitative findings, to include: four hours of work per week seemed excessive, challenges coordinating school/work/life schedules with team members and NLs, ineffectual communication mediums with project staff, and time-consuming data collection methods (i.e., door-to-door). Challenges notwithstanding, several benefits of project involvement were also noted: a belief that efforts would directly benefit the community, opportunities for direct community engagement and to foster collaborative peer relationships, and increased understanding/appreciation of macro social work practice.

Conclusions and Implications: These findings highlight the complexities of engaged service learning. Although students appreciated the opportunity to engage the local community in direct service, they experienced increasing frustration regarding research expectations, time demands, and project management. Towards that end, others engaged in similar efforts would benefit greatly from: collaborative dialogue with community partners—during initial planning and throughout—to ensure appropriate delineation of student roles and responsibilities; identification of and training on communication channels and conflict management procedures; and, deliberate attention brought to balancing student time investment and opportunities for skill acquisition and development.