[Download] "Cognitive Outcomes of Service-Learning: Reviewing the Past and Glimpsing the Future (Conference Notes)" by Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning * Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Cognitive Outcomes of Service-Learning: Reviewing the Past and Glimpsing the Future (Conference Notes)
- Author : Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning
- Release Date : January 22, 2002
- Genre: Education,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 229 KB
Description
At the start of the 1990s it seemed as though this decade might mark the "cognitive revolution" for research on service-learning. In March 1991, Wingspread conference participants discussed the research agenda for the 1990s in service-learning as they sought to identify critical research questions (Giles, Honnet, & Migliore, 1991). Among the research questions that were generated about the effects of service-learning on the individual student were, "What is the effect of service-learning on students as learners?" and "What knowledge do students gain as a result of service-learning?" (p. 6). Indeed, Wingspread participants expressed hope that research on student learning outcomes could help to transform education, concluding that, "At the center of current educational reform is attention to student outcomes--the knowledge and skills we want students to have as a result of their education" (p. 15). Yet as the decade came to a close, a crisis of confidence about cognitive outcomes seemed to be brewing and a major sticking point seemed to surround the issue of the quality of the outcome data. Although there has been great progress in the last decade toward answering questions related to cognitive outcomes, several researchers in the field have noted the lack of progress in providing convincing evidence for skeptical faculty, and argued that without this evidence, service-learning's future is in jeopardy (Eyler & Giles, 1999; Osborne, Hammerich, & Hensley, 1998; Troppe, 1995). Eyler (2000) expresses researchers' own evaluation of the current state of research on cognitive outcomes: "Intellectual outcomes--knowledge, cognitive development, problem-solving skills, and transfer of learning--are at the heart of the school and college mission and yet we know relatively little about how they are affected by service-learning" (p. 11). Moore's (1999) comments on experiential education in general capture the problem with service-learning practitioners' reliance on belief rather than data: