Service-learning: An Empirically Driven and Transformational Pedagogy to Develop Psychologically Literate Citizens for Contemporary Challenges

Abstract

Service-learning can produce timely paradigmatic shifts in the psychology curriculum and in teaching practices. This innovative pedagogy enhances students’ academic learning, personal growth, civic development, and professional development. Service-learning pedagogy also has the potential of enhancing students’ understanding of, and commitment to, “glocal” (global-local) issues as expressed in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Service-learning is defined and proffered to transform the undergraduate psychology curriculum by engaging the department faculty to align course outcomes and scaffold community-engaged activities from the introductory to capstone courses. This transformation is illustrated with a major contemporary challenge: climate change.

Keywords

Service-learning civic learning sustainable development goals climate change engaged department

Despite significant expansion of innovative pedagogies and high-impact practices across higher education (Chittum et al., 2022; Kuh, 2008), Cranney et al. (2022) concluded that there have been no radical changes in psychology education over the past 50 years. Service-learning is an evidence-based pedagogy in wide use in the United States and increasingly around the world. This innovative pedagogy can enhance students’ academic learning, personal growth, civic development, and professional development. It can also enhance students’ understanding of, and commitment to, “glocal” (global-local) issues, as represented in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 17 SDGs were adopted by all United Nations member states in 2015 as an urgent universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure peace and prosperity for all (United Nations, n.d.). Cranney et al. (2022) imagined a confident psychology graduate who contributes to society, but they did not reconceptualize the psychology curriculum and pedagogical strategies to incorporate changes necessary to prepare such a graduate, nor did they consider the demonstrated efficacy of service-learning pedagogy in fostering those outcomes. Service-learning has the potential to achieve outcomes associated with psychologically literate citizens (i.e., those who build upon psychological knowledge by committing to socially responsible actions; McGovern et al., 2010).

Aspiring to enhance the psychology curriculum's pedagogy aligns with the current Zeitgeist and is influenced by various factors. These factors include the pressing sociopolitical and environmental challenges, such as the existential crisis of climate change as highlighted by the International Panel on Climate Change (2023). There was an increase in psychological problems during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly affecting younger adults with increased rates of depression, stress, and anxiety symptoms (Varma et al., 2021). However, a mental health crisis on college campuses already existed prior to the pandemic, with just under 60% of college students with a mental health problem in years leading up to COVID-19. A survey by Amnesty International (2019) found that 41% of Gen Z respondents identified global warming as the most important issue they face. In this context, research has revealed a perceived betrayal by inadequate government responses, dysphoric feelings, and dystopian outlook experienced by many college-age students around climate change (Hickman et al., 2021). A pedagogy (e.g., service-learning) that enriches learning can mitigate some of these trends for individuals, communities, and beyond is warranted. In a description of a new course focused on the interface of psychology and climate change, Maier et al. (2018) recommended service-learning pedagogy in such curriculum developments.

In this article, we define service-learning, advocate for integrating it systematically across the psychology curriculum at the departmental level, and provide guidelines for service-learning practice (e.g., community-campus relationships; learning domains, goals, and competencies; community-engaged activities; reflection and assessment of student learning). Integrating service-learning within an engaged department structure can prepare educators around the world with the tools needed to help students cope with and contribute to contemporary challenges.

Definition of Service-learning and Summary of Empirical Support

We use the following definition of service-learning:

Service-learning is both a pedagogy and change strategy that engages students, community members, and instructors/staff in co-creating relationships that integrate academic material, community-engaged activities, and critical reflection to advance public purposes and to achieve clearly articulated academic learning, civic learning, and personal growth goals. (Kniffin et al., 2023)

Empirical support for the efficacy of service-learning is well-documented (Bringle et al., 2016; Bringle & Clayton, 2023). Meta-analyses consistently find positive outcomes in academic, personal, social, and citizenship domains among pre-collegiate, collegiate, and adult students (Celio et al., 2011; Conway et al., 2009; Eyler, 2010; Yorio & Ye, 2012). Hill et al. (2017) summarized findings on post-graduation longitudinal outcomes for service-learning that documented civic leadership and political engagement. Service-learning is a practice that supports students from underrepresented populations in persisting to graduation, developing agency, and becoming engaged leaders (Lockeman & Pelco, 2013).

Curriculum-level Transformation

The typical approach to implementing service-learning in psychology has been for an instructor to integrate community-engaged activities, structured reflection, and community partnerships into an existing course. Bringle et al. (2016) provided examples of service-learning in many psychology courses, and a keyword search of literature databases yields dozens of examples of service-learning at all levels of the psychology curriculum. Such initiatives enhance the educational environments of some students, but they fall short of holistic curricular change. If there is a shared departmental goal to foster civic-minded graduates who have knowledge/skills and purpose to contribute to society (see APA, 2023, Goals 3.3 and 5.3, and below for discussion of the importance of such a goal), then learning objectives and pedagogies should change accordingly. Only then can change lead to departments developing a sense of collective efficacy and hope as they contribute to community challenges through preparation of students.

