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1!” WWW.“

PERSONAL AND FAMILY FACTORS RELATED TO SERVICE-LEARNIN G IN AN
UNDERGRADUATE COURSE ON DIVERSITY

By

Kathleen G. Zawacki

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial ﬁJlﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Family and Child Ecology

1997

ABSTRACT

PERSONAL AND F AMILY FACTORS RELATED TO SERVICE-LEARNING IN AN
UNDERGRADUATE COURSE ON DIVERSITY

By
Kathleeen G. Zawacki

The purpose of this study was to explore the signiﬁcance of selected personal and
family factors in the decision of college students to engage in community service. The
subjects were selected from an undergraduate course on US. diversity (ISS 335). Two
topic areas were explored with quantitative procedures: global identity and attachment,
and three themes were explored through qualitative analyses of focus groups: caring,
identity, and diversity.

For the quantitative ﬁndings, students completed a packet of self-report measures
at the end of the course in 1995 and again two years later. Data on global identity were
collected during both times while the data on attachment were collected only during the
follow-up. Subjects were divided into three groups: (a) Group 1, Service-Learning related
to the course; (b) Group 2, No Service ; and (d) Group 3, Prior Service not related to the
course. Results are based on a sample of 74 questionnaires representing a total response
rate of 67.3%. Signiﬁcant differences between the three groups in rate of responding was
itselfa signiﬁcant ﬁnding. Students who volunteer their time to engage in service activity
were more inclined to cooperate in being a part of a study related to the topic. The results
of the qualitative analyses support this ﬁnding for the service groups (Group 1 and 3) by
describing how these students care about their environment as well as their perceptions

about how they learned to care for others.

The data on global identity were based on two subscales: ideological and
interpersonal. Chi-square analyses yielded signiﬁcant growth in the ideological subscale
but no change in the interpersonal subscale between 1995 and 1997. More speciﬁcally,
signiﬁcant differences were found in ideological exploration for Groups 1 and 2 while the
ﬁndings are equivocal for Group 3. The data clearly show that for the ideological
subscale, growth appears to be related to the community service experience, especially for
students who volunteered for service learning.

The results on attachment yielded surprising yet important ﬁndings. One-way
AN OVAs did not yield signiﬁcant mean differences between Groups 1, 2, and 3 for
attachment relations to either parent. However, the three groups had signiﬁcantly
different variances. There was greater variance in the Service Groups (Groups 1 and 3)
than in the Non-Service Group (Group 2). This ﬁnding suggests that there are some
students who, despite the lower/weaker reported attachment to their parents, engage in
community service activities. It could be that the Service Group of students are in eﬂ‘ect
representing two separate populations of students: one group who become attracted to
community service as a way of connecting to others to compensate for weaker
attachments with their parents (a resilient group of students); and another group of
students who become attracted to community service as a form of modeling civic
responsibility that they learned from their parents while still living at home. The results
from the qualitative data support this interpretation.

These ﬁndings suggest that incorporating service-learning activities within college
courses can enhance learning. Further work using a larger sample coupled with a

longitudinal and multi-method design would explain the nature of these results.

Copyright by
KATHLEEN G. ZAWACKI
1997

I dedicate this dissertation to my husband, John Paul

McKinney. He has helped me understand the

importance of leading a balanced life. I love you.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Completion of a dissertation involves the support and involvement of many people.
The smooth collaboration of many constituencies have made this work possible. I am
especially grateful to the following institutions: (a) Allen Street School, (b) Social Science
Center for Integrative Studies, (0) Department of Family and Child Ecology, ((1) Young
Spartans Program, and (e) Institute for Children, Youth, and Families.

I have come to realize that the interdependency among these entities is unusual but
deﬁnitely a worthwhile effort.

Additionally, there are speciﬁc people that have made the completion of this work
possible. First and foremost, I am thankﬁil for the students who have participated in this
study. Their dedication to service and willingness to participate in the study have been
inspirational. Second, I thank the students and staff at Allen Street School. Without the
cooperation of these individuals, this project would not have been possible. Third, I thank
Emily Schumacher for assisting me as much as she could with the data collection. Fourth,
I would like to thank the members of my doctoral committee: Drs. Dennis Keefe, Cyrus
Stewart, Don Hamachek, Lawrence Schiamberg, and Esther Onaga. Without their
direction, I may not have been able to complete this task. I would like to extend my
gratitude to Dr. Schiamberg for allowing me to fund part of this project through the

Institute for Children, Youth, and Families. Also, I thank Drs. Esther Onaga and Cyrus

vi

Stewart for granting me the opportunity to work with the students in 188 and Allen Street
School. Additionally, thank you Esther for allowing me the room to grow during this
project.

Finally, I would like to thank members of my family for supporting my efforts
during graduate school. I especially appreciate the encouragement of my Mom and Dad
for ﬁnishing the degree, despite my doubts. I also thank John Paul for his love, patience,
and kindness during the ﬁnal stages of the work. Your editorial work during the writing

process has been invaluable to me.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ................................................... xi
LIST OF FIGURES .................................................. xii
CHAPTER ONE -- INTRODUCTION ..................................... 1
Statement of the Problem .......................................... 1
Purpose of the Research ........................................... 2
Research Objectives .............................................. 4
Theoretical Perspectives ........................................... 6
Erikson: Psychosocial Development ................................. 6
Bronfenbrenner: Ecology of Human Development ..................... 10
CHAPTER TWO -- REVIEW OF LITERATURE ........................... 12
Overview of Concepts ........................................... 12
Community Service ............................................. 14
Service-Learning .............................................. l 5

From Dewey to the Present: A Brief History .......................... 16
Service-Learning and College Student Development .................... 18

Identity ...................................................... 21
Psychosocial Development ....................................... 21

Identity and Service ............................................ 22
Attachment ................................... ' ................. 2 5
Attachment and Service ......................................... 28

Care ......................................................... 28
Perception of Care ............................................. 29
Learning to Care .............................................. 3O

Caring For Others .............................................. 32
Conceptual Model ............................................... 36
CHAPTER THREE -- METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURE ................. 39
Sampling Procedure ............................................. 4O
Demographic Characteristics of the Sample ............................ 43
Research Design ................................................ 44
Objectives of the Study ........................................... 46

Basic Research Questions ......................................... 47

viii

Conceptual and Operational Deﬁnitions ............................... 48

Independent Variables .......................................... 48
Dependent Variables ............................................ 49
Control Variables .............................................. 5 1
Other Deﬁnitions .............................................. 52
Instrumentation (Quantitative) ...................................... 52
Research Hypotheses (Quantitative) and Research Questions (Qualitative) . . . . 54
Interview Questions (Qualitative) ................................... 56
Research Assumptions ............................................ 57
Data Collection ................................................. 57
Quantitative .................................................. 58
Qualitative ................................................... 58
Data Analysis .................................................. 59
Quantitative .................................................. 59
Qualitative ................................................... 60
CHAPTER FOUR -- RESULTS ......................................... 61
Organization of Data Analysis ...................................... 61
Descriptive Findings ............................................. 62
Test of Hypotheses (Quantitative) ................................... 68
Additional Quantitative Analyses .................................... 82
Qualitative Findings .............................................. 84
Care ........................................................ 84
Identity ...................................................... 89
Diversity ..................................................... 90
CHAPTER FIVE -- DISCUSSION ....................................... 95
Brief Description of the Study ...................................... 95
Discussion of Quantitative Findings .................................. 96
Descriptive Findings ............................................ 97
Identity ..................................................... 102
Attachment .................................................. 106
Discussion of Qualitative Findings .................................. 109
CHAPTER SIX -- CONCLUSION ...................................... 113
Summary ..................................................... 113
Limitations of the Study ......................................... 115
Implications ................................................... 116
Conclusion ................................................... 119

APPENDICES ..................................................... 1 20

Appendix A - Questionnaire and Consent Form ........................ 120
Appendix B - Focus Group Questions ............................... 143
Appendix C - UCRIHS Permission Letter ............................ 144
LIST OF REFERENCES ............................................. 145

Table 1:
Table 2:
Table 3:
Table 4:
Table 5:
Table 6:
Table 7:
Table 8:
Table 9:
Table 10:
Table 11:

Table 12:

LIST OF TABLES

Frequencies of Sex, Race, Age, and Major of the Entire Subsample ....... 43
Students’ Demographic Characteristics ............................ 62
Student Inspirers by Groups ..................................... 67
Students’ Ideological Identity for Service and Non-Service Groups ....... 69
Students’ Interpersonal Identity for Service and Non-Service Groups ...... 70
Students in Exploration Status on Ideological Identity at 1995 and 1997 . . . 71

Students in Exploration Status on Interpersonal Identity at 1995 and 1997 . . 74

Mean Scores on Attachment to Mothers and Fathers .................. 78
One-way AN OVA for Mothers’ Attachment ........................ 79
One-way AN OVA for Fathers’ Attachment ......................... 79
Students’ Ideological Identity for Service-Learning and Prior Service
Experience .................................................. 82
Students’ Interpersonal Identity for Service-Learning and Prior Service
Experience .................................................. 83

xi

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Community Service as a Function of Mesosystemic Inﬂuences ........... 38
Figure 2: Dispersion of Data on Fathers’ Attachment by Group ................. 80
Figure 3: Dispersion of Data on Mothers’ Attachment by Group ................. 81

Chapter 1 -- INTRODUCTION

Statement of in: Prom

The U. S. education system, especially the higher educational system, has retreated from
teaching the importance of caring for each other (Fuller, 1992; Noddings, 1995; Phillips &
Benner, 1994). “A few years ago Ernest Boyer indicted our country’s educational system,
particularly our colleges, for failing to ‘help students understand that they are not only
autonomous individuals but also members of a human community’” (cited in Fuller, 1992, p. 9).
Scholars have acknowledged the importance of cultivating a sense of caring for the community
through incorporating service-learning approaches (Altman, 1996; Macy, 1994). However, for
youth to care for others through service-learning implies that they perceive signiﬁcant others in
their lives as being caring and supportive of them. Youth who perceive a lack of support and care
ﬁ'om family members, neighbors, and the community are at a higher risk for engaging in violent
acts (National Research Council, 1993; Kagan, 1991) , abusing alcohol and drugs (Hawkins,
Catalano, & Miller, 1992; Kagan, 1991), being diagnosed with clinical depression and eating
disorders (Blau, 1996; Kendler, MacLean, Neale Kessler, Heath, & Eaves, 1991; Nolen—
Hoeksema & Girgus, 1994; Weinstein, 1996), and becoming teenage parents (National Research
Council, 1993; Kagan, 1991 ). Many youth have lost hope in the motivation to explore who they
are, an identity, because of a growing cynicism that has drawn our culture away from the

perception of living in a caring and trusting world (Bronfenbrenner, McClelland, Wethington,

2

Moen, & Ceci, 1996; Pipher, 1996). Eckersley (1993) offers his opinion regarding this dilemma
in the United States:
It may be, then, that the greatest wrong we are doing to our children is not

the fractured families or the scarcity of jobs (damaging though these are), but the

creation of a culture that gives them little more than themselves to believe in--and

no cause for hope or optimism.

