Critical service-learning supports social justice and civic engagement orientations in college students

Why this paper matters

Tests critical service-learning’s relationship to social-justice and civic orientations.

Evidence reviewed

Design: Mixed methods; 125 students in three psychology classes
Full-text status: Indexed PDF/full text reviewed

Principal finding

Participants showed stronger justice and civic orientations alongside qualitative evidence of perspective change.

EntrSL interpretation

This paper informs the design or evaluation of service-learning and experiential-learning work. Its findings should be interpreted within the reported design and context, not treated as universal or necessarily causal evidence.

Limitations and boundary conditions

Nonrandom course comparison limits causal claims.

Scoring rationale

• EntrSL relevance: 5/5. Directness to service-learning, experiential learning, higher education, entrepreneurship, reflection, reciprocity, or institutional practice.
• Evidence quality: 4/5. Based on design transparency, sample or review breadth, analytical fit, and inferential limits.
• Journal standing is separate. OpenAlex two-year mean citedness and h-index are descriptive source metrics and do not increase this paper’s evidence score.

Citation

Jean Abigail Saavedra; Lizette Ruiz; Lucía Alcalá (2022). “Critical service-learning supports social justice and civic engagement orientations in college students.” Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning. https://doi.org/10.3998/mjcsl.292