The unit of change we recommend must move from modifying an individual course to integrating service-learning into all or most undergraduate courses. This would broaden participation from a few to many instructors, making service-learning a commonplace and pervasive feature of the curriculum focused on contemporary issues, including climate change (Kecskes et al., 2017). Scaffolding service-learning experiences across courses should be intentional. Students and community partners would be empowered to participate in the transformation of the curriculum and the pedagogies.

Collective work that aspires to an engaged curriculum rests on five key factors (Zlotkowski & Saltmarsh, 2006) (Table 1; see discussion in Bringle et al., 2016 and Kecskes, 2006):

Table 1.

Factors for Building Engaged Departments.

1. Leadership: Advocacy for faculty initiatives and creation of a supportive environment

2. Collaboration: Collaborative faculty culture that emphasizes shared work

3. Rewards: Incentives for community-based teaching and scholarship

4. Infrastructure: Institutional mechanisms to support faculty in community-based teaching and learning

5. Curricula: Civic engagement accepted as core academic work

Kecskes (2009) offered a self-assessment rubric that departments can use for strategic planning concerning where they are currently and what they would like to change to become more engaged. Kecskes (2006) provides many descriptions of the potential challenges and successes when departments engage in unit-level assessment, discussions, planning, and implementation for enhancing service-learning in the curriculum.

Learning Domains, Goals, and Competencies

The type of enrichment envisioned through integrating service-learning across the undergraduate psychology curriculum begins with clearly delineating and articulating learning objectives that encompass not only academic content but also civic learning and personal growth (Figure 1; see Bringle et al., 2016 for examples). Learning goals and objectives within three defining domains can be applied across the curriculum with the explicit goal of producing psychologically literate citizens.

Figure 1.

Learning domains of service-learning. 1. Community service informs or illustrates an academic concept, theory, or research finding (e.g., students learn to differentiate the use of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and punishment in an elementary teacher's behavior in the classroom while they are engaged with the students on a module on climate change) 2. Community service contributes to civic growth in addition to the course content (e.g., students increase their knowledge of the nonprofit sector's approaches to mitigating climate change) 3. Community service contributes to personal growth in addition to the course content (e.g., students clarify how their career plans and future civic involvement are focused on climate change) 4. Community service connects academic content to civic learning outcomes (e.g., the course content covers intergroup contact hypothesis, and the students learn better approaches to interacting with diverse groups at a service site focused on climate change) 5. Community service connects academic content to personal growth (e.g., the course presents information on nonverbal communication, and students become more aware of nonverbal cues that they are displaying when active in a neighborhood) 6. Community service contributes to the integration of civic learning and personal growth in addition to the course content (e.g., students compare and contrast their own perspectives with diverse community perspectives on resistance to and acceptance of climate change mitigation strategies) 7. Community service connects academic content to civic learning outcomes and personal growth (e.g., the course content on attitudes and cognitive biases influences how students conduct their service activities and their awareness of their own attitudes, cognitive biases, and prejudices and those of others concerning climate change) Note. Adapted from Bringle et al. (2016). *See Table 3 for examples of course-related service-learning activities and Table 4 for reflection prompts.

Psychology instructors can further select educational goals from several guidelines for undergraduate psychology education. Table 2 compares a few existing guidelines.

Table 2.

Learning Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Curriculum.

APA Guidelines 2.0 (2013) Goals	APA Guidelines 3.0 (2023) Goals	Beta.R2 ICUP (in prep) Competences	BPS (2019) UK QAA Principles
1: Knowledge Base in Psychology	1: Content Knowledge and Application	Psychological Knowledge	Scientific understanding of the mind, brain, behavior, and experience
2: Scientific Inquiry and Critical Thinking	2: Scientific Inquiry and Critical Thinking	Psychological Research Methodologies and Methods; Psychology-relevant Critical Thinking & Problem-solving	Knowledge and acquisition of research skills and methods; understanding the relationships between theory and empirical evidence; apply multiple perspectives to foster critical evaluation and reflection
3: Ethical and Social Responsibility in a Diverse World	3: Values in Psychological Science	Psychology Relevant Values and Ethics; Psychology-relevant Cultural Responsiveness & Diversity	Develop knowledge, including ethical and sociocultural issues
4: Communication	4: Communication, Psychological Literacy, and Technology	Psychology-relevant Communication & Interpersonal Skills	Present multiple perspectives to foster critical evaluation and reflection
5: Professional Development	5: Personal and Professional Development	Psychology-relevant Personal & Professional Development	Application of psychological understanding to real-world questions

Note. APA = American Psychological Association; ICUP = International Competences for Undergraduate Psychology; QAA = Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.

