Institution ’ s Teaching Imperative : Rising to the Commitment of Service-Learning in Engineering Education

For over two decades, a number of engineering faculty members at a research institution of higher education in the United States have successfully integrated service-learning in their courses as an effective curricular strategy. While some faculty members have continued to integrate service-learning in their teaching, others have discontinued its use. This inquiry examines the reasons faculty discontinued the integration of service-learning in their courses. Specifically, it focuses on engineering faculty members at a public research university. Most studies on faculty involvement with service-learning have focused on factors that influence whether or not faculty adopt service-learning pedagogy, and no study has investigated factors for discontinuing the use of service-learning in engineering. A qualitative research approach is used to conduct in-depth interviews of engineering faculty using a semi structured protocol. The interviews were aimed at identifying the faculty experience, and at interpreting the reasons for discontinuation. The research findings indicate that faculty discontinued the use of servicelearning simply because they no longer teach the course. Even so, the common theme that emerged among the faculty was that most believed in service-learning’s intended educational outcome. Introduction: The Emergence of Research Institutions In examining the historical trajectory of higher education missions in the United States, Talcott (2005), for example, suggests that the mission of higher education from the colonial period to throughout the nineteenth century was different from what is generally taken to be its mission in the twentieth century. That is, the mission of college education throughout the nineteenth century was taken to be the development of moral character. This focus stemmed from the “British tradition of training the whole person. ” The mission of modern research universities, on the other hand, is seen as having derived from the “German traditions emphasizing specialization and research” (Talcott, p. 2). Therefore, as the American society became more and more technologically advanced, academic departments became more specialized. Altbach (2001) indicates that the emergence of graduate education in the United States was an important factor that changed the landscape of higher education. This was largely facilitated by the creation of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890 that led to the creation of land grant colleges and universities. This development followed “the rise of public universities, the ethos of public service, and the linking of research to agricultural and industrial development” (p.14). According to Altbach “the land-grant institutions combined several key ideas in American higher education: the concept of direct service to society, the traditional idea of liberal arts studies as the cornerstone of undergraduate education, and the emphasis on research as part of the academic enterprise” (p.14). These developments encouraged diverse expressions of missions in higher education. For example, Pollack in (Stanton et al, 1999) states “liberal arts colleges emphasize teaching, professional schools and community colleges emphasize training and large universities emphasize research”(p. 14). Despite these differences, Boyer (1990) argued that the modern research university model now dominates American higher education, and the focus on research P ge 24043.3 in American higher education was at the expense of teaching. Instead Boyer called for a refocus on the scholarship of teaching. Curriculum Reform to Improve Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Boyer’s (1990) call for higher education curricula reform that promotes teaching and learning among students has important implications for what faculty members teach, how they teach, and what students actually learn. For example, while faculty may exercise great latitude in developing the curricular goals and objectives in the courses they teach, Wiggins and McTighe (2005), suggest a backward design model based on the notion that the design process should start with pointing out the desired learning results and then “work backwards” to develop instruction. This approach is a departure from the traditional method of identifying the goals that need to be covered as the first step in curricula planning. In their framework, Wiggins and McTighe (2005) identified three stages: (1) Identify desired outcomes and results, (2) Determine what constitutes acceptable evidence of competency in the outcomes and results, and (3) Plan instructional strategies and learning experiences that bring students to these competency levels. They posit this approach will help faculty design instruction that promotes understanding and fosters student engagement. Another important approach to curricular reform that called for improvement throughout undergraduate education has been in service-learning pedagogy. Service-learning is a teaching method in which students participate in organized service activity for academic credit that meets identified community issues, and that reflection done by the students on their service experience furthers their understanding of course content (Zlotkowski, 1999, Erickson & Anderson, 1997; Morton & Troppe, 1996; Jacoby, 1996; Marullo,1996; Bringle & Hatcher, 1996; Stanton, Giles, & Cruz, 1999) For nearly three decades service-learning pedagogy has increased in higher education as a practical teaching and learning method (Campus Compact, 2006). For example, Colby et al. (2003) referenced a report by Sax et al. (1999) of a survey conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute of faculty who teach undergraduate courses. The survey revealed that 19.8 percent of faculty at two-year colleges and 24.1 percent of faculty at four-year colleges said they had taught at least one service-learning course. Research Question and Purpose The aim of this paper is to explore the continued practice of service-learning as an effective teaching method within an engineering curriculum at a public research institution of higher education with a mission committed to excellence in teaching, research and community partnerships. While some faculty members continue to integrate service-learning in their teaching, others have discontinued its use. Most studies on faculty involvement with servicelearning have focused on factors that influence whether or not faculty adopt service-learning pedagogy, and no study has investigated factors for discontinuing the use of service-learning in engineering. This study examines the motivation for faculty involvement in service-learning in the college of engineering, and the reasons why faculty discontinue the use of service learning in their courses. The primary research question is: P ge 24043.4 Why do faculty members use and discontinue the use of service-learning? The purpose of this study is to understand the level of faculty commitment to service-learning as an effective teaching and learning method. Research Method Case studies are the most common way of doing qualitative research (Stake, 2003). Stake (1995) recognizes that there are many other types of case studies based on their specific purpose, such as the teaching case study or the biography. He posits that the number and type of case studies depends upon the purpose of the inquiry: an instrumental case study examines one or more cases to provide insight into an issue; an intrinsic case study is undertaken to gain a deeper understanding of the case; and a collective case study is the study of a number of cases in order to inquire into a particular phenomenon. In a collective case study, the sample is purposive, and the criteria for selecting cases should be to “maximize what we can learn” (Stake, 1995, p. 4). The cases may be “similar or dissimilar, redundancy and variety each important” (Stake, 2003, p.138) A collective case study is used to conduct in-depth interviews of engineering faculty using a semi structured protocol. The interviews were aimed at identifying the faculty experience and at interpreting the reasons for using and discontinuing service-learning. The cases are dissimilar in that one set of cases will comprise of faculty that continue to use service-learning and the other set of cases is composed of faculty that are no longer teaching a course with a service component. The aim is to “maximize what we can learn” (Stake, 1995, p. 4). Research Site and Participant Selection The Research site is a public research institution where courses with service-learning have been integrated into existing required courses in five engineering departments over the past seven years. A list of service-courses with the names of the corresponding faculty was furnished by the service-learning coordinator to the researchers. A representative sample of faculty was purposefully selected from the various departments comprising of mechanical, chemical, electrical and computer, plastic, and civil. A total of currently 24 currently practicing faculty members were interviewed of which 20 were males and 4 were females. Five faculty members were interviewed from each of the College’s departments with the exception of civil engineering in which 4 faculty members participated. A total of 8 faculty members that discontinued the use of service-learning were interviewed; seven were male and 1 female. An interview protocol was used with the interview questions designed to gather information about faculty attitudes towards service-learning, the perceived cognitive and affective impacts on faculty from integrating service-learning in their teaching, and the reasons for discontinuation. As such, the interviews provided rich descriptive data of the participants’ view of service-learning. Findings: This section describes the results of this inquiry. The investigation utilized data from interview transcripts to discover faculty attitudes towards service-learning. First, interview tr