At the social level, this absence of faith grievously weakens community

cohesion; at the level of the individual, it undermines our resilience, our capacity to

cope with the more personal difﬁculties and hardships of everyday life (p. 9).
Thus, it is imperative that educators, policy makers and people working with youth understand
the scope of this problem and address this issue in proactive ways. Service-learning approaches in
higher education offer one way to address this issue.

Service-learning is one way students have opted to express their humanitarian concerns.
In its most basic sense, service-learning involves a student who volunteers time providing service,
directly or indirectly, to a person or a group of people while, at the same time, being able to
reﬂect on this service through course instruction. The component of service-learning that
distinguishes it from other forms of service, as many educators would agree, is the self reﬂection
that is built into the curriculum. In essence, the service learner acknowledges and reﬂects on the
reciprocal form of service opportunity (Delve, Mintz & Stewart, 1990; National and Community
Service Act of 1990; Waterman, 1997).

Purpose of the Research

Faculty and administrators from small colleges, large universities, and professional degree

programs have recently acknowledged the importance of involving college students in the role of

providing service to the community (Altman, 1996; Zlotkowski, 1996). In fact, an association

exists among university presidents, Campus Compact, that is devoted to the promotion of

3

activities for students involved in public service (Delve, Mintz & Stewart, 1990). Many students
who engage in activities that provide some sort of a service to the community have realized the
ﬁxture beneﬁts ﬁ'om this kind of work. Providing a service to the community has resulted in
students becoming more marketable in the work force and is considered an important criterion for
admission to many professional degree programs (e.g., medical school, law school, and social
work). However, this sort of incentive to provide service may in some cases separate it from
another related and important purpose underlying these activities, namely, caring for the
community.

Regardless of future incentives, students engage in service activities primarily to promote
the well-being of the community. These students bring with them a caring attitude about their
role in life with others in the world. Chaskin and Hawley reported, “A world view built on caring
sees the individual in the context of social relationships--family, friends, religious institutions,
schools, communities-~with individual and collective rights and priorities integrally connected”
(1994, p. 3). What is it about these students that makes them behave in a more humanitarian way
than many of their peers? If we can begin to understand the components that make up the
complex answer to this question, we can then promote this kind of prosocial development through
structured activities for youth.

Given the importance of this issue, one wonders why this area has not been explored in the
academic literature more fully. One possible explanation to this question is that to understand
service-learning, research in this area would require both ecologically valid research (found in
qualitative studies) with generalizable ﬁndings (found in experimental/quantitative research).

These two methodologies historically have been represented on opposing world views. The

4

qualitative approach generally relies on an interpretive and/or critical paradigm, while the
quantitative approach generally relies on an empirical/postpositivistic science (Vaines, 1990).
These world views have come under debate regarding the relevant contribution to human
behavior. Hence, this investigator believes that the debate between qualitative and quantitative
methodologies has hindered the progress in understanding the service-learner.

Historically, methodology has been greatly overemphasized, at the expense of

content. Obsession with the quantitative-qualitative dispute indicates a continued

ﬁxation on methods. Methods are important, but they should play a facilitative

role. Hence, the quantitative-qualitative dispute is dated and directs attention
away ﬁom important issues (House, 1994, p. 14).

Research Objectives

This study addressed the issue of college students caring for others by engaging in
community service by using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies in its design. The
researcher explored selected components of caring behavior as it relates to community service,
taking into consideration the community service experience of college students. Three groups of
college students were studied, each with a different degree of experience with community service:
(a) Service-Learners (Group 1), students in the class who volunteered for service as part of the
course; (b); Not Volunteers--No Service (Group 2), students in the course who did not have any
prior community service and who did not volunteer for service as part of the course; and (c) Not
Volunteers--Prior Service (Group 3), students in the class who had some prior community
service experience but did not volunteer for service as part of the course (All the students but one
in Group 1 had some prior community service experience). This study was designed to
investigate whether there were any quantitative and qualitative differences in certain facets

of identity development, attachment, and family life among these three groups of students.

5

The sample of students were selected from a large class on diversity at Michigan State University
from the Integrative Social Sciences (188 335) during the Spring semester of 1995.

Conceptually, two human development areas were explored using empirical/quantitative
measures: (a) identity development and (b) students’ perceptions of attachment to their parents.

It was hypothesized that students who had reported engagement in prior community service
activities (Groups 1 and 3) would yield higher scores on the interpersonal domains of identity (sex
role, ﬁ'iendship, dating, and recreational choices) and the ideological domains of identity
(occupation, religion, political beliefs, and philosophical lifestyle) than the students who did not
report engagement in community service activities (Group 2) (see Yates, 1995). For parental
attachment, it was hypothesized that the two groups who had engaged in some community service
experience (Groups 1 and 3) would perceive their attachments with their parents as more secure
than those who did not have any prior service experience (Group 2).

While the use of empirical measures of identity and attachment provide an understanding
of the theoretical constructs ﬁ'om which the measures were derived, this approach does little to
aid one’s understanding of the phenomenological realities of these students. Qualitative
approaches tap into these realities by providing rich descriptions about major contexts in students’
lives. For this study, a qualitative inquiry using focus groups was adopted to explore the
relevance of important contexts (family, peers, faculty, and institutions) in the students’ lives.
Through the focus groups, the major research question centered on whether a caring ethic was
internalized (socialized) through the family and then perpetuated through other signiﬁcant
contexts in the students’ lives. Thus, this qualitative approach asked two questions: (a) “How has

the family contributed to students’ motivation to engage in community service?” and (b) “Is

6

service-learning a viable tool among college students to cultivate this kind of civic behavior?”

Overall, this study examined three facets of college students’ development . The ﬁrst facet
concerned the differences among the three groups of students, Group 1, Group 2, and Group 3.
This part of the study investigated differences in reported global identity, and parent attachment in
an attempt to understand the signiﬁcance of these factors to service learning. The second facet of
the study involves the element of time. Data on global identity were gathered in the Spring
semester of 1995 (Time 1). Students were followed up using this same measure in Spring 1997
(Time 2) to explore any signiﬁcant differences, change in their development. The third facet of
the study involved a contextual inquiry by using focus groups to uncover what students perceived
as important elements of caring behaviors and how this is related to engaging in community
service activities.

'_l’_heoreticel Pemgwtives

There were two major theoretical approaches used as a ﬁamework for this study. The
ﬁrst approach focuses on the dynamic relationship that exists between the individual and society.
It focuses on the developmental aspects of the individual as it relates to society. Erik Erikson has
theorized about this and has proposed a theory of epigenetic stages of human psychosocial
development. The second approach emphasizes the quality of the relationships between people or
human systems (i.e., a family) with their environment. Urie Bronfenbrenner has written
extensively about this in his life’s work.
Eﬂ sen; Psychgseeid Development

There are numerous theoretical approaches that illuminate certain areas of identity

development (i.e., Kegan's constructive-developmental approach or Blos's object relations

7

approach), but Erik Erikson's (1963, 1968) psychosocial approach to human development appeals
to many professionals because of its utility in many professional arenas: clinical, theoretical, and
empirical. Erikson's seminal work stressed the importance of history (personal and societal) and
social contexts as inﬂuencing individuals' lives; consequently, he incorporated these ideas into his
concept of identity formation in adolescence.

Erik Erikson developed the construct of ego identity as an adaptive response to Freud's
focus on neurotic personalities. He was interested in the development of healthy personalities and
created a lifespan stage theory that addressed the development of the healthy ego. Obtaining a
healthy ego identity evolves through unconscious and conscious mechanisms interacting
dynamically in a process of discovering the self. According to Erikson, there are certain key
crises inherent in different periods of a person's life, which are a direct reﬂection of the person's
social maturity and societal expectations. The crises are then categorized into distinct
psychosocial stages of development at which times certain ego strengths emerge as resolutions of
these crises.

A person integrates into his or her ego identity the resolution of the crises for each stage
of development. Each stage of psychosocial development culminates in a balance of both syntonic
and dystonic outcomes. A syntonic outcome is a positive experience through which the individual
strives to attain and consequently maintain the experience in the overall ego structure. Receiving
accolades for achievement in school from a signiﬁcant teacher is an example of a syntonic
experience. Conversely, a dystonic outcome is a negative experience whereby the individual
strives to avoid and consequently rectify the experience in the overall ego structure. Being the

recipient of a disparaging remark from a signiﬁcant teacher is an example of a dystonic

8

experience. Healthy psychological development occurs when the number of syntonic experiences
outweighs dystonic experiences (Waterman, 1993, p. 53).

Adolescence, the ﬁfth stage of psychosocial development, is the crucial period during
which identity formation occurs. It reﬂects the accumulative syntonic and dystonic outcomes of
the prior four stages of development. Identity formation is an integration in the self of the prior
outcomes related to earlier stages of development. However, as Erikson noted, the formation of
identity does not occur in a vacuum. The culture of society is crucial in how the adolescent
integrates the prior stages of development. One's culture is shaped by the contexts in adolescents'
lives. The conﬂuence of these contexts impart lasting impressions on adolescents' identities. The
important others (i.e., parents, siblings, teachers, and peers) within these contexts create
environments that result in a range from being inviting to being disinviting. Josselson (1993)
eloquently describes the importance of signiﬁcant others in stating, "We are most ourselves as we
are meaningful for others. We are to others only in reference to how we experience ourselves" (p.
89).

Hamachek (1985) uses a metaphor of ego grth rings, much like the growth rings of a
tree, to facilitate an understanding of how an adolescent integrates the selfin relation to
contextual conditions when constructing an identity. Erikson's psychosocial stages of
development are irnbedded in a series of concentric circles such that the width between each ring
of development identiﬁes the context, both positive and negative, of growth. Development that is
constricted by the environment and made up of mostly dystonic outcomes would show a shorter
width in growth for a particular stage, while development that is enriched or expanded by the

environment and made up of mostly syntonic outcomes would show a longer width in growth for

9
a particular stage. This study explored whether or not engaging in community service enriched
the college students’ identity development.

Identity development mirrors the outcomes achieved in various domains in a person's life.
Erikson delineated the following identity domains where this mirroring or self-reﬂection occurs.
These are (1) vocation; (2) ideologies (religious, political and economic); (3) philosophy in life;
(4) ethical capacity; (5) sexuality; (6) gender, ethnicity, culture, and nationality; and (7) "an all-
inclusive human identity" (Erikson, 1968, p. 42). Through growth and integration in these
domains, the adolescent's identity becomes integrated ideally forming a healthy and stable self.

