Evaluating a College Leadership Course: What Do Students Learn in a Leadership Course with a Service-Learning Component and How Deeply Do They Learn It?.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate final projects in a freshman leadership course (combining grounding in leadership theories with a service-learning component) to determine what students learned about leadership, themselves as developing leaders, and leading in the civic community, and how deeply they learned these concepts. Students found situational leadership theories, team leadership theories, and leadership principles (Drath, 2001) most relevant to their experiences. Personally, students learned about themselves as individuals, leaders, team members, and community members. Civically, students learned how to apply leadership theories, work in teams, and about the community as a system. In terms of depth of learning, based on Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy, students were able to identify, describe, and apply concepts and to some extent analyze and synthesize them. These findings suggest that using service learning to help students learn about both the theory and practice of leadership is a viable alternative. Journal of Leadership Education Volume 7, Issue 3 – Winter 2009 168 Introduction and Purpose Today’s organizations are seeking college graduates with leadership skills and are finding the students deficient (Casper-Lott & Barrington, 2006). Those in higher education are beginning to realize that their institutions are now expected to play a major role in shaping the future of leadership development in today’s society. Colleges and universities across the nation have responded to this realization by providing their students with leadership courses designed to develop (in varying degrees) students’ formal knowledge about leadership, as well as to develop the students as leaders. These leadership courses are growing in popularity. Numerous colleges and universities across the nation are offering courses for credit, and curricular and co-curricular programs on leadership. In particular, leadership courses are now part of nearly every business school’s curriculum in the country (Doha, 2003). The proliferation of these courses at the undergraduate level presumes that colleges and universities are well equipped to undertake the mission of providing training and education in leadership (Doh, 2003). However, there has been little rigorous evaluation to date of available leadership courses to determine their effectiveness, particularly in terms of what students are learning about leadership and how deeply they are learning leadership. The purpose of this study is to begin filling this gap by evaluating learnings in a freshman leadership course that utilizes a service-learning pedagogy. Our hope is that as faculty begins to evaluate their own curricula in this area and communicate their findings, universities can develop or improve their own leadership development courses and programs, students can be assured that they are receiving quality leadership development, and organizations can begin meeting their needs. This call is shared with other faculty who are beginning to evaluate and communicate information on their own leadership development courses using a variety of different pedagogies (see Blackwell, Cummins, Townsend, & Cummings, 2007; Barbuto, 2006; Goethe & Moore, 2005; Stedman, Rutherford, & Roberts, 2006). To carry out our evaluation, we posed two research questions. First, what do students say they are learning in our leadership course utilizing service-learning in terms of formal theories of leadership, about themselves as developing leaders, and about leading in the civic arena? Such information would help us and other instructors using service-learning pedagogy in their courses on leadership to gain a better understanding of the types of learnings in which students are actually engaging. Second, how deeply are they learning these concepts (Biggs, 1999; Bloom, 1956; Rams den, 1992)? When examining depth of learning, we were interested in determining the extent to which students could critically analyze the leadership ideas to which they were being exposed, and whether they could link Journal of Leadership Education Volume 7, Issue 3 – Winter 2009 169 learning’s to themselves and to real life observations and practices and link their observations and practices back to the theoretical learnings. This information would help us and other instructors begin to critically assess the merit of servicelearning pedagogy to teach leadership as well as give us tools for deepening student learning. Using Service-Learning to Help Students Learn about Leadership Because the course we are evaluating uses service-learning as one of the main pedagogies for helping students learn about leadership theory and its application, we begin by describing why we used service-learning. In learning about leadership theory, students are faced with a large, historical, and confusing body of both academic and pop literatures that illustrates the complexity of study, practice, and understanding of leadership. To date, no single theory has been able to fully capture the essence of leadership, and many available theories are disparate or even contradictory (Mello, 2003). For example, theories have focused on the presumed leader’s traits, skills, and behaviors; on the interplay between the leader and the follower; and, most recently on what is accomplished rather than who is actually “doing” the leadership (Drath, 2001). One way for students to grasp and interpret the complexity of leadership, as well as draw from it in such a way as to help them develop as leaders, is to expose students to experiences that allow them to learn about theories, try the theories out or observe them in real life settings, and reflect on the interplay between formal theory and their own practice; in particular, what are they learning about leadership, what are they learning about themselves as leaders, and what are they learning about practicing leadership in the civic arena. An alternative for allowing students to do this is through an academic service-learning course. However, there is currently little available information regarding the impact of academic servicelearning on learning outcomes on leadership. Service-learning, which combines academic study with community service, has been growing dramatically in popularity (Campus Compact, 2003). In servicelearning courses. students’ community service experiences are compatible with and seamlessly integrated into the academic learning objectives of the course, in a manner similar to traditional course requirements (Howard, 1998). What servicelearning brings to the traditional classroom, one typically based on abstract conceptualization of theoretical concepts and models, is experiential learning (concrete experiences with the real world) and reflection (observation of own and other’s experiences that tie together abstract conceptualization and concrete experience) (Kolb, 1984). That is, student’s observations and experiences in the community and reflections about their experiences are a medium for students to Journal of Leadership Education Volume 7, Issue 3 – Winter 2009 170 learn and demonstrate their knowledge and are as pivotal to the student’s academic learning as class lectures, library research, writing research papers, and taking exams. There is a growing body of research demonstrating that service-learning contributes to the civic, personal, and academic development of students (see Madsen, 2006, for a brief review). In terms of civic development, students participating in service-learning demonstrate increased political awareness, community engagement and civic action, social justice attitudes, and intentions to participate in future community service (see McCarthy & Tucker, 2002; Moely, Mercer, Ilustre, Miron, & McFarland, 2002; Simons & Cleary, 2006). In terms of personal development students participating in servicelearning demonstrate increases in self-efficacy, interpersonal skills, self-rated leadership activities (see Astin, Vogelgesang, Ikeda, & Yee, 2000; Moely et al., 2002). Service-learning also facilitates academic development, and has also been linked to better writing skills, increased critical thinking, increased motivation and contextual understanding of course material, improved test performance, and GPA (Astin, et al., 2000; Ash, Clayton, & Atkinson, 2005; Cohen & Kinsey, 1994; Markus, Howard, & King, 1993). In addition to its many benefits to students themselves, service-learning can be practically incorporated into current undergraduate curriculums. There is a growing body of literature describing the mechanics of implementing servicelearning in a broad spectrum of courses. For example, the American Association of Higher Education has a series of 18 monographs focusing on why and how service-learning can be implemented in a specific discipline. Academic Service-learning and Leadership Courses As yet, little is known specifically about how service-learning can be implemented in leadership courses and its impact on learning outcomes of leadership courses. For example, Middleton (2005) examined charismatic leadership emergence in students participating in a service-learning leadership course. Other available studies have looked at the impact of service-learning on certain leadership concepts such as interpersonal skills, ethics, teamwork, and decision-making (Astin et al., 2000; Dumas 2002; Friedman 1996; Moely, et al., 2002; Vogelgesang & Astin, 2000); however, the courses included in these studies have not been leadership courses per se. For example, Astin and colleagues (2000) compared academic service-learning students within a variety of courses and students who performed community service through settings other than a course on a variety of abilities and skills, and found that in the leadership arena, the outcomes between the two groups were the same. They concluded that service-learning does not add to the students’ leadership abilities, but rather that leadership growth oc