Paper
Saturday, 22 July 2006
This presentation is part of : Creative Strategies for Nursing Education
Service Learning: A Tale of Two Groups
Helen J. Streubert Speziale, EdD, RN, Nursing, College Misericordia, Dallas, PA, USA
Learning Objective #1: report the value of service-learning as a pedagogy for nursing education.
Learning Objective #2: describe the differences in graduate and undergraduate students' perceptions of service-learning as a pedagogy.
The roots of service-learning can be traced back to the early 1900's when Dewey recognized the usefulness of combining service and education. The value of service-learning with regard to students' abilities to better apply what they learn in the “real world,” communicate more effectively and critically think and to problem solve is well documented in the literature. Nursing education professionals have begun to incorporate this pedagogy into nursing curricula. The literature is replete with examples of the incorporation of service-learning into nursing courses. There is, however, little research evidence of the significance of this pedagogy in nursing.

The purpose of this study was to compare graduate (N=29) and undergraduate (N=35) students' perceptions of a service-learning experience in two nursing courses. Students were provided with a quantitative (11 item) and qualitative (8 item) instrument to assess their perceptions of the importance of service-learning as a component of the courses. The study received Institutional Review Board approval.

Descriptive statistics were used to compare the two groups. Although the group means on the quantitative measure did not demonstrate statistical significance, there was statistical significance for some items which begins to build evidence for the importance of service-learning in nursing.

Comparison of responses by nursing students in the two course demonstrated significance in areas such as: enhanced learning, enriched classroom discussion, enhanced interest in serving the community, helped examine values and ability to make a difference in community and intention to serve community after graduation. Data on how each group scored the items will be provided in addition students' personal comments about the effectiveness of service-learning.

The findings of this study add to the existing literature on the value of service-learning and additionally provide specific information on its impact in nursing.

See more of Creative Strategies for Nursing Education
See more of The 17th International Nursing Research Congress Focusing on Evidence-Based Practice (19-22 July 2006)