Marcia (1980) applied Erikson's concepts of ego identity into two operational dimensions
of exploration and commitment.

Exploration refers to a period of struggle or active questioning in arriving at

various aspects of personal identity, such as vocational choice, religious beliefs, or

attitudes about the role of a spouse or parenting in one's life. Commitment

involves making a ﬁrm, unwavering decision in such areas and engaging in

appropriate implementing activities. (Waterman, 1993, p. 56)

Relative to these two dimensions of exploration and commitment, Marcia delineated four identity
statuses that exist for an individual in later adolescence. These four statuses are as follows: (1)
identity diffusion, (2) identity foreclosure, (3) moratorium, and (4) identity achievement.
Identity Diffused adolescents have not committed to an internally consistent set of values and
goals and exploration is superﬁcial or absent. Identity Foreclosed adolescents have committed to
a set of values and goals with little or no exploration present. Moratorium adolescents are in the
process of committing to a set of values and goals as they are intensely exploring alternatives to

their decisions. Identity Achieved adolescents have experienced a period of exploration (as in

moratorium) and have come to an autonomous resolution of identity by committing to a set of

10

values and goals (Patterson, Sochting, & Marcia, 1993, pp. 10-12; Marcia, 1993, pp. 10-11).
Through the theoretical underpinnings of Erikson and the empirical applications of Marcia, it is
readily apparent that the earlier stages of psychosocial growth profoundly affect early adolescents'
potential to explore and commit to a set of values and goals consistent with their identity.

For even within a wider identity man meets man always in categories (be they adult

and child, man and woman, employer and employee, leader and follower, majority

and minority) and “human” interrelations can truly be only the expression of

divided function and the concrete overcoming of the speciﬁc ambivalence inherent

in them: that is why I came to reformulate the Golden Rule as one that commands

us to always act in such a way that the identities of both the actor and the one

acted upon are enhanced (Erikson, 1968, p. 316).

r n r : E 01 f H D v 1 m

Bronfenbrenner’s (1989, 1993) approach to human development allows the investigator
the opportunity to explore important contextual inﬂuences in an effort to ask the right questions
about issues in human development (Schiamberg, Paulson, & Zawacki, in press). Bronfenbrenner
views an individual in constant interaction with the environment. Development occurs as a
ﬁmction of a person in the environment; thus a change occurs in the person, the environment, or
in both the person and the environment. This approach emphasizes the dynamic properties of
human development.

The human ecological approach is an ideal way for understanding the dynamics of caring
behavior, such as service learning. Not only does it view the issue systemically, it emphasizes the
linkages of the systems affecting the developing student. The human ecological approach expands

Erikson’s work by providing a framework for studying how the contexts ﬁmction or covary with

one another. There are ﬁve major concepts in the theory; they are the (a) microsystem, (b)

ll

mesosystem, (c) exosystem, (d) macrosystem, and (e) the chronosystem. The microsystem is
the setting or context in which a person is located, such as the home. The mesosystem involves
the relations between the microsystems or the linkages between the contexts (e.g., relating school
and home/familial contexts). The exosystem refers to inﬂuences from different contexts that are
external to the person’s microsystem inﬂuences (e. g., parents' work environment affects the
home/familial context) . The macrosystem refers to the cultural beliefs of a society. The
chronosystem is the patterning of events in the environment as a transition in time marking the
sociohistorical conditions (e. g., comparing the cohort effects of adolescents from different
decades). Using this approach emphasizes studying individuals in a holistic framework. Feelings
and perceptions are important factors in learning about an issue, such as community service.

This study was able to apply Bronfenbrenner’s framework in formulating the study’s
design. The impetus to use both a qualitative and a quantitative design evolved from the emphasis
placed on context in Bronfenbrenner’s theoretical framework on the ecology of human
development. Without the use of a qualitative approach such as a focus group, wherein one asks
the students directly who the major inspirers were in their lives and how these inspirers shaped
their ability to care for others, the interpretation of context would really not be possible. Without
such a qualitative approach, the quantitative ﬁndings, while they might be interpreted objectively,
would still not provide for an intersubjective understanding about the context of care in students’
lives. Thus, this study was able to address the importance of context that is emphasized in

Bronfenbrenner’s work by using a multimethod approach.

Chapter 2 -- REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Overview of Concepts

The idea to engage in this project originated from the investigator’s academic background
in human development and working in the human services ﬁeld coupled with the opportunity for
the investigator to study undergraduate students engaging in community service. As a facilitator
in group reﬂection sessions, a part of a service-learning activity with undergraduate students in
188 335, the investigator became aware of the developmental aspects in these students through
the sharing of their experiences. The investigator began to think about the grth and
development that occurs for the traditional undergraduate student between the ages of 18 and 22
years and how working with people in the community could enrich this experience. From the
group reﬂection sessions and discussions with other people working on the project (a)
development in identity, (b) increasing interpersonal skills and (c) improving critical thinking skills
initially evolved as research constructs to explore.

For the investigator, Gilligan’s (1982/1993) “ethics of care” philosophy kept being
revisited. Gilligan’s statement, “The ideal of care is thus an activity of relationship, of seeing and
responding to need, taking care of the world by sustaining the web of connection so that no one is
left alone” (p. 62), enlightened the investigator’s thinking on how care and attachment are integral

parts related to the process of engaging in community service. Attachment to signiﬁcant others,

12

13

especially the college students’ attachment to their parents, deﬁnitely inﬂuenced the dynamic
process of their serving. The students who engaged in service found themselves caring for the
people they served. This process of “caring by doing” the service was qualitatively different for
each student. Each student came with his or her own lens. After facilitating these sessions, the
investigator began to see the interconnectedness among community service, identity,
attachment, and care.

These interconnections of terms take on a developmental sequence. This sequence is as
follows. The student comes from a home where parents serve as the primary caregivers. These
parents form attachments with the student. The quality of this attachment develops as the student
matures and interacts with other people in the family’s home. Thus, the home becomes the
informal learning environment for early prosocial behaviors. The quality of attachment with the
primary caregiver affects the ease with which the student intemalizes a “caring ethic”.

This caring ethic is applied in settings outside the home, where it may or may not be
expressed. One of the contexts where this caring ethic can be expressed is through community
service. As the student reaches adolescence, formal operational thinking allows him to decide
whether to adopt or reject this caring ethic as a part of his identity. Certain contexts may foster
the expression of caring behaviors more than others. Some contexts may be similar to home life
and the values inherent in the home which make the expression of caring easier. Other contexts
may be so distant from how caring was “learned” that the student rejects this as a legitimate way
of relating to others. It is through these contexts, the student’s life experiences, that the student
learns to value an ethic of care. It has been argued that engaging in community service fosters

this ethic of care (Coles, 1993; Jacoby and Associates, 1996; Kohn, 1990; and Rhoads, 1997).

14

These life experiences, in turn, inform the self, hence one’s identity. Dewey (1916) provides a
cogent example.

When the physician began his career he may not have thought of a pestilence; he

may not have consciously identiﬁed himself with service under such conditions.

But, if he has a normally growing or active self, when he ﬁnds that his vocation

involves such risks, he willingly adopts them as integral portions of his activity.

The wider or larger self which means inclusion instead of denial of relationships is

identical with a self which enlarges in order to assume previously unforeseen ties

(On-line, Chapter 26).

Community Service

Just as the self is informed when a physician engages in life-threatening circumstances
treating others, these inclusive acts are a part of development for people who engage in
community service. Community service, by deﬁnition, is volunteer work that helps others in the
community (Serow, Ciechalski, & Daye, 1990; Yates &Youniss, 1996b). For college students,
the community is generally considered the people outside of the academy. These service activities
can range anywhere from collecting food for a food drive for the homeless or actually working in
soup kitchens directly serving the homeless people. More than half of the college students ﬁ'om a
large survey have indicated that they have chosen this type of activity to occupy their time. In this
survey of over nine thousand undergraduate students ranging from community colleges to
universities, 64% of the students reported involvement in some sort of community service activity
(Levine, 1994). More than halfof the males (62%) and females (66%) in this study participated
in service, as well as white students (65%) and students of color (62%). Thus, community service
attracts many students in higher education with a diversity of demographic characteristics. Robert

Coles (1993) has interpreted the college students’ choice of engaging in community service as a

way to express their idealistic views of the changes needed in society. The students ideals are to

15
change the present conditions to conditions that are more humanitarian and politically just.
rvi -L

Many educators have recognized the potential of linking community service with concepts
learned in class. This type of learning is referred to as service-learning. Service-learning has
become the term of choice among many professionals in higher education. It makes use of core
values inherent in our culture, volunteerism and education. Support has been given to
professionals inculcating it into their academic courses (Jacoby and Associates, 1996). However,
the energy invested in creating an optimal situation for the service opportunity takes time ﬁ'om
educators, students, and the community contexts that are involved. This time is not often
rewarded as a part of the tenure-promotion activities for faculty at universities (Zlotkowski,
1996). Given these inherent realities, it is not difficult to envision why this coveted pedagogical
tool has not completely taken hold in institutions of higher learning.

What exactly is service-learning? Jacoby and Associates (1996) have deﬁned service-
learning as follows:

Service-learning is a form of experiential education in which students engage in

activities that address human and community needs together with structured

opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development.

Reﬂection and reciprocity are key concepts of service-learning (p. 5).
This type of service promotes student development through these two key concepts: reﬂection
and reciprocity. Students who volunteer time at a shelter for homeless people may provide a
service to people in the community, but without applying critical thought to this experience,

reﬂection, social-emotional and cognitive development may or may not occur, depending on the

student’s inherent capabilities. Thus, providing service opportunities without reﬂection in course

16

instruction encourages those students who would beneﬁt from this experience an opportunity for
growth, but it is not designed to promote sensitivity to the learner who may require structured and
integrated critical thought for growth.

Without reciprocity, the context for conducting service activities would be less than
optimal. Trying to help people who do not see the inherent beneﬁts of the help hinders growth
for the helper and the people being helped. Learning occurs on both sides of the helping
relationship. In addition to this dynamic learning process, the service provider gains in feeling a
greater sense of belonging and responsibility for community needs. Providing this civic
responsibility has been shown to reduce feelings of alienation (Calabrese & Schumer, 1986),
increase tolerance and openness towards others as well as increase empathy (cited in Yates &
Youniss, 1996b).

Fr m D Pr ' A B ° f

The roots of service-learning in the United States are traced to the works of John Dewey.
He stated, “The child is born with a natural desire to give out, to do, to serve”(l959 , p. 22). His
major premise on education was that students learn best through experiential learning. This
learning, according to Dewey, is what builds the student’s character. His beliefs on education
were deeply rooted in the cliché: learning by doing. In W Dewey
(1959) expounded the importance of providing active learning in education. To him learning that
involves the passive behavior of reading and absorbing knowledge without using it in lived
experiences is selﬁsh and does not build the student’s character. Applying learned knowledge to
lived experiences, according to Dewey, creates an educational context that provides a service to

others. Education, therefore, becomes social and a way of building good moral principles.

17

Dewey’s ideas were inﬂuential in shaping the course of service-learning in higher
education. It was not until the 19605 that the linking of community service with higher education
was formally routinized (Leary, 1994). The sociohistorical inﬂuences of the era, especially the
Vietnam War, lead to increased apathy and cynicism within the student population. National
programs, such as the Peace Corps and VISTA were offered to college students as a way to
address the ongoing apathy. Additionally, volunteer opportunities in the community were offered
to students within the college and university campuses. Jacoby and Associates (1996) reported
that these initial programs failed in their efforts to be sustainable for three reasons:

1. The service-learning programs were not integrated into the mission and goals of the
academic institutions with which they were afﬁliated.

2. The people in the service-learning programs did not fully recognize the interdependency
among the students serving and the people in the community being served. This lack of
recognition resulted in paternalistic and oppressive outcomes rather than serving the people in the
community to meet their own needs.

3. The service-learning programs did not adequately link academic learning with the service
experience. Additionally, effective service delivery was not always present within these programs.
Thus, signiﬁcant learning among the students in the academic institutions was not always present
and proper training for the service activity did not always occur.

Aware of these shortcomings, a group of educators, affiliated with the National Society
for Experiential Education (N SEE), who advocated the importance of the service-learning
movement collaborated to form a set of principles. These principles have served as a guide in

assessing the present quality of service-learning programs. They include the following:

18

1. An effective program engages people in responsible and challenging actions
for the common good.

2. An effective program provides structured opportunities for people to
reﬂect critically on their service experience.

3. An effective program articulates clear service and learning goals for
everyone involved.

4. An effective program allows for those with needs to deﬁne those needs.

5. An effective program clariﬁes the responsibilities of each person and
organization involved.

6. An effective program matches service providers and service needs through
a process that recognizes changing circumstances.

7. An effective program expects genuine, active, and sustained organizational
commitment.

8. An effective program includes training, supervision, monitoring, support,
recognition, and evaluation to meet service and learning goals.

9. An effective program insures that the time commitment for service and

learning is ﬂexible, appropriate, and in the best interests of all involved.

10. An effective program is committed to program participation by and with

diverse populations (Porter Honnet & Poulsen, 1989).
When the service activity is at its zenith in efﬁciency and effectiveness, learning and growth occur
for the people involved in all three major contexts in the program: (a) academic institutions, (b)
students, and (c) community. This study focused speciﬁcally on the outcomes for the college
students providing the service. However, one should note that the merit in the students’
outcomes is deﬁnitely related to the quality of the relationships among all three contexts.

-L ' 11 D v 1 m

Developmental outcomes for students have been categorized into ﬁve broad theoretical
ﬁameworks or models: (a) cognitive developmental theories, (b) learning styles, (0) psychosocial
theories, (d) identity development dimensions, and (e) theories and models on career development
(Jacoby and Associates, 1996). Many of the concepts within these categories overlap in content

with respect to developmental issues for the college student. A brief discussion of the ﬁrst three

frameworks is discussed as it is relevant for the study and highlights important facets of the

19

developing college student.

Among the cognitive developmental theories, the work of Perry (1970), Kohlberg (1975)
and Gilligan (1982/1993) are among the most referenced. Another emerging theory is from
Baxter Magoloda (1992) where gender-related patterns are found among college students based
on their “ways of knowing”. All of these theorists have developed stages of cognitive or
intellectual development for individuals based on the perceptions about the people for which they
interact. Each stage becomes more abstract, hence more sophisticated, in individuals’
development. These theoretical approaches allow one to view the college student ﬁom different
levels of development. They are key to learning about the effectiveness of programs as far as
students’ personal development.

In reviewing the learning styles theorists, one ﬁnds that the most noted is Kolb’s (1984)
Model of Experiential Learning. Within this model, there are four different learning styles. These
styles are (a) convergers, (b) accommodators, (c) divergers, and (d) assirnilators. Convergers
generally like to conceptualize things abstractly and engaging in active experimenting as their
dominant learning preference. Accommodators generally like engaging in active experimenting
and having concrete experiences as their dominant learning preference. Divergers generally like
having concrete experiences and reﬂective observation as their dominant learning preference.
Assimilators generally like to conceptualize things abstractly and engaging in reﬂective
observation as their dominant learning preference Based on these four styles of learning, some
students may adopt the service-learning experience more easily with better outcomes, generally
the divergers (see Cagenello, 1993 for a detailed application of this model to service-learning).

The most germane psychosocial theories to this study are the works of Erik Erikson that

20

was discussed in the previous chapter and Chickering and Reisser (1993) that are discussed
below. The frameworks offered by these models have served as a backdrop for understanding the
dimensions of college student development.

Chickering and Reisser (1993) have taken these developmental areas and have postulated
a comprehensive framework from which to understand the college student. This framework is
based on seven key vectors of development. The term vector is used to denote dimensions of
development that contain both magnitude and direction. These vectors, numbered are (l)
competence, (2) emotions, (3) autonomy, (4) interpersonal relationships, (5) identity, (6) purpose,
and (7) integretity. The ﬁrst four vectors serve as critical components to developing a secure
identity, the ﬁfth vector. Purpose (vocation, recreation, and lifestyle) and integrity (personal
belief system) are vectors that are explored only after a stable, yet dynamic, identity has been
achieved. The relevance of this ﬁamework for service-learning programs are related to the
development of values for the student. Martin Rich and DeVitis (1994) have stated their
interpretation:

Thus college may more likely affect the basis for holding values, how they are held,

and the role they play in one’s life. Chickering insists that it is more important for

values to have a larger role in the student’s life than to change the content of

values. The tasks are to humanize and personalize values and develop congruence

among them” (p. 74).
Service-learning programs are well-suited to address the introspection that is needed to assist in
humanizing and personalizing values for students. Rhoads (1997) provides a detailed look at how
college students are challenged and supported as they embark on service-learning experiences. In

one instance, students were asked to work at a homeless shelter. This is one student’s response

to this experience:

21

Working with the people of the streets has transformed ‘those people’ into real
faces, real lives, and real ﬁiends. I can no longer confront the issue without seeing
the faces of my new friends. This has an incredible effect on my impetus to help

(p. 67).
These personal stories abound when one asks the college student to reﬂect critically on their
experiences in community service. In summary, service-learning has been shown to be a viable
pedagogical tool for addressing the seven vectors of college student development outlined by
Chickering and Reisser.

may

Identity research can be as broad as studying several traits of an individual’s personality as
it is relates to behavioral outcomes or it can be as speciﬁc as looking at one aspect of the self, like
ethnic identity and its behavioral outcomes. Moreover, research on identity, or its related
constructs, has been investigated by many disciplines in the social sciences and humanities: (a)
sociology, (b) anthropology, (c) theology, ((1) literature, and (e) psychology. As a result there are
many theoretical approaches to identity. As stated in Chapter 1, this study applied Erikson’s
principle of identity as it relates to college students’ engagement in community service activities.
P ° v 1 11

Development for the traditional college student on campus involves opening the doors to a
new world of ideologies and life styles. This exposure to a potpourri of ideas and ways of being
in the world is met with enthusiasm, disgust, passion, and even indifference to this new world.
Many students are able to handle the ﬂood of feelings and adopt a rudimentary pathway of
ideologies and life styles that “ﬁt” their needs. This path or discovery of the “self” involves a

recursive process of relating to others and reﬂecting on these encounters. It involves a balance

22

between being with others and being with oneself.

The process of balancing this connectedness and separateness involves varying degrees of
behaving or acting in the environment. Some actions require more direct manipulation of the
environment in order to accomplish a task. This direct action has been referred to as agency
(Bakan, 1966; Fuller, 1992). Mastery of the environment is the operating principle for this
interpersonal skill. Other actions require more adaptation to ﬁt with others in the world, and thus
less manipulation of the environment. This indirect action has been referred to as mutuality
(Erikson, 1968; Fuller, 1992). In this mutuality, the individual learns the interpersonal skills of
listening, empathy, cooperation, and respect for others’ ways of being. Both agency and
mutuality are important aspects of identity development. The struggle to be unique and an
important member of the community emphasizes the crux of Erikson’s notion of psychosocial
development. Chickering and Reisser’s (1993) model of seven vectors discussed above applies
this thinking to the college student.

The vectors describe major highways for journeying toward individuation—-the

discovery and reﬁnement of one’s unique way of being--and also toward

communion with other individuals and groups, including the larger national and

global society. . . .They may have different ways of thinking, learning, and

deciding, and those differences will affect the way the journey unfolds, but for all

the different stories about turning points and valuable lessons, college students live

out recurring themes: gaining competence and self-awareness, learning control and

ﬂexibility, balancing intimacy with freedom, ﬁnding one’s voice or vocation,

reﬁning beliefs, and making commitments (p. 35).

I i ervi
In a study of the effects of service-learning on undergraduates’ cognitive approaches to

social problems, pro social moral development and identity development, Batchelder and Root

(1994) used a quantiﬁcation of subjects’ weekly journals to arrive at a measure of Occupational

23

Identity Processing. These journals were kept for the complete term during which the subjects
were in a course using service-learning. The theoretical orientation for this research was based on
Grotevant’s (1987) work on a process model of identity formation. These authors discovered
that “students’ Occupational Identity Processing scores signiﬁcantly increased in later journal
entries (t=2.061, df=101)” (p. 352).

Yates and Youniss (1996a, 1996b) have recently explored this area of identity as it relates
to community service. These authors reviewed 44 empirical studies related to community service
using a developmental framework (1996b). Three concepts from this framework were common
aspects of growth inherent for the youth in the studies. These concepts include (a) agency, (b)
social relatedness, and (c) moral-political awareness. Agency in their review is related to
“personal directedness and increased self-understanding” (p. 87). Again, the direct mastery of the
environment is found. This is akin to Bakan’s description of agency described previously. In
engaging in these service activities, students’ are given opportunities to challenge existing skills
while encouraging an openness to learn new skills. One is reminded of Erikson’s concept of
industry, one of the important foundational skills from which youth explore their identity. In the
studies reviewed in this article the following outcomes were associated with agency:

1. An increased level of personal competence was found to exist for students who volunteered in
community service activities. Studies that were cited measured aspects of improvement in (a)
behavioral mastery, (b) frequency of involvement in goal-directed activities, (c) self-esteem, (d)
sense of responsibility to help others, and (e) grade point average.

