Proposing a Metric to Measure Student Learning Outcomes of STEM Service-Learning Courses
Open Access
- Author:
- Karpa, Kieri
- Area of Honors:
- Interdisciplinary in Civil Engineering and Community, Environment and Development
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- John Gershenson, Thesis Supervisor
Jay Regan, Thesis Honors Advisor
Theodore Roberts Alter, Faculty Reader - Keywords:
- service-learning
metric
STEM
HESE
engineering
development
humanitarian engineering
development engineering - Abstract:
- The purpose of this project was to begin to formulate a metric to measure student learning outcomes in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) service-learning courses. Background research on the benefits and purpose of service-learning courses informed the design of this research. Professors who teach university or program designated service-learning courses were contacted and invited to provide course syllabi for analysis. This resulted in the submission of 29 service-learning syllabi from 6 institutions. The objectives in each syllabus were cumulatively listed and totaled 187. These objectives were then coded to global engineering objectives proposed by MacDonald et al. (2022) to determine with which they most closely aligned. After coding, a weighted average for each category was calculated. Using occurrence as a substitute for importance, the weighted averages reveal the most important skills for students to gain through service-learning courses are communication and cross-cultural humility – each of which accounts for 13.37% of the total number of objectives collected. Conversely, in these syllabi, there was no mention of skills relating to global health, an objective in MacDonald et al. (2022), making it unlikely students will gain skills relating to global health during service-learning courses. Second only to the global health objective, project management and data driven analysis objectives occurred infrequently and were reflected in only 1.07% of the 187 objectives. While the small sample size makes it difficult to draw definitive conclusions, the weighted averages for each category can be used along with pre- and post- course surveys to determine the extent to which students enrolled in service-learning courses develop skills relating to the intended objectives and identify areas for improvement within these courses.