Service-learning in psychology education can also be aligned with SDG competencies. The work on reconceptualizing psychology's undergraduate learning goals in terms of civic learning and public good parallels the competency categories proposed for the SGDs Curriculum Framework (Osman et al., 2017): knowledge and understanding (e.g., multiple literacies; social, environmental, and economic challenges), skills and applications (e.g., empirical methods, planning), and values and attitudes (e.g., sense of hope, justice)—applied to the 17 SDGs.

Service-learning activities and reflection can be designed to foster climate-related knowledge, skills, and attitudes/values and thereby improve agency in students contributing to current and future climate initiatives. Decades of research suggests that self-efficacy—defined as “an expectation of personal mastery” (Bandura, 1977, p. 191), is “the foundation of human agency” (Bandura, 2016, p. 5). Research shows that service-learning enhances community service self-efficacy (Reeb et al., 2010). Because performance accomplishment is a primary informational source influencing self-efficacy (Bandura, 2016), community feedback to instructors and students within the context of the reciprocal community-campus relationship is critical for developing self-efficacy in service-learning endeavors. Fostering self-efficacy for coping with climate-related problems is essential to cultivating hope—on which effective, sustained action in the face of climate change may depend. Hope is “based on a reciprocally-derived sense of successful agency (goal-directed determination) and pathways (planning to meet goals)” (Snyder, 2000, pp. 8–9). Research suggests that “group efficacy beliefs predict collective action, but only when hope is high” (Cohen-Chen & Van Zomeren, 2018, p. 50). Both self-efficacy (Bandura, 2016) and hope (Snyder, 2000) are associated with mental health.

Community-campus Collaboration

Optimal service-learning courses involve instructors collaborating with community partners on the design, implementation, and evaluation of a course. This approach equitably involves all partners in ways that recognize unique strengths that each contribute to the initiative to create social change and improve the community (Kniffin et al., 2020). Saltmarsh et al. (2009) proposed a shift towards conceptualizing partnerships as grounded in democratic values and commitments, which (a) positions everyone involved (i.e., instructors, campus staff and administrators, staff at community entities, residents, and students) as co-educators, co-learners, and co-generators of knowledge and practice and (b) foregrounds an asset-based orientation in which all partners share power and responsibility.

Strand et al. (2003) identified 10 principles of community-campus partnerships, which fall into three categories: principles guiding partnership initiation (sharing a world view, agreeing about goals and strategies, and possessing trust and mutual respect), principles guiding partnership processes (sharing power, communicating clearly and listening carefully, understanding and empathizing with each other, and remaining flexible), and principles guiding partnerships outcomes (satisfying each other's interests and needs, obtaining enhanced organizational capacities, and adopting long-range social change perspectives).

An engaged department works with community partners to determine relevant service-learning activities. Instructors can work with one partner (schools, local museums, community organizations) on one project or many partners with different activities (direct, indirect, research, and advocacy) to produce meaningful community outcomes focused on climate change. These collaborations require attention to ethical considerations (see Chapdelaine et al., 2005, for guidelines for students, faculty and educational institutions).

An ecological (systems) approach (e.g., Reeb et al., 2017) guides evaluation of service-learning projects, including multilevel projects involving multiple psychology courses. Different psychology courses and community partners can provide unique perspectives and contribute to projects in complementary ways. A systems approach incorporates levels of analysis (e.g., individual, family, community, culture, international/global) and thereby guides assessment of community outcomes and multiple perspectives at different levels, guides triangulation (examining convergence and contradiction among multiple perspectives and multiple assessment methods), recognizes reciprocal relationships among outcomes at different levels, captures nuances (e.g., a project may be beneficial at some levels, neutral at other levels, and unintentionally negative at other levels), and identifies readiness for change (Reeb et al., 2017). A systematic consideration of community feedback for service-learning courses and an engaged department can incorporate the multilevel criteria of psychopolitical validity—the evaluation of community activities by two criteria: (a) “demand that psychological and political power be incorporated into… interventions”; and (b) “require that interventions move beyond ameliorative efforts and towards structural change” (Prilleltensky, 2008, p. 116). Consideration of community perspectives and feedback is important as service-learning activities are developed.

Service-learning Activities Related to Climate Change

To illustrate how psychology programs can address contemporary challenges with service-learning activities, we selected SDG Goal 13: Climate Change and the United Nations’ program Act Now (https://www.un.org/en/actnow). This program is relevant for psychology because it allows individuals to participate in a global movement that focuses on the climate crisis and has implications across the SDGs. It lists actions to identify and manage one's emissions: behaviors such as energy use, food consumption, transportation, and shopping. Table 3 provides examples of activities for different psychology courses, with suggestions of course content related to students’ learning about their ecological and carbon footprints and taking action accordingly. There are four interrelated types of community-engaged activities: direct service to the community, indirect service to community organizations, participatory community action research, or advocacy/social change. Underlying design choices include community-engaged activities that are short term or long term; occur on campus, locally, internationally, or virtually; and involve partnering with grassroots initiatives, non-profit organizations, for-profit companies, or governmental agencies. These activities can be scaffolded across courses in the curriculum to build upon prior activities and to challenge students with cognitively and civically more complex approaches to learning. All activities are to be co-created by community partners, students, and instructors.