2. Motivation to engage in community service activities was related to enjoyment in helping

others and having positive experiences while engaging in the service activities.

24

The second and third concepts, “[s]ocial relatedness and moral-political awareness pertain
to identity development as a process of situating oneself within a social-historical context” (Yates
& Youniss, 1996, p. 87). Social relatedness involves the social precipitating factors leading to
service experiences as well as the social attitudes reﬂected ﬁ'om these experiences. Moral-
political awareness refers to the increased moral reasoning and civic responsibility felt as a result
of engaging in service. Social relatedness and moral-political awareness foster a sense of
mutuality in the world. These concepts undergird the importance of environmental inﬂuences
playing a vital role in establishing a healthy identity. In the studies reviewed in this article the
following outcomes were associated with social relatedness and moral-political awareness:

1. Students engaged in service activities were cited in studies as having higher levels of (a)
sociability, (b) compassion, (c) benevolence, (d) tolerance and openness to others, (e) empathy
and nurturance, and (i) being politically active than students not engaged in service activities.

2. Students who volunteered for service activities were also more likely to choose college majors
that were socially oriented and involved more interaction with people in their vocational choices.

Yates and Youniss conclude their review by suggesting that programs that promote
growth in these three concepts are usually intense (e.g., involving direct help to the elderly in
nursing homes) and promote social interaction (e. g., reﬂection in groups). This kind of
community service is what is oﬂ'ered through many service-learning programs in higher education.

Although there has been research on selected areas of identity, such as Occupational
Identity by Batchelder and Root (1994) discussed above, and factors related to personal
characteristics, there has not been a study to date that addresses the global nature of identity

described by Chickering and Reisser (1993). This study served as a beginning effort to address

25

this need.
Attachment

Although the fruition of any theory involves the culmination of work by many people,
there seem to be certain people who stand out as the leaders in the ﬁeld. For attachment theory,
these lead names include John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. John Bowlby is credited with
establishing the theory of attachment. Mary Ainsworth is credited with establishing a scientiﬁc
technique, the Strange Situation, for operationalizing attachment behaviors of infants and toddlers
with their primary caregiver (Bretherton, 1995). Bowlby’s and Ainsworth’s inﬂuence have
provided a framework for other researchers to apply their work in other contexts in human
relationships.

Bowlby’s theory of attachment was introduced in three separate papers presented to the
British Psychoanalytic Society in London. These papers include: “The Nature of the Child’s Tie
to His Mother” (Bowlby, 195 8); “Separation Anxiety” (Bowlby, 1959); and “Grief and Mourning
in Infancy and Early Childhood” (Bowlby, 1960) (cited in Bretherton, 1995). The conceptual
thinking for the theory derived from many disciplines including ethology, cybemetics, information
processing, developmental psychology, and psychoanalysis. Given the theory’s breadth ﬁom a
multi-disciplinary emphasis, his work was not well-received by this professional group of
psychoanalytic thinkers. However, his persistence in his thinking along with the support from
other professionals has kept the notion of attachment to a signiﬁcant caregiver an important
criterion for maintaining psychological/mental health. In fact, in a report prior to the formulated
theory Bowlby stated, “For the moment it is sufﬁcient to say that what is believed to be essential

for mental health is that the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate, and

26

continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother-substitute) in which both ﬁnd
satisfaction and enjoyment” (1952, p. 11). The last part of the statement, “in which both ﬁnd
satisfaction and enjoyment” seems to have been clouded by later interpretations of the work of
Bowlby and his colleagues. Although not clearly stated as such, Bowlby’s work emphasized the
importance of a “goodness-of-ﬁt” between the primary caregiver and the infant or child.

Because of this reciprocity between the infant and the caregiver, certain characteristic
behaviors develop that are unique to that relationship. If the caregiver leaves the child’s life, he or
she will be missed and a grieving behavior ensues for the infant. The quality of this attachment
relationship upon return of the caregiver to the infant was ﬁrst discovered by the observations of
Mary Ainsworth (1963, 1967). She, along with colleagues (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall,
1978), developed a laboratory procedure called the “Strange Situation” that simulated her
naturalistic ﬁndings from numerous home observations of infants with their parents. The Strange
Situation was a technique used to simulate a novel context for the infant where exposure to a
“strange” person and setting elicited attachment behaviors to the primary caregiver.

Out of these experiments using the Strange Situation, three speciﬁc patterns of behavior
were noted. The ﬁrst was Secure Attachment. Infants became distressed when their mother left
the situation but eagerly greeted her with a positive affect upon return to the room. Interestingly,
65% of the sample had fallen into this category. The remaining 35% of the sample fell into
insecurely attached relationships with their mothers. They included the Insecure/Ambivalent
Attachment, where the infant mixed anger with positive affect in greeting their mother, and
Insecure/Avoidant Attachment, where the infant seemed to avoid the mother upon return without

signs of distress by the observers (cited in Jolley & Mitchell, 1996).

27

The work of Bowlby and Ainsworth has paved the way for current thinking on attachment
relationships with signiﬁcant others. The attachment relationship concept has been applied to
relationships with signiﬁcant others by examining an internal working model in adolescence and
adulthood. The notion of an internal working model is used to describe a persistent outgrth of
the original attachment relationship in infancy to signiﬁcant people other than the primary
attachment ﬁgure as one matures (Bretherton, 1996; Lyddon, Bradford, & Nelson, 1993).
Through important relationships, these new experiences help shape the current way of relating to
others, even to the original caregivers, the parents. Thus, it is believed that this relationship is
dynamic and worth pursuing using a lifespan perspective.

Attachment in adolescence and adulthood includes a broader range of signiﬁcant others,
not only the individual’s parents. The relationship to peers and other intimate relationships (i.e.,
with a partner) become important people in their lives that transform their current ways of relating
in attachment relationships. These relationships, although important to the grth of the
individual, are not muted by the original attachment relationships with his or her parents (Colin,
1996; Shaver & Clark, 1996). Strong attachment relationships with parents even in late
adolescence have been shown to be related to an overall better mental health, well-being, and
perceived social support in comparison to adolescents who reported lower attachment
relationships with their parents (Canetti, Bachar, Galili-Weisstup, De-Nour, & Shalev, 1997).
Additionally, O’Koon (1997) found that adolescents between the ages of 16 and 18 still reported
strong attachment relationships with their parents that facilitated coping aspects of a positive self-
image. Although the contexts of relating to peers becomes an important facet of adolescent

development, the quality of the relationship with parents still remains an important factor in late

28

adolescence/early adulthood.
AttachmenLandSeruice

There do not exist to date any studies relating speciﬁc attachment relationships with one’s
parents and its association to community service. However, there are a few studies that have
cited the importance of family relationships to community service. Rosenhan (1970) found that
committed activists as compared to less committed activists reported more warm and friendly
relationships with at least one parent. There were 25 committed activists and 21 less committed
activists used in this study. The level of commitment was related to the amount of time subjects
participated in civil rights activities, such as freedom rides or educational forums. In a more
recent study by Clary and Miller (1986) of people who volunteered their time at a crisis
counseling center, a similar ﬁnding was found. The level of family warmth and cohesion was
reported more with committed volunteers at the center than those who were not as committed.
This study applied this thinking about the quality of parental relationship one step further by
exploring whether higher reported levels of attachment to either parent was associated with either
community service groups in comparison to students in a group who did not report prior
commrmity service activities.

Care

 

For purposes of this study care will have some delimitations. Broadly speaking, to care
means to have thoughts and feelings about another living being, or group of living beings such
that one evokes some concern about this being or these beings. People’s thoughts and feelings of
care for others are unique, hence subjective. It would be difﬁcult to analyze these subjective

thoughts and feelings using the typical quantitative procedures (i.e., experiments and surveys)

29

thus, a qualitative approach was used in this study to understand the students’ meanings about
care. Three dimensions of care were explored among the students: (a) Perception of Care, (b)
Learning to Care, and (c) Caring for Others. These dimensions are explored in the literature
through the lenses of some inﬂuential thinkers in this area.

Esteem

To perceive a caring attitude toward someone involves many intricate concepts. “First,
care itself is a sense of empathy that entails a positive evaluation of human nature, a concern for
others’ welfare, 3 sense of responsibility, a realization of one’s capacity to help, and the
experience of actually helping” (Schervish, Hodgkinson, Gates, & Associates, 1995, pp. 18-19).
Each of these dimensions of care are essential ingredients to becoming a caring person and it
becomes quite clear that caring is a thoughtful process through which people learn about the
needs of others and then act dutifully toward meeting those needs. As will be discussed brieﬂy in
the next section, the bonding relationship with a signiﬁcant caregiver in childhood, the primary
attachment relationship, allows the elements of care to be expressed.

First, one question will be explored: How does one perceive the notion of care? Caring
involves at least two people, or beings. The ﬁrst is the caregiver and the second is the recipient of
care. The philosopher Jules Toner (cited in Schervish, 1995) has grounded the notion of care in
love. In this sense, care involves an affective state or feeling to another person in need. He notes
that care does not include feelings to a cause, such as poverty, because these feelings are ancillary
to the true act of compassion to the pe0ple experiencing this poverty. Toner also notes that true
caring involves an active thinking about and acting appropriately to another person’s needs. In

summary, caring is a compassionate act given to another being that takes into consideration the

30
context of what the recipient of care needs.
mum

Learning to care involves a setting that models and encourages care and a sensitivity to
others who acknowledge the need to care. This is why Goleman (1995) stated the following in
his recent best-selling novel, “Emotional Intelligence”:

Family life is our ﬁrst school for emotional learning; in this intimate cauldron we

learn how to feel about ourselves and how others will react to our feelings; how to

think about these feelings and what choices we have in reacting; how to read and

express hopes and fears (pp. 189-190).

This emotional learning in the family takes on many forms through direct and indirect “schooling”
by parents/ guardians and other family members. It is in the environment of the family where the
tools of caring germinate. Some of the important tools are competence, respect for self and
others, and empathy. How do children learn to care? How do some children learn to care more
than others? These questions are just starting to be addressed in the social sciences given the
scant attention it has been given in the past (Killen, 1996).

Despite this lack of attention to the importance of the construct of care, some instrumental
ideas related to learning to care have been revealed. First is the theoretical work of Carol Gilligan
(1982/1993). She has developed a theoretical framework based on an “ethic of care”. Within the
ﬁamework there are two voices of morality: one of justice and one of caring for others. Her
theoretical framework was an expansion of Kohlberg’s framework on moral development that
focused on justice. Gilligan developed a three stage model of moral development similar to

Kohlberg’s (preconventional, conventional, and post-conventional moral reasoning). However,

the levels of reasoning were based on the morality of care. These stages begin ﬁom one of

31

egocentric thinking to a more sophisticated concern for others (sociocentric). An individual
progresses from a self-focused perspective to a sophisticated caring for self with others.
Although her framework has been criticized for not being veriﬁed through empirical work, the
construct of care involving a balance between self and others represents a critical juncture in
thinking about care as an aspect of moral behavior as well as a veritable theoretical construct.

