Service-Learning and Graduation: Evidence from Event History Analysis

Abstract

This research employed Event History Analysis to understand how service-learning participation is related to students' graduation within six years. The longitudinal dataset includes 31,074 new undergraduate students who enrolled in a large western U.S. public university from Fall 2002 to Fall 2009. The study revealed that service-learning participation had a significant positive relationship with graduation for both first-time freshmen and new undergraduate transfers. Furthermore, participation in upper division service-learning courses had larger correlations with graduation than participating in lower division service-learning courses, and service-learning participation had larger correlations with graduation for new undergraduate transfers than for first-time freshmen.