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In an American Psychological Association (APA) award address, Altman (1996) reflected on the past and present state of higher education and proposed a model for the future. In Altman's view, along with foundational knowledge (content and cross-disciplinary knowledge) and professional knowledge (practitioner skills and content), socially responsive knowledge should be an integral part of the undergraduate curriculum. How can the challenge of educating future generations include socially responsive knowledge in a manner that is pedagogically sound? How can undergraduate education prepare students for active participation in democratic processes in their communities? How can students acquire the philanthropic habits that will enrich their lives and contribute to their communities? The importance of answering these questions is heightened by a related question: "Why do we need more than a vocational education? In part, because we live more than a vocational life: we live a larger civic life and we have to be educated for it" (Mathews, 1995, p. 70).Educators in higher education, including psychologists, are interested in identifying increasingly better ways to achieve educational goals, including socially responsive knowledge and civic skills. John Dewey, who taught psychology and served as president of the APA, provided the theoretical underpinnings for understanding good instruction. He specified four conditions that maximize the potential for inquiry-based learning to be educative:

ConstructThe Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI) assesses six functions that are served through volunteer activity: values, understanding, social, career, protective, and enhancement. DescriptionThe VFI is conceptually based on a theoretical approach that has been most prominent in the study of attitudes (Clary & Snyder, 1991). The functional approach examines the different functions that are served by an attitude, cognition, relationship, or behavior. Extrapolating from this conceptual theme, this scale is based on a functional examination of how 35

Reflective practitioners in education are curious about the consequences that their work has on students, faculty members, the curriculum, the community, their institutions, and themselves. Systematically collecting information positions educators to make informed decisions that can improve their craft, enhance their understanding about why certain outcomes were achieved, and increase the confidence with which they represent their work to others, including colleagues and the general public. Collecting information about outcomes associated with teaching a course can be done in a variety of ways, including structured interviews, casual conversations with students after class, classroom assessment techniques, student portfolios, peer observation, student evaluations, course examinations, and reading student journals. In addition, practitioners can conduct formal research that uses standardized scales to measure constructs that are related to or part of intended educational outcomes. Although any of these methods may be useful, some provide more meaningful information than others do for specific purposes. Thus, course examinations are appropriate for assessing student learning and assigning grades (Walvoord & Anderson, 1998); classroom assessment techniques provide useful feedback on the effectiveness of specific modules of instruction (Angelo & Cross, 1993); and standardized scales are particularly useful when conducting program evaluation, research, and multicampus studies (Bringle & Hatcher, 2000).

Program evaluation and research have a long history in education (Sansone, Morf, & Panter, 2003). To some extent, the existing literature on measurement and design issues can be applied to service learning with good results. However, service learning has special characteristics such as unique aspects of the pedagogy (e.g., reflection) that warrant additional resources for good research. This is particularly the case for unique outcomes expected from service learning classes (changes in values, moral development, civic outcomes; Shumer, 2000) SCALES: EXISTING VERSUS MODIFYING VERSUS DEVELOPINGUsing existing scales has many advantages over developing original scales. Existing scales take less time to incorporate in research, are usually prepared by researchers who have professional expertise, may have norms available against which a particular sample can be compared, and have a known record of psychometric qualities (although these may vary from sample to sample).Existing scales may also be modified to suit a particular research context or question associated with a service learning class. Adapting a scale has the advantage that most of the work has been completed and the resulting 25