Because care involves the relationship between people, it becomes difﬁcult to discern
psychologically. Approaches that are more applied with pragmatic reasoning are better suited to
explicate this construct. Two examples of this applied work follow. First, Noddings (1995) has
cogently asserted that parents and teachers inculcate a sense of caring for their children by: (a)
listening empathically to the dreams and doubts of the children, (b) engaging in cooperative
activities that are of interest to the children, and (c) providing opportunities for the children to
care for others. Noddings perspective comes from the position of an educator. He suggests that
to provide opportunities to care the teacher needs to select mterial to be placed in the curriculum
that will raise questions about care. Issues on war, poverty, racism, and sexism can be addressed
using an interdisciplinary focus by inviting specialists in these diverse areas to speak about the
topics. Noddings suggests that careﬁrl preparation go into developing the curriculum, especially
in having foresight into the types of concerns students will have and how to address them. He
also adds “that [it] is morally irresponsible to simply ignore existential questions and themes of
care; we must attend to them” (p. 677).

Second, Schervish (1995) has developed a working model of six factors that are
“especially important for inculcating a moral identity of care”. These factors are grounded in the

importance of either engaging in community service or through pecuniary donations. The ﬁrst

32

factor is termed “communities of participation” signifying the formal and informal organizations in
individuals’ lives in which direct charitable participation can be rendered. The second factor is
termed “frameworks of consciousness”. Individuals have deep rooted beliefs and philosophies
about social issues that are grounded in personal experience. For example, some people may have
had ﬁiends or family members die ﬁom complications of having AIDS. As a result of this
experience, they support charities and efforts related to this disease. The third factor is “direct
requests”. Schervish notes that people are more inclined to get involved in service activities if
they are asked to participate. The fourth factor is termed “discretionary resources”. This means
that people are more willing to participate in service if they perceive they have the time and
money to do so. The ﬁfth factor is termed the “models and experiences ﬁ'om our youth”. There
are certain people who were valued in our lives who have imparted lasting impressions about the
very act of giving and volunteering. These include the people from different contexts who have
inﬂuenced our present motivation for engaging in service. The sixth factor is termed “intrinsic
and extrinsic rewards”. Although some people give for the sake of giving, what motivates them
to continue this process are the rewards inherent in giving. Schervish notes that the most
powerful of rewards is the personal gratiﬁcation felt in providing a service that is needed. This
service allows the service provider the ability to ﬁrrther identify with the people being served.
The ideas from Noddings and Schervish were delineated to show that service research must
embody both spheres of human development--direct action (agency) and responsible reﬂection
(mutuality)--for the knowledge to be useﬁrl.

W13

Schervish’s work focused on the factors that initiate service activities. Another line of

33

research involves the actual motivations of people who are already engaged in service. In looking
at the motivational aspects of caring for others among college students, Fitch (1991) and
Waterman (1997) uncovered some interesting ﬁndings. Students who volunteered for service
were more likely to get involved as an act of social responsibility that makes them feel good about
“doing good”. These service acts were not found to be related to extrinsic rewards, such as
seeking recognition from others. The implications of this work lead one to question why these
college students seem to be motivated by altruistic means.

One plausible answer to this is through family characteristics. In thinking about how the
family contributes to or inﬂuences a college student’s motivation to engage in community service,
one recognizes that socialization plays a strong role. Intuitively, one could make the argument
and probably not be refuted that engaging in an act of compassion, community service, is
something that has been directly modeled by parents; thus, it is expected that a college student
would follow the behavior of his or her parents. However, the data from this sample do not
support this direct linear path. There is not a strong correlation between students’ and parents’
past service (r (272) = .3242, p < .000). How does one explain this? First, socialization is more
than just a process of modeling and imitation. Lewin (1951), Bronfenbrenner (1989, 1993) and
Erikson (1963, 1968) have recognized this in their work. The environment, both past and
present, accounts for the variation in this relationship and must not be discounted simply because
it does not conform to a simple, linear relationship. A classic deﬁnition of socialization illustrates
this point: “the process by which the individual is adapted to his social environment, and becomes
a recognized, cooperating, and efﬁcient member of it” (Drever, 1955, p. 270). The key here is

adaptation, which implies a dynamic process of interaction with the environment.

34

For the child, the family is the primary socializing agent that provides the initial context
ﬁom which to view the world (Brooks, 1996; Luster & Okagaki, 1993). Because of this, family
members in the home have the unique ability to facilitate an inherent value of caring for others.
Learning how to care for and value others occurs through a process of socialization and has
recently been recognized as an important ﬁeld of study (Chase-Landsdale, Wakschlag, & Brooks-
Gunn, 1995; Chaskin & Hawley, 1994; Noddings, 1995; Resnick, Harris, & Blum, 1993).
Empathy, perspective-taking skills, devotion to loved ones, and respect for others are all integral
components of a caring person. These skills are highly valued and serve as protective mechanisms
against risky behaviors. Ideally, they are tools ‘brought” from home and applied in social settings.
As Kohn (1990) has stated, “It makes a difference whether a child hears his parent refer to other
people as subjects or objects, as unique human beings just like us or as instances of roles or
ﬁrnctions or ethnic classiﬁcations” (p. 89). Gilligan (1982/1993, 1988) and Josselson (1993) have
written extensively on the importance of studying caring behaviors and its import in human
development.

Hart and Fegley (1995) compared the level of self-understanding and social judgment of
15 Aﬁican-American and Latin-American adolescents who had engaged in caring behaviors (care
exemplars) with a matched comparison group (based on age, gender, ethnicity, and neighborhood
locality). Adolescents were selected from church leaders, leaders in social agencies, and youth
groups in Camden, New Jersey based on the following three criteria: (a) involvement in
community, church, or youth group activities that help others, (b) engaging in exemplary family
tasks and responsibilities, and (c) volunteering time helping others. Using extensive interview

techniques ranging from 4 to 6 sessions, four major categories distinguished the care exemplars

35
ﬁom the comparison group of adolescents based on their moral judgment, self-understanding, and
implicit personality theories.
1. The care exemplars described themselves more in terms of moral personality traits and goals
(“help others”, “be an honest person”, “honest”, “moral”, and “trustworthy”) than the comparison
group. The authors caution that although this is a signiﬁcant ﬁnding, the percentage of such self
descriptions for both groups of adolescents were considerably low.
2. The care exemplars did not express sharp distinctions between the immature selves (the self
two and ﬁve years ago), mature selves (present status), and the future selves (the perceived selfin
two and ﬁve years). Conversely, the comparison group did emphasize distinctions among these
three selves. Hart and Fegley concluded, “the exemplars perceive greater stability and continuity
in the self from the past into the future than do the comparison adolescents” (p. 1356).
3. The care exemplars identiﬁed their actual images of themselves with both their ideal selves and
parentally related images more than the comparison group. Additionally, the comparison group
identiﬁed their actual images of themselves with their best-ﬁiend images more than the care
exemplars. This suggests that the care exemplars orient more to behaviors consonant with their
ideal selves and parental images of themselves while the comparison group places more
prominence on the peer group for their self image.
4. Half of the care exemplars and only one of the comparison group adolescents possessed a
“theory of self’ based on their personal beliefs and philosophy in life. Conversely, the majority of
the comparison group described theories of themselves that were concerned with being accepted

and integrated into a social network. Hart and Fegley (1995) cogently stated the following

regarding these ﬁndings:

36

Because doing something as unusual as becoming deeply involved in caring

activities probably makes it difﬁcult to ﬁt in well with one’s peers, the formation of

a theory of self according to which social integration is not the sole value may be

necessary for sustained commitment (p. 1356).

The results of Hart and Fegley’s (1995) work have been highlighted to show that the
motivation to engage in helping behaviors, such as service-learning, involves much more than just
learning (being socialized to) the “accepted” ways of behaving and then acting on these behaviors.
The context is an extremely important factor in understanding this complex phenomenon of
youthﬁil caring behaviors. During adolescence and young adulthood, contexts other than the
family serve as important institutions for a critical examination of values and for a clariﬁcation of
one’s position in society (Bronfenbrenner, 1993; Erikson, 1968; Lerner, 1992; Yates and Youniss,
1996b). For example, in reference to engaging in community service, Youniss (1993) has found
that the majority of youth use institutions such as churches, schools, charitable agencies, hospitals,
retirement/nursing homes, and sports clubs as venues for their service opportunities. These
institutions provide fertile ground for a reciprocal interchange of ideas and values allowing youth
an opportunity to experience and appreciate diversity.

Conceptual Model

This study is an application of certain components from Erikson’s (1963, 1968) Lifespan
Stage Theory of Psychosocial Development and Bronfenbrenner’s (1989, 1993) Human
Ecological Model. As discussed previously these theoreticians have contributed immensely to the
importance of contextual inﬂuences. Hart and Fegley (1995) described how contexts are

important for studying community service in adolescence. This study extends this thinking by

analyzing how these contexts are related to engaging in caring behaviors among college students,

37

especially the inﬂuences from the family (Chase-Lansdale, Wakschlag, & Brooks-Gunn, 1995;
Hart & Fegley, 1995). In each of their approaches, Erikson and Bronfenbrenner acknowledge the
importance of time as a factor in studying human development. Some periods of development are
more salient than others. Erikson focused on a human’s capacity for development and whether
there were critical periods of growth, the epigenetic principle of development. Bronfenbrenner
used a more interactive view and theorized about the people a person interacts with in time as an
important aspect of development, ecological transitions. This time dimension allows the
researcher the ability to assess changes in development while acknowledging important
transitional events. Through these two approaches, the importance of family inﬂuences can be
seen, both directly as a major context and indirectly through internalized values. As such, the
foregoing review of the constructs of community service, identity, attachment, and care lead

logically to the sort of model depicted in Figure l.