Table 3.

Example of Service-learning Activities Related to Content of Select Psychology Courses.

Psychology course	Sample of course content related to climate change	Example of service-learning activities based on the Act Now campaign on climate change
For all courses		Students in all courses can determine their ecological and carbon footprint (on how to identify impact and take action, see https://www.un.org/en/actnow). Based on community interests and issues, students can work on community-engaged activities aligned with the particular outcomes of each course. The courses and activities should be scaffolded. For instance, advocacy can be implemented at different levels. Advocacy activities can start with a letter to a representative based on content learned in class. Students’ subsequent advocacy projects can use content from research. Later advocacy projects can include requesting resources (e.g., grant writing) to create new programs. See other suggestions in Figure 2.
Introduction/General	Climate change can relate to most chapters: scientific methods, neuro, learning, stress, social psychology, wellness, mental health, treatments	Students can advocate for the importance of sustainability action to their local representatives. For this project, they could write a letter to their representatives sharing the information they learned about psychology and climate change. Some topics could be: how to determine quality of information, how stress impacts brain function and development, importance of models, impact of reinforcers, group dynamics, social cognition, biases, stress and copying. (Advocacy SL) They can co-create presentations (oral or written) connecting what they learned about their footprint, behaviors, and attitudes to share with local community groups (e.g., schools). They can include their advocacy projects in the presentations. (Direct SL)
Developmental	Each stage of development can be the context for addressing any topic (e.g., resilience to face climate changes and other stressors or trauma)	Students can work with community groups (e.g., schools, city government, neighborhood association) to identify their footprints, behaviors, and attitudes from a developmental psychology perspective in ways appropriate for different ages. (Direct SL) Students can co-create workshops based on content covered in the course. For instance, one topic can be resilience and how to build it (https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience/building-your-resilience). They can co-develop content for different groups in ways appropriate to different ages (e.g., working with children in daycare or schools and with adults in senior centers). Resilience applies to stressors beyond those related to climate change. (Direct SL)
Cognitive	Communication and misinformation, social influence, risk-taking, motivated reasoning	Students can co-develop educational campaigns (on social media/public announcements) on how to identify and avoid misinformation on climate change. (Indirect SL) They can co-create programs with community partners to increase awareness of mitigating behaviors (e.g., energy and water consumption) and how to implement them. These campaigns can be presented to schools or other community groups. (Direct SL) Students in this course can work with those in the developmental course to make sure the content presentation is age-appropriate.
Social/ Personality	Social cognition, stereotypes, connections of attitudes/beliefs/ behaviors related to climate change, persuasion	Students can work on programs that use social comparison to mitigate consumption and the use of resources. For instance, they can co-create a contest at their school to save energy, or eat more plant-based foods, or increase interest/use of second-hand shops. (Indirect SL) Students in this course can work with those in the learning/motivation courses to determine the impact of different learning/motivation models.
Learning/ Motivation	Principles of learning applied to everyday behaviors (e.g., reinforcers, modeling), personal efficacy, extrinsic/intrinsic rewards and motives, perceptions, attitudes, learning	Students can use behavior analysis to adjust or change structural and system factors to reinforce sustainable behaviors. For instance, they can apply the analysis to existing plans that reinforce particular behaviors (e.g., walking, biking, saving energy, eating more plant-based foods). They can gather information from their program, other departments, and different institutions (e.g., community centers). (Indirect SL) Students in this course can work with those in the social/personality course.
Physiological/ Health and Wellness	Motives, habit formation/change, eating behaviors, stress, coping with changes, emotions	Students can collaborate with local high school students to research how climate change impacts wellness and mental health. For instance, see APA How does climate change affect mental health? (https://www.apa.org/topics/climate-change/mental-health-effects). Together they can provide the information in written or oral presentations to local groups (e.g., schools, community organizations) or local representatives. (Direct SL)
Psychopathology	Public health, mental health, anxiety, depression, PTSD, hopelessness, resilience, mindfulness, treatments	Students can work with local groups to foster wellness. They can co-create, facilitate or support existing programs to build resilience, manage stress, or provide trauma-informed care and other treatments for those affected by climate change. These activities can be offered at schools and community centers. (Direct SL) They can fundraise to support needs identified by the existing programs that support those affected by climate change. (Indirect SL) They can advocate for support for mental health by facilitating case studies being shared by those who need support as a consequence of climate change. (Advocacy SL)
Research	Design, measurements, writing report, literature review	Students can work with local community members to assess the impacts of climate change. They can co-design experiments about effective communication tools or other content related to climate change. They can evaluate the impact of educational and remediation tools on topics such as perception, misinformation, decision-making, and behavior modification. (Research SL) Students in this course can work with students in any other course to research the behavior changes created by the programs proposed (e.g., the impact of peer influence in contests, see social/personality activity).
Community Service-Learning Capstone	Any of the topics above	With their community partners, students can identify issues related to climate change from a psychological perspective. They can research the issues identified, determine advocacy projects, plan the implementation steps of projects, implement plans, and evaluate the implementation. (Advocacy SL) Students can advocate with community partners for the relevant changes they collectively envision in relation to climate. See toolkit in Community Tool Box: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/advocating-change). (Direct SL) The department can sponsor a trip (local, national, or international) where students have opportunities to learn from individuals who experience climate change and then collaborate on existing community projects. (Direct SL) Students can research or advocate for the possible changes identified. (Advocacy SL)

