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statistically significant for the research paper group. However, the research paper
students started further behind the service-learners on this attitude.
Surprisingly, none of the students changed much in their conceptualization of the
role of the good citizen. As has been found in other studies of attitudes toward
citizenship, the students at the outset held most strongly to a rights and obedience to the
law orientation toward good citizenship. Respecting the rights of others, obeying the law,
knowledge of one’s rights and freedoms and voting in political elections were deemed
much more important components of good citizenship than were putting the community’s
needs ahead of one’s own, participating in community or school affairs and having
responsibility for the well-being of one’s community and questioning ideas, both before
and after the course. Despite the goal of the course to develop ‘thicker’
conceptualizations of citizenship, both the service-learners and research paper writers
were virtually unchanging in their attitudes about the qualities of a good citizen.
Additionally, only one change in the means between the two groups was found
to be statistically significant and that was on the variable measuring political activity.
The mean of political activity for those participating in the research paper project went up
by .10 while the mean of political activity for the service learning group went down by
.07 in the post-test. Most of the other changes were modest and all of the other
differences in the changes between the two groups were not significant.
Discussion and Conclusion
Unlike previous assessments of this course that I have done using qualitative data,
the quantitative data provided less definitive results that the service-learning component
of the course produced dramatic differences in results relative to a more traditional
Convention