Connecting students to community: Engaging students through course embedded service-learning activities

Higher education can be a transformative experience for students by enhancing interpersonal skills and increasing social awareness of needs within their community to impact philanthropic development. Service-learning activities embedded in courses provide one avenue to integrate academics, the profession, and the community. This study analyzes two service-learning projects: a semester long endeavor and an activity completed in a single class period. Survey results indicate that students believe business curricula should prepare graduates to be civic leaders as well as business leaders and analysis suggests that those students who are involved in a semester long project compared to a single class project have a stronger view of business school's role in the development of civic mindedness. We find evidence that incorporating service learning within a single class period is beneficial to students' perception of engagement in the course and the community, even more so when the service-learning activities are semester long as compared to a single class. Regression results provide evidence that incorporating a semester long service-learning activity has a significantly greater impact on students' self-efficacy toward service compared to a single class activity. Even one course during a semester can make a significant difference in student's self-efficacy toward service.