Assessing the Impact of Service-Learning in a Criminal Justice Statistics Class

Abstract

Service-learning is a pedagogical strategy that has been incorporated into classrooms in the social sciences increasingly in recent years. However, there has been less incorporation of servicelearning into nontraditional courses such as statistics, despite its potentially large beneficial impacts on the students in statistics courses. This study used a quasi-experimental design and a mixed-methods analysis to determine the impact of service-learning on criminal justice students' attitudes and outcomes in the context of a statistics course over four semesters. The impact was difficult to measure quantitatively; the qualitative findings suggested that students benefited in terms of their positive attitudes toward statistics and the overall learning outcomes of the course. The findings have implications for students' future careers within the criminal justice field.