38

/ / / \ \ \ / I ’ — _ ~ \ ”s \
/ \ / / \ \
/ l V \
/ / \\ \
O O O O /
,/ Michigan State University/ \\ Community
-’ /
/ / \ .
/ University Policies , \ ley
l I \
I Faculty / \ Work
. F ends
' (“"3“ / / 1 Community 1 “ \ n
i / I \ .
l Extracurricular / / | send“ ll \ guru" Scrvrcc
\ Activitics / \ I \\ 0 “m
t / \ I \
\ // \
\ . , Caring For Others Recreational \
\ / C°".‘gc Activities \
\ / RCSldCﬂCC \
\ I \
\ \ I ‘
\ \ : Attachment - l / /
\ \ L Relationships ,1], / /
l \ ———————— I i
‘ I
‘ /
\ /
\
\ Studenta' identities //
\ /
\ /
\
\ Students / /
\ \ /
\ / /

Figure 1 - Community Service as a Function of Mesosystemic Inﬂuences

Chapter 3 -- METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURE

This study was unique in its focus in that it integrated two broad areas in human
development (identity and attachment) with one area of education (service-learning) by employing
the perspective of a newly accepted ﬁeld of study, youth and caring. The ﬁrst area in human
development, identity, has strong empirical support based on studies about psychosocial
development (see Erikson, 1968 and Marcia, 1993). The second area in human development also
has strong empirical support based on studies of attachment in infants and adults (see Bowlby,
1975; and Brennan, 1993). On the other hand, service-learning is heavily rooted in education
with strong support of a developmental model that examines qualitative differences in people who
engage in service (Cagenello, 1993; Delve, Mintz, & Stewart, 1990; Payne, 1992). Integrating
areas that have been researched empirically with studies using a qualitative model is indeed
. difficult. Although each of these areas has used a different methodology, merging these areas to
understand the importance of service-learning in adolescence is long overdue. Intuitively, the
simple act of providing a service to another person or group of people can beneﬁt all those
involved.

The subjects for this study represented a subsarnple of students who had been enrolled in a
large course on US. Diversity at Michigan State University (188 335) during the Spring Semester
1995. The course is offered every Spring Semester and enrolls students from all majors at the

university. There were 393 students enrolled in the course with every student having been offered

39

40

an opportunity to voluntarily participate in completing questionnaires related to this study. From
this course, there were 277 completed questionnaires (70.5%).

The demographic characteristics of these 277 students were fairly representative of the
student population of ﬁeshmen and sophomores (n: 238, 85.9%) at Michigan State University.
The majority of the students were White (n=206, 74.4%) and between the ages of 17 and 20
(n=247, 89.2%). Most of the students reported that their parents’ income was over $50,000
(n=172, 62.1%). Slightly over half of the students reported working for pay while taking classes
(n=153, 55.2%). One unusual characteristic of this sample was their sex, most of the students
were female (n=194, 70.0%). Another unusual characteristic was that 85.6% (n=237) of the
students had reported having engaged in prior community service experiences. This is higher than
the 64% that Levine (1994) had found in his survey of nine thousand undergraduate students.

Sampling Procedure

From the completed questionnaires of 277 students, a subsample of 110 students was
selected. There were three categories of students selected as part of the research design. The
ﬁrst category, Group 1, included the students who had volunteered at Allen Street School for a
service-learning experience as part of the course (11:31). The second category, Group 2,
included the students who did not report any prior community service experience (n=39, 1 student
in the course was not presently enrolled). The third category, Group 3, included a random
selection of 40 students from the remaining 206 students in the course who had reported some
prior community service experience. As part of a questionnaire at the beginning of the course,
students were asked, “Think back on you high school and college experience and indicate your

usual level of involvement in these activities”. Students were given three choices related to

41

community service experience and asked to respond on a ﬁve-point Likert scale where a “1”
indicated “never” and a “5” indicated “always (each week)”. The three choices were (a) “high
school junior year community service”, (b) “high school senior year community service”, and (c)
“college-community service”. If students indicated a “1” for all three choices, they were placed in
the Group 2 category. If the students indicated anything higher than a “1” in any of the three
choices, they were placed in the Group 3 category. Only one student in Group 1 did not indicate
any prior community service experience.

For Group 1, these students were selected themselves by engaging in the service-learning
activity for the course. All the students who were enrolled in 188 335 were provided an
opportunity to engage in a service-learning experience. The incentive for engaging in this service
activity was to drop the two lowest quiz grades, out of 10 quizzes, in the course. The students’
service activity required them to facilitate cooperative learning groups for a class of kindergarten
through ﬁfth grade classes in science and technology at Allen Street School.

The Allen Street School students portray a demographically different context ﬁom what
most of the students at Michigan State University have been exposed. Most of Allen Street
School students are on free lunches (90%), approximately half of the students are an ethnic
minority, and halfof the students move out of the school district during the school year. Thus,
many of the elementary school students at Allen Street School are economically disadvantaged, a
minority, and socially mobile. Many of the Allen Street School students are exposed to direct
violence in their homes and neighborhoods. It is not an uncommon situation for an Allen Street
School student to be living with a grandparent because one or both parents of the student had

been arrested and put in jail for committing a crime.

42

The Michigan State University (MSU) students served as leaders in small cooperative
learning groups of elementary school students (approximately 5 in a group) from a speciﬁc class.
Students facilitated learning in the groups by assisting the students in their science projects and by
encouraging the Allen students to cooperate with their peers. Each class began with the two
groups of students getting acquainted with each through short, ﬁve minute interpersonal
exercises. For example, one exercise asked both groups of students to share what their favorite
meals were and the last time. they were able to have this meal.

The commitment for this service opportunity was to (a) volunteer two times a week for 50
minute class sessions and (b) participate in bi-weekly reﬂection sessions, lasting 40 minutes. For
the class sessions, students were given a copy of the daily lessons and instructions on how to
facilitate the group from the science and technology teacher. The students then participated in the
class by facilitating the elementary students’ learning. For the reﬂection sessions, students
participated in a combination of structured learning activities and opportunities to problem-solve
difficult situations in the classroom. There were approximately ﬁve undergraduate students in
each reﬂection session that were guided by a professor or graduate student.

During the reﬂection sessions, the MSU students were given an opportunity to share their
experiences. They typically discussed the “hardships” of the Allen Street School students and
how their own experiences as elementary school students were different. They empathized with
the Allen Street School students and quickly learned that they served as important and stable role
models. When the MSU students missed a session with the Allen Street School students, the
Allen Street School students typically confronted them about the absence. This behavior served

to reinforce the MSU students’ commitment to serving and validated their worth in serving.

43

Thus, the relationship between the two types of students was intense and direct. The MSU
students learned how to be effective role models and to appreciate the diversity among the Allen
Street School students. The Allen Street School students gained in this experience by having a
positive role model that facilitated cooperation, teamwork, and the importance of school in their
daily lives. As a closure to this relationship at the end of the MSU semester, all of the Allen
Street School students came to campus and and gave a presentation to the large 188 class (393

students). Their presentation was a “show and tell” of one of the projects they worked on with

the MSU students.

Demographic Characteristics of the Sample

Of this subsample of 1 10 students, the following is a table of descriptive statistics for each

 

 

 

group:
Table 1
F 'e f e
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3
Sex
Female 23 (74.2%) 20 (51.3%) 29 (72.5%)
Male 8 (25.8%) 19 (48.7%) 11 (27.5%)
Race
Asian 2( 6.7%) 1 ( 2.6%) 3( 7.5%)
Black 6 (20.0%) 2 ( 5.1%) 2 ( 5.0%)
Hispanic or Latino 0( 0.0%) l ( 2.6%) 0( 0.0%)
White 21 (70.0%) 35 (89.7%) 32 (80.0%)
American Indian ---- ---- ----
Mixed ---- ---- ----
Other 1 ( 3.3%) 0( 0.0%) 3( 7.5%)

 

44

Table 1 (cont’d)

 

 

 

Grog) 1 Group2 Group 3
A ' 9 5
17-18 8 (26.7%) 11 (28.2%) 19 (48.7%)
19-20 19 (63.3%) 23 (59.0%) 20 (51.3%)
21-22 3 (10.0%) 1 ( 2.6%) 0( 0.0%)
23-25 0( 0.0%) 3( 7.7%) 0( 0.0%)
26+ 0( 0.0%) 1 ( 2.6%) 0( 0.0%)
Main:
Humanities/English/Communications 1 ( 3.7%) 5 (14.3%) 4 (10.5%)
Social Sciences/History 4 (14.8%) 5 (14.3%) 3 ( 7.9%)
Math/Science/Engineer/Health Sciences 10 (37.0%) 15 (42.9%) 15 (39.5%)
Education/Human Development 6 (22.2%) 1 ( 2.9%) 9 (23.7%)
Business 6 (22.2%) 9 (25.7%) 7 (18.4%)
Other ---- —--- ----

 

The students’ reported age in 1995 was the only characteristic that was signiﬁcantly different
among the three groups (7(2 (8, N=108) = 15.51, p<.05). The data show that the only students 23
years of age and older, four students, were found in Group 2. From this ﬁnding, it would appear
that students who do engage in community service are more likely to begin at an earlier age.
Given the small sample size, any generalization beyond this sample is not recommended.
Additionally, this table reveals that the majority of the community service participants were
female, 74.2% of the participants in Group 1 and 72.5% in Group 3 were female. This statistic is
similar to Fitch’s (1987) ﬁndings of the characteristics of college students volunteering for
community service.

Research Design

Since the review of the literature in Chapter 2 supports a View that the context is an

45

integral component for optimal prosocial development, such as caring for others, it follows that
exploring this context would provide a rich explanation for engaging in caring behaviors such as
service learning. Qualitative inquiry provides the best tool for exploring contextual features
(Creswell, 1994; House, 1994; Jarrett, 1995). While context is important for understanding how
caring behaviors were engendered through the students’ maturation process, grounding this
approach through established theoretical methods and measures would validate the ﬁndings. In
other words, blending a contextually rich approach by using a qualitative method with an
established quantitative method, would facilitate and enhance the understanding of caring
behaviors. Therefore, the investigator chose a methodology that employed both a quantitative
and qualitative design.

For the quantitative approach, this study was descriptive/cross-sectional with the
exception of one measure that was administered two years after being enrolled in ISS 335: Global
Identity. Changes in students’ Global Identity scores were assessed between 1995 and 1997. A
second measure, Parent and Peer Attachment, was included as a part of this follow-up
questionnaire. Since it was not included as a measure at Time 1 (Spring 1995), results ﬁom this
measure were interpreted through analyzing mean score differences at Time 2 (Spring 1997) with
respect to the three groups of students (see Appendix A for a copy of the questionnaire).

For the qualitative approach, focus group interviews were conducted to explore what
dimensions of caring students identiﬁed presently and ﬁom their past (see Appendix B for
example questions of focus groups). Students were interviewed from each of the three groups of
students. Focus groups have been used in research designs for six deﬁning features:

1. They involve a group of 6 to 12 people,

46

They are conducted in a series to detect patterns and trends across groups.
They are composed of people with a homogenous or common factor.

They produce data.

The data produced is of a qualitative nature.

Focus groups are guided by open-ended questions (Krueger, 1994, pp. 16-21).

99:59!"

