Service-Learning and Graduation: Evidence from Event History Analysis

Abstract

This research employed Event History Analysis to understand how servicelearning participation is related to students’ graduation within six years. The longitudinal dataset includes 31,074 new undergraduate students who enrolled in a large western U.S. public university from Fall 2002 to Fall 2009. The study revealed that servicelearning participation had a significant positive relationship with graduation for both firsttime freshmen and new undergraduate transfers. Furthermore, participation in upper division servicelearning courses had larger correlations with graduation than participating in lower division servicelearning courses, and servicelearning participation had larger correlations with graduation for new undergraduate transfers than for firsttime freshmen.