Reflection and Assessment of Student Learning

In addition to co-determining community-engaged activities with community members, another key curricular component in designing effective service-learning involves providing students with reflection activities through which they make meaning of their educational and community experiences and provide evidence of their learning. Neither community-engaged activities nor academic activities on their own generate learning without the integration of critical reflection on activities designed specifically to facilitate meaning-making based on particular learning objectives.

Critical reflection is the component of service-learning (and any form of experiential learning) that generates, deepens, and documents learning (Ash & Clayton, 2009). Effective reflection should be intentionally designed to embody the characteristics outlined by various scholars: it is contextualized to the situation and challenging (Eyler et al., 1996); is structured, occurs regularly, and is connected to both values and practice (Bringle & Hatcher, 1999); and is designed to generate actionable learning (Zlotkowski & Clayton, 2005). Reflection can occur before, during, and after students participate in community-engaged activities; it can be written, oral, visual, or technology-based; and it can be done individually or collaboratively (e.g., with other students, community members, and instructors). Through structured reflection, students can develop the competencies identified by Osman et al. (2017) in the SDG curriculum framework (e.g., listening, teamwork, links between short- and long-term change, perspective taking) as well as associated values (social justice, civic professionalism, social responsibility) and a sense of hope and self-efficacy.

The DEAL (i.e., describing, examining, articulating learning) framework provides a structure to design critical reflection prompts that are tightly aligned with desired learning objectives within any learning domain in Figure 1 (Ash & Clayton, 2009). This customizable, research-based framework supports learners in describing (D) their experiences, examining (E) their experiences using prompts linked to learning goals, and then articulating (A) learning (L) in a way that leads to enhanced future action and ongoing learning (Ash & Clayton, 2009).

In the Examine stage of DEAL, the prompts for written reflection or group discussion can be grounded in specific learning objectives derived from undergraduate curriculum guidelines for academic learning, civic learning, personal growth, and their combinations (Figure 1). Using Bloom's Taxonomy (1956) to structure Examine prompts from lower to higher order reasoning supports students in making meaning of their experiences up to whatever level of reasoning is desired or appropriate for the level of the course objectives (e.g., introductory vs. capstone), as follows:

Knowledge: identify relevant knowledge (concepts, theories, research findings, personal attributes, community issues)

Comprehension: demonstrate understanding of knowledge

Application: connect the relevant knowledge to service experiences

Analysis: examine components by identifying causes and consequences and by comparing and contrasting components

Evaluation: make judgments about the material, defend proposals

Synthesis: develop new ways or perspectives, propose alternative solutions

Table 4 provides an example from what might be a suite of DEAL reflection activities used throughout a course. It illustrates all six levels of Bloom's Taxonomy for the intersection of academic learning, civic learning, and personal growth. Instructors will develop their own content learning objective-specific reflection activities.

Table 4.

Sample DEAL Framework Reflection Prompts.

Learning Domain	Academic, Civic, and Personal (Section 7 of Venn Diagram in Figure 1):
APA Learning Outcome	Indicator APA 2.0, 5.4B: “Describe problems from another's point of view with respect to sociocultural factors” (APA, 2013, p. 35).
Course- Specific Learning Objective	Students will critically examine the sociocultural bases (e.g., culture, race, class, family, politics) of diverse perspectives (e.g., beliefs, attitudes, behaviors), on climate change, including their own.
DEAL/Describe (objectively and in fair detail)	When did you become aware of diverse perspectives on climate change? How were they expressed or shared? What did you do in that experience? What did others do? What actions did you/they take? What and how did you/they communicate in this experience? Who didn’t speak or act? Did you/others laugh, cry, make a face, complain, criticize, argue, etc.?
DEAL/Examine (Six levels based on Bloom's Taxonomy)	Knowledge : Name at least 3 different sociocultural bases of diverse perspectives on climate change that were discussed in class and that you observed in the community and in yourself. Comprehension: Define in detail and in your own words, each of these sociocultural bases that you have identified as influential within yourself and for others. What other sociocultural bases might be relevant? Define and explain them as well. Application: What convinced you that these sociocultural factors shaped the individual's point of view? What about your own point-of-view? What did you see in the behavior of yourself and that of others that supports your inferences that these sociocultural factors are important? Explain how content of the psychology course is relevant to your understanding of these different points-of-view. Analysis: Causes: What social and normative factors (e.g., how others treat the person, talk to the person) support the others’ and your own perspectives? What cultural factors? Why do you think you identified these factors in your experience? How might your biases influence your analysis? How might someone else identify other factors? Consequences: What are the consequences of these different perspectives? How does your analysis of these circumstances for others and yourself make you feel about mitigating responses to climate change in the near and distant future? What might they enhance or limit understanding of, for example? Compare and Contrast: What are the differences between other's positions and your position? What do they have in common? How does psychology contribute to your understanding of similarities and differences? Evaluation: What do you see as the most reasonable and unreasonable of these diverse perspectives on climate change that you have encountered, including your own? To which are you indifferent? Why? Which do you consider different, but acceptable. How do you think and feel (i.e., what judgments do you make) about persons who hold a different perspective on climate change than yours? In what ways are your judgments appropriate and inappropriate? Synthesis: What new understanding do you have about the different bases for diverse perspectives on climate change? What might you do to mobilize others from across diverse sociocultural groupings, including those with different perspectives from you, to lessen the effects of climate change? How, specifically, might you appeal to others who hold these diverse perspectives?
DEAL/Articulate Learning (about the sociocultural bases of diverse perspectives on climate change)	As a result of completing this reflection … I learned that … I learned this when … This learning matters because … In light of this learning, in the future I will …

Because service-learning and Articulated Learning in the DEAL framework are focused on change and action, both in individuals and in communities, identifying actionable steps for change is important. Figure 2 provides some types of change behaviors and actions on which students and others could focus in the Articulate Learning section of DEAL with regard to climate change.

Figure 2.

Social change wheel for actionable steps in service-learning (Iowa & Minnesota Campus Compact, 2020).

The DEAL framework for critical reflection provides an assessment of authentic (vs. self-reported) learning and growth. Because the prompts are organized around Bloom's Taxonomy (1956), rubrics for learning objectives in any domain (i.e., academic learning, personal growth, civic learning) can be used to evaluate learning for up to six levels (Table 5 provides illustrations).

Table 5.

Example of Bloom-Based Rubrics for Select Civic Learning Goals.

Learning goal	1 Identify	2 Explain	3 Apply	4 Analyze: causes and consequences / compare and contrast	5 Evaluate	6 Synthesize / Create
Students will understand the complexities of relationships between individual rights and the common good as they emerge in climate change	Defines “individual interests/ rights” and “common good”	Explains “individual interests/ rights” and “common good” in their own words so that someone unfamiliar with these concepts would understand them	Gives an example of the presence or absence of “individual interests/ rights” and “common good” in a particular situation with regard to climate change	Compares and contrasts what an “individual interests/ rights” focus would prioritize in this situation with what a “common good” focus would prioritize	Evaluates these potential resolutions in terms of their long-term consequences and justifies their judgment as to the most appropriate resolution accordingly	Proposes at least two potential resolutions of the tension between “individual interests/ rights” and “common good” with regard to climate change
Students will understand the complexities of access to power	Identifies multiple sources of power (e.g., regarding climate change)	Explains these sources of power in their own words such that others who are not familiar with them can understand	Provides examples of the presence and absence of these sources of power in the context of their service-learning project (i.e., who is and is not using power from which sources)	Compares (how similar?) & contrasts (how different?) the access to each of these sources of power experienced by all of the stakeholders in the context of their service-learning project, including what enables and what hinders that access and the consequences (positive and negative, short-term and long-term) of that access on the situation overall and on the stakeholders	Critiques the level of equity in access to power sources across these alternatives and makes a judgment as to the most appropriate alternative (i.e., Do stakeholders all have similar levels of access to power? Should that be changed and why? What trade-offs would come along with changing it?)	Produces an alternative set of processes to enhance the level of equity in access to power in this situation
Students will increase their understanding of self-efficacy with regard to their involvement with climate change	Identifies their definition of self-efficacy	Explains self-efficacy in their own words	Provides examples of low and high self-efficacy in their own work in their community activities and in their lives more generally as they touch on their work with climate change	Provides causes of low and high levels of self-efficacy and considers consequences of their actions on climate change issues	Evaluates alternative approaches in terms of their long-term consequences and justifies their judgment as to the most appropriate alternative	Proposes alternative approaches to achieving positive outcomes on climate change issues

