Having fun, learning new things, making a difference and helping: These are the most important motives for participating in service learning. The majority of students get involved for intrinsic and altruistic reasons. This is one of the findings of an impact study.
Service learning, a form of learning that combines social commitment with subject-related learning, was analysed in a representative study in North Rhine-Westphalia. Prof. Dr Karsten Speck, educational scientist at the University of Oldenburg, and Prof. Dr Ullrich Bauer, sociologist at the University of Duisburg-Essen, and their teams presented the results today in Düsseldorf - together with Aktive Bürgerschaft e.V., the Centre of Excellence for Civic Engagement of the Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken cooperative financial network.
Which students are getting involved? What effect does service learning have on their willingness to learn and get involved? How does good service learning succeed and what factors have a positive influence on its implementation? In order to answer these questions, researchers at the University of Oldenburg (alongside Prof. Dr Speck, Dr Oxana Ivanova-Chessex and Dr Carmen Wulf) surveyed around 2,000 pupils in years 8 and 9 and project managers at schools in North Rhine-Westphalia between 2011 and 2013.
The results: 60 per cent of pupils are involved for altruistic, selfless reasons. For almost one in three, career-orientated reasons are also important - for example, if they are aiming for an apprenticeship in the social sector. Two thirds of the students had no previous experience of volunteering before their project. The majority of service learning projects are in the social sector, but they also take place in environmental protection, sport or the cultural sector.
The projects are anchored in the school timetable via study groups and elective subjects. They are primarily linked to lessons through interdisciplinary social learning and via the subjects of politics and social sciences as well as ethics and religion.
Speck states: "Service learning has a positive effect on knowledge about civic engagement and project management, on attitudes such as empathy, and it improves self-directed learning." At the same time, it should be noted that the effects on attitudes towards engagement, willingness to engage and assessments of school quality are significantly lower than would have been expected based on the international state of research. This does not apply to projects of above-average quality. "A central and empirically proven finding of the impact study is that project quality has a decisive influence on the impact of service learning."
The service learning impact study was carried out as part of the WGZ BANK's service learning initiative "sozialgenial - Schüler engagieren sich". Since September 2009, 26,630 students at 440 schools in North Rhine-Westphalia have been involved in 990 projects. The project is organised by Aktive Bürgerschaft. sozialgenial" is supported by the Ministry of Schools and Further Education of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.