Title: Where’s the Learning in Service-Learning?
Authors: Janet Elyer & Dwight E. Giles Jr.
Target Audience: Faculty
Date: 1999

Succinct Summary: This must-read for service-learning course and program development shares an abundance of evidence-based information to support high quality service-learning that improves student learning in higher education.

Reviewer quotes:

1. “It is hard to overstate the importance of this book to the field. The research presented here should contribute significantly to those responsible for improving program effectiveness or advocating for this kind of pedagogy. The careful research and thoughtful commentary provide a wealth of insights about service-learning and how best to do it.”
   – Steven Shultz, Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning

2. “A groundbreaking book that unearths what all service-learning researchers and practitioners need to know.”
   -Andrew Furco, director, Service-Learning Research & Development Center, University of California at Berkeley

3. “Research heralds traditional service-learning programs for their transformative nature – producing students who are more tolerant, altruistic, and culturally aware; who have stronger leadership and communication skills; who (albeit marginally) have higher grade point averages and have stronger critical thinking skills than their non-service-learning counterparts.”
   -Tania Mitchell, Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning

4. “This book, which covers two studies conducted by Janet Eyler and Dwight Giles over a period of six years, proved to be the  most frequently mentioned higher education study….
   The findings of these studies reveal much about the “learning” in service-learning. It is the learning, they suggest, that is one of the primary goals of education institutions. Their major findings include: learning begins with personal connection, and learning is useful, developmental, and transforming. They also suggest citizenship rests on learning.
   Eyler and Giles concluded service-learning affects critical thinking and problem-solving. Program quality that predicted critical thinking applications are tied to classroom integration. Finally, they found that doing important work, doing work over time, having diverse environments, and having good partnerships all affected the quality of outcomes.”
   -Robert Shumer, Ph.D., National Youth Leadership Council

5. “With this research, we now know more about the educational value of service-learning. Yet, we cannot help but recognize that this research also reflects a seismic shift in higher education toward the value of experiential education. Had this study been conducted just a decade ago, we suspect that it would have expressed a defensive tone reflective of the need of experiential education to “prove” its value. Such defense is no longer needed. The posture here is not one of proof, but of acceptance, and the ability to move on to deeper questions about learning and quality teaching and the purpose of education in a democracy. Quality service-learning will not only create better students, but better citizens, and it offers a way for higher education to reclaim its civic purpose.”
   -Elizabeth Hollander & John Saltmarsh, Campus Compact