Conclusion

Reich and Nelson (2010) noted that socially responsive knowledge and service-learning pedagogy are important additions to the psychology curriculum. However, they concluded that service-learning remained underutilized. From our perspectives, little has changed since those observations were offered. In the International Handbook of Psychology Learning and Teaching (Zumbach et al., 2021), other than the chapter by Bringle et al. (2021), there are only a few mentions of service-learning and almost no discussion of what it can contribute to undergraduate learning, civic education, civically oriented careers, or community outcomes. The aspiration to prepare students for their civic lives is similarly conspicuous by its absence in discussions of learning goals, pedagogy, and assessment in the psychology literature on teaching and learning. This is despite Cranney and colleagues (2022, p. 3) defining psychological literacy as the “intentional values-driven application of psychology to achieve personal, professional, and community goals” (emphasis added). As a discipline, psychology is overdue for transforming its instructional strategies to achieve learning goals that go beyond solely academic learning.

The rationale for changing the dominant pedagogy of the undergraduate psychology curriculum is to educate not merely psychologically literate graduates but psychologically literate citizens. Service-learning may be unfamiliar to some psychology instructors and may be regarded as counter-normative because it decenters the instructor, shifts responsibility for learning more to the student, moves learning partially outside the classroom, and is constructivist (Clayton & Ash, 2004). The attractiveness of the paradigmatic shift to integrate civic learning into the entire undergraduate curriculum and to reconceptualize pedagogy to incorporate service-learning systematically will depend on engaged department leadership, current service-learning faculty who can be advocates and exemplars, and institutional context (e.g., faith-based, public, private, small, metropolitan, community college). The examination of both contemporary societal challenges that the SDGs are intended to address and how the well-being of students and communities can be enhanced creates opportunities to qualitatively improve the undergraduate psychology curriculum to develop psychologically literate citizens.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Ana I. Ruiz

Author Biographies

Ana I. Ruiz is a Professor of Psychology and the 2022–2024 Neag co-Professor of Teaching Excellence and Innovation at Alvernia University. She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University, and her MA and BS degrees in PE, Brazil. Dr. Ruiz currently teaches Developmental, Research, and Multicultural Issues courses at the undergraduate level. She has incorporated service-learning into several of her courses and has engaged with multiple local non-profit organizations in Reading (PA) to foster in her students a lifelong commitment to service as engaged citizens for decades. Her university has recognized her with the 2017 Faculty Award for Exemplary Service Learning and the 2022 Faculty Award for Exemplary Real-World Learning, and the 2016 Teaching Excellence Award. Ruiz was a member of The Citizen Psychologist Curriculum – Preparing Psychologists for Public Service: The 2018 APA Presidential Initiative. She is a co-author of two books: “Service Learning in Psychology: Enhancing Undergraduate Education for the Public Good” (2015) and “Service-Learning Code of Ethics” (2005). Her scholarship includes several articles and chapters on service and service-learning, ethics, alumni career development, and intelligence. She is the co-creator of the online resource Teaching Ethics to Undergraduate Psychology Students (). She was recently inducted into the Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship.

Roger N. Reeb is a Professor of Psychology, a Faculty Research fellow with the Human Rights Center, and a Faculty Affiliate with the Hanley Sustainability Institute at the University of Dayton, where he previously held positions of Director of Graduate Programs in Psychology (2006–2014) and Roesch Endowed Chair in the Social Sciences (2014–2018). Dr. Reeb received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University, after completing the Brown University Internship Program. Dr. Reeb received numerous awards at the University of Dayton (Alumni Award in Teaching; Outstanding Faculty Service- Learning Award; Service-Learning Faculty Research Award). He also received awards from the American Psychological Association (Dissertation Award; Springer Award for Excellence in Research in Rehabilitation Psychology–Division 22), and he served as a Work Group Member for the American Psychological Association's Citizen Psychologist Initiative. Recently, he was inducted into the Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship. At the local level, Dr. Reeb recently received the Inaugural Homeless Solutionary Award from the Homeless Solutions Board of Montgomery County, Ohio. Dr. Reeb is a Fellow in the Midwestern Psychological Association. With approximately 40 publications and over 100 conference presentations, Dr. Reeb coauthored Service-Learning in Psychology: Enhancing Education for the Public Good, published Community Action Research: Benefits to Community Members and Service Providers, and edited a special issue on service-learning research for the American Journal of Community Psychology. Dr. Reeb conducts participatory community action research, with special research and scholarship interests in homelessness, psychopathology, human rights and sustainability advocacy, and service-learning pedagogy (assessment of student and community outcomes). With a specialization in assessment, he developed, validated, and published the Community Service Self-Efficacy Scale, which is a commonly used measure in service-learning research and practice. He has served on the Editorial Board for a number of journals. Dr. Reeb, a licensed clinical psychologist, has served the community in numerous capacities, such as serving as a long-term Board Member for the National Alliance on Mental Illness Board (Montgomery County, Ohio). He has teaching experience/interests in a number of courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, including Abnormal Psychology/Psychopathology, Health Psychology, Community Psychology Personality, Assessment, Homelessness, Clinical Practicum, and Applied Research (Honors Thesis and Research Capstone at the undergraduate level; M.A. Thesis at graduate level). Dr. Reeb has regularly utilized service-learning in his courses since the mid-1990s.

