Student learning through service learning: Effects on academic development, civic responsibility, interpersonal skills and practical skills

Why this paper matters

Compares academic, civic, interpersonal, and practical outcomes.

Evidence reviewed

Design: Course comparison: 23 service-learning and 107 comparison students
Full-text status: Indexed PDF/full text reviewed

Principal finding

No final-exam advantage appeared, but course-specific civic, interpersonal, and practical benefits were reported.

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

Small treatment group and nonrandom enrollment.

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

Ali Hébert; Petra Hauf (2015). “Student learning through service learning: Effects on academic development, civic responsibility, interpersonal skills and practical skills.” Active Learning in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787415573357