Students’ Community Service: Self-Selection and the Effects of Participation

Abstract

Numerous studies demonstrate the effectiveness of university-based community service programs on students’ personal, social, ethical, and academic domains. These effects depend on both, the characteristics of students enrolled and the characteristics of the programs, for instance whether they are voluntary or mandatory. Our study investigates whether effects of voluntary service programs are indeed caused by the service experience or by prior self-selection. Using data from a pre–post quasi-experimental design conducted at a public university in Europe and taking students’ socioeconomic background into account, our findings on self-efficacy, generalized trust, empathic concern, and attributions for poverty show that there are no participation effects. Instead, students who join in community service differ significantly from nonparticipants with regard to almost all investigated domains a priori, indicating strong self-selection. Our results underline the importance of structured group reflection, most notably with regard to attitude-related topics.

Reconceptualizing Service-Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Reflections and Recommendations

“…Howard (1993) focused on students learning responsibility and addressing meaningful issues, while Speck and Hoppe (2004) made civic engagement and communitarian involvement primary. Studies have affirmed the long-term positive effects of service-learning programs for students' personal, academic, and moral development (Meyer et al 2019).…”

Enhancing Self-Efficacy During Community Service: Factors Influencing AmeriCorps’ Members’ Change in Self-Efficacy

“…Ohmer (2007), using cross-sectional data, reports that through serving disadvantaged neighborhoods, volunteers improve their sense of control over personal and community decisions and gain service competency, but he is unable to provide causal evidence for these claims. Meyer et al (2019) did not find that volunteering affects students' general self-efficacy development. Individuals' general self-efficacy is inherently, and by definition, not likely to yield perceptible changes within a short period of volunteering.…”

“…As Bandura (2006) suggests, "The 'one measure fits all' approach usually has limited explanatory and predictive value because most of the items in an allpurpose test may have little or no relevance to the domain of functioning" (p. 307). Addressing this limitation, Meyer et al (2019) suggest that future research should use context-specific self-efficacy measures as our study does.…”

ABMLS Pilot Report 2018-2019: Methodology and preliminary findings

“…There is a large literature on service-learning and the potential positive impact on students personal development and civic engagement. However, many studies into the effects of service-learning programs are unable to disentangle participation effects from selection effects (Meyer et al, 2019). If participation in community-service programs is voluntary, it is very likely that the participating students differ from the non-participating students.…”

“…Recently, scholars studied the effect of a voluntary community service program at a European university on self-efficacy, generalized trust, empathy and attributions to poverty. Using a pre-post design with a control group, they showed that empathic and trusting students self-selected into the program and that there were no participation effects (Meyer et al, 2019). In addition, females were more likely to participate, while students who were already volunteering were less likely to participate in the community service program.…”