Tia N. Turner is a rising second-year in the clinical psychology doctoral program at Wayne State University (WSU; Detroit, MI) whose research, in sum, examines needs of and innovative solutions to homelessness. Prior to attending WSU, she earned her MA in clinical psychology from the University of Dayton (Dayton, OH) and her BA in psychology from Miami University (Oxford, OH). During her time at the University of Dayton, Miss Turner received a graduate fellowship with the Hanley Sustainability Institute where she helped develop and implement programming aimed at building effective campus-community partnerships focused on sustainability research. Additionally, Miss Turner engaged in community research programming at a local homeless shelter in Dayton where she oversaw students enrolled in a service-learning course. At WSU, Miss Turner has taught the psychology intro course and a course in psychology research methods, and teaching these courses has greatly increased her interest in working with college students. After she obtains the PhD in clinical psychology, Miss Turner will pursue an academic appointment that will allow her to engage in clinically oriented community research with a service-learning component, advocacy for disadvantaged populations, and teaching at both graduate and undergraduate levels.

Robert G. Bringle has been involved in the development, implementation, and evaluation of educational programs directed at talented undergraduate psychology majors, high school psychology teachers, first-year students, and the introductory psychology course. He was the Executive Director of the IUPUI Center for Service and Learning (1994–2012). His work resulted in an expansion of service-learning courses, a curriculum for faculty development, a Community Service Scholars program, an America Reads tutoring program, and a HUD Community Outreach Partnership Center. His scholarly interests for service-learning and civic engagement include student and faculty attitudes and motives, educational outcomes, institutionalization, and assessment issues. He recently co-edited Research on Service Learning: Conceptual Frameworks and Assessment. Vol. 2A: Students and Faculty, and Vol. 2B: Communities, Institutions, and Partnerships , Research on Service Learning and Student Civic Outcomes , Practical Wisdom for Conducting Research on Service Learning and co-authored Service Learning in Psychology: Enhancing Undergraduate Education for the Public Good. Dr. Bringle was awarded the Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award, and the IUPUI Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching. He was recognized at the 4^th Annual International Service-Learning Research Conference for his outstanding contributions to the service-learning research field. He consults with other campuses, on national initiatives, and internationally (South Africa, Macedonia, Mexico, Egypt, Ireland, Malaysia, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Spain, The Netherlands) on issues related to civic engagement. The University of the Free State, South Africa, awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2004 for his scholarly work on civic engagement and service-learning.

Patti H. Clayton is an independent consultant (PHC Ventures, www.curricularengagement.com) with over 20 years of experience as a practitioner-scholar and educational developer in service-learning and community engagement (SLCE) and in experiential education. In addition to her Senior Scholar role with the Institute, she serves as a Senior Scholar with the Center for Service and Learning at IUPUI and as Practitioner-Scholar-in-Residence with NC Campus Engagement. She has consulted with well over 100 colleges, universities, and higher education organizations in the US, Canada, and Ireland. She guides inter-disciplinary and inter-institutional scholarly collaborations, facilitates curriculum development and professional development across all partners in SLCE, and supports visioning and planning processes for community-campus engagement. She holds retreats to support graduate students, professional staff, and faculty in formulating and advancing their scholarly agendas and projects. She co-developed the DEAL Model for Critical Reflection, the SOFAR partnership model, the TRES scale and reflection framework for assessing and deepening partnership quality, and the DPI Model for Institutional Transformation. She was co-editor with Bringle and Hatcher of the 2-volume set Research on Service Learning: Conceptual Frameworks and Assessment and co-authored the Democratic Engagement White Paper with Saltmarsh and Hartley (https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1252&context=gse_pubs) and the Democratically Engaged Assessment White Paper with Imagining America's Assessing Practices of Public Scholarship team (). Committed to co-inquiry practices, she was co-recipient of Clayton & Colleagues’ Distinguished Career recognition from the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement. Her interests include operationalizing democratic engagement and transformational partnerships; designing SLCE for civic learning; conceptualizing place-engaged SLCE; integrating SLCE and relationships within the more-than-human world; and exploring the power of such “little words” as in, for, with, and of to shape identities and ways of being with one another in SLCE. As one of ICEE's Senior Scholars, she serves as a thought partner and collaborator on work related to engaged graduate education, professional development among all partners in community-campus engagement, community-engaged scholarship, and transformational partnerships. She holds a PhD from the inter-disciplinary Curriculum in Ecology at UNC-Chapel Hill.

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