Vaughn, Schumrn, & Sinagub (1996) offer ﬁve reasons for the use of focus group interviews.
These include: (a) one can use them with quantitative designs to provide more depth and
understanding of a topic, (b) they follow a qualitative paradigm, (c) they allow direct contact with
subjects, ((1) they encourage dynamic interaction with an open format for responding, and (e)
gathering data is less time consuming than traditional approaches. For all these reasons, the focus
group was chosen as the technique of choice for understanding the contextual inﬂuences of caring
behavior in this sample.
Objectives of the My

The overall purpose of this study was to explore how identity, attachment, and contextual
inﬂuences are related to the caring behavior of engaging in community service. To accomplish
this task, speciﬁc objectives were developed to guide the research process. These include the
following:
1. This study explored two important developmental factors, identity and attachment, in college
students and whether more advanced/mature levels of development existed among the students
who had engaged in some kind of community service (Group 1 and Group 3) than those who had
not engaged in community service (Group 2).
2. This study explored whether the structure provided Group 1 (reﬂection sessions) was an
important aspect of students’ development by analyzing the differences between the Group 1

students and the Group 3 students based on identity and attachment factors.

47

3. This study explored whether the identity factors showed any signiﬁcant changes from Time 1
Spring 1995) to Time 2 (Spring 1997) in the study.
4. Given that the above factors measure static constructs in human deve10pment and do not
completely represent the contextual inﬂuences in the students’ lives, this study also explored
whether there were any qualitative differences among the three groups of students with respect to
salient contexts in their lives (family, peers, and other signiﬁcant adults).

Basic Research Questions
The objectives for this study addressed the following questions:
1. Does engaging in community service activities have an impact on identity development for
college students?
2. Are the perceptions of college students’ attachment with parents ﬁom the two groups who
have engaged in community service (Group 1 and Group 3) more psychologically secure than
those who have not indicated any prior community service experience (Group 2)?
3. Are there any additional gains in identity development for students who chose the service-
learning approach (Group 1) over typical community service activities (Group 3)?
4. Are there differences in perceptions about attachment to parents for students who chose the
service-learning approach (Group 1) over typical community service activities (Group 3)?
5. Are there any signiﬁcant positive changes in students’ identity development over time with
respect to engaging in service activities (Group 1 and Group 3) that do not exist for students who
did not engage in service activities (Group 2)?
6. Are there qualitative differences in contextual inﬂuences’ for students who engaged in service-

learning (Group 1), had prior service experience (Group 3), and did not have any prior service

48
experience (Group 2)?
Conceptual and Operational Definitions
Below is a list of the major variables and deﬁnitions that were used in this research project. The
independent variables represent the three groups of students selected in the study as part of the
research design. The dependent variables represent the scores given by the students. The
researcher is interested in the unique characteristics from the three groups of students based on
the students’ self-reports in both the questionnaires and the focus group sessions.
1 -_
Group 1
Conceptual: This category represents students who did volunteer for service at Allen Street
School and participated in reﬂection sessions as a part of their service commitment.
Operational: All students from ISS 335, Spring semester 1995, were given an opportunity
through several announcements during class to volunteer for service at Allen Street School. From
the entire class (393), there were 44 students who volunteered at the school. However, complete
data is available ﬁ'om 31 of the students; therefore, this study will be conducted only on these
students.
Group 2
Conceptual: This category represents students who did not volunteer for service at Allen Street
School and did not indicate any prior service experience.
Operational: See deﬁnition of “prior service” below for a description of this group. There were
39 students who were selected on the basis of prior service experience for this Group.

Group 3

49

Conceptual: This category represents students who did not volunteer for service at Allen Street
School but did indicate they had some prior service experience.

Operational: See deﬁnition of “prior service” below for a description of this group. Since there
are 205 students in this category and there are only 31 Group 1 and 39 Group 2 Students, a
decision was made to select 40 students for this category. To accomplish this selection, a random
sample of 40 students was selected from the 205 students in this category.

Dependenﬂariables

Identity Status--Global Measure of Identity (GLOBAL IDENTITY)

Conceptual: This variable is directly related to the four identity status paradigms discussed above
(Foreclosed, Diffused, Moratorium, and Achieved). It was hypothesized that more students
(percentage-wise) who had engaged in community service (Groups 1 and 3) were in the
Moratorium or Achieved categories. Conversely, it was hypothesized that more students
(percentage-wise) who did not engage in community service (Group 2) were in the Foreclosed
and Diffused categories.

Operational: This variable was measured using the Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity
Status-2 (EOMEIS-2). This is an objective/self-report measure of the original interviews
established by Marcia (see Adams, Bennion, & Huh 1989). There are 64 items for this measure
representing eight domains: (a) occupation, (b) religion, (c) politics, (d) philosophical life style,
(e) ﬁiendship, (f) dating, (g) sex roles, and (h) recreation. Respondents answer questions with
respect to the domains on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
Each domain is represented by two questions addressing each status in development. Thus, there

are eight questions in the measure addressing each domain. The ﬁrst four domains are combined

50

to obtain what has been referred to as an ideological identity (occupation, religion, politics, and
philosophical life style). The last four domains are combined to obtain what has been referred to
as an interpersonal identity (friendship, dating, sex roles, and recreation). For this study, the
grouped domains (interpersonal and the ideological) were analyzed among the students with
respect to their identity statuses.

Parent and Peer Attachment (ATTACHMENT)

Conceptual: This variable is directly related to the parent and peer attachment previously
mentioned. This variable addresses the “internal working model” of students’ attachment to
parents and peers. The “‘[I]ntemal working model’ of attachment ﬁgures may be tapped by
assessing (l) the positive affective/cognitive experience of trust in the accessibility and
responsiveness of attachment ﬁgures, and (2) the negative affective/cognitive experiences of anger
and hopelessness resulting from unresponsive or inconsistently responsive attachment ﬁgures”
(Armsden & Greenberg, 1987, p. 431). As Armsden and Greenberg (1987) indicate, there are
three broad dimensions comprising perceived attachment in adolescence and young adulthood:
(a) trust, (b) communication, and (c) alienation. Trust refers to understanding, respect, and
mutual trust perceived about parents and peers. Communication refers to the quality of
communication perceived about parents and peers. Alienation refers to perceived alienation and
anger toward parents and peers. Attachment is a felt psychological security about signiﬁcant
attachment ﬁgures.

Operational: Parent and Peer Attachment is directly related to the above discussion. It is also a
continuous measure of attachment where higher scores indicate more perceived security. The

measure is an adaptation of the original version (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987). Students respond

51

to 25 items each with respect to their mother, father, and close ﬁiends (peers). The data on close
ﬁiends were not analyzed for this study. Questions are answered on a 5-point Likert scale
ranging from “Almost Never or Never True” to “Almost Always or Always True”. For the three
subscales, (a) Trust (10 items for both Parents and Peers), (b) Communication (9 items for both
Parents and 8 items for Peers), and (c) Alienation (6 items for both Parents and 7 items for Peers),
scores are obtained by summing the responses and reversing scoring negatively worded items.
The total attachment score requires that all the items under Alienation be reversed scored in order
to obtain accurate perceptions of attachment to signiﬁcant others. For this study, the total
attachment score for Mother and Father was analyzed with respect to mean score differences.
Cantmﬂarmrbs

Prior Service

Conceptual: This study did not statistically control for prior service, such as using prior service
as a covariate; however, this study will control for prior service by incorporating this variable into
the design. Having some prior community service experience was predominant among the Group
1 students (30 out of 31 students indicated they had prior service experience, 96.77%) as well as
for the rest of the class (205 out of 238 students indicated they had prior service experience,
86.13%).

Operational: Students answered questions on a Service Experiences Survey (Eyler & Giles, 1995)
related to previous activities while in high school and college. Prior service was obtained by
combining answers from three questions: (a) high school junior year community service, (b) high
school senior year community service, and (0) college community service. The responses were

based on a ﬁve-point Likert scale ranging from never (1) to always--each week (5). If students

52

indicated a value of one for all three questions, they were assigned to Group 2 (39 students). If
students indicated a value greater than one for at least one of these questions, they were assigned
to the Group 3 (205 students).
Qtlrenlleﬁnitim
Caring Behavior--Recognizing the needs of others and behaving in a way that “places the needs
of others ahead of the self at times, and works toward the higher shared goals of a community or
society” (Chaskin & Hawley, 1994, p. 15). This term was chosen because it highlights the
importance of serving others in a community context.
Community Service--A broad term used in this study to mean helping others in the community.
Service-learning is one way of providing community service that integrates academic learning
through structured reﬂection of the service activity that may not be present in typical community
service activities.
Context--This term refers to the setting wherein activities are conducted. It includes the physical
characteristics of the environment as well as the integration of personal characteristics for each
living being in that setting.
Instrumentation uantitative

The following two instruments were used for the quantitative approach in this study :
1. 1‘ 9"..0‘ i n-urofElzot- ' .., - 0 II-2:Thisscaleisanobjective,
self-report measure of global identity that has been reﬁned ﬁom two previous measures: OMEIS
and the EOMEIS-l. The OMEIS was initially constructed as a cost-effective and objective
measure of classifying individuals into identity statuses rather than using the original

semistructured clinical interview established by Marcia (cited in Adams, Bennion, & Huh, 1989).

53

This original measure consisted of 24 items representing the original ideological domain areas of
occupation, religion, and politics. After a series of eight studies, the ﬁnal version was
constructed, EOMEIS-2, that contained both ideological and interpersonal dimension of identity
(see deﬁnition of GLOBAL IDENTITY above). Adams, Bennion, and Huh (1989) report a
thorough overview of studies conducted using all three measures. In total, there are over 30
published studies using this instrument. Four-week test-retest reliability estimates for both the
ideological and interpersonal subscales are reported ranging from .59 to .93 with a median
estimate at .76. Split-half correlations of these subscales ranged .10 to .68 and the total identity
score correlations ranged from .37 to .64. Internal consistency estimates using Cronbach’s alpha
ranged from .30 to .89 with a median alpha at .66. A list of studies that have used the EOMEIS
instruments is outlined establishing the face, concmrent, predictive, and construct validity of the
measure (see Adams, Bennion, & Huh, 1989, pp. 54-78).

2. WWW: Like the MEIM, the IPPA (Armsden &
Greenberg, 1987) is also a continuous scale, but it measures a respondent’s psychological security
with signiﬁcant attachment ﬁgures (mother, father, and close peers)(see deﬁnition of
ATTACHMENT above). The scale used for this study is a revised version with separate
questions elicited about mother and father ﬁgures that the original version did not have. The scale
has good concurrent validity in that it has been correlated positively with positiveness, self-
esteem, and life satisfaction. It has been negatively correlated with depression, anxiety, covert
anger, and loneliness. Cronbach’s alpha reliabilities for the revised version are reported at .87 for
mother attachment, .89 for father attachment, and .92 for peer attachment. The validity of this

instrument has been corroborated through two recent studies on attachment (Heiss, Berman, &

54
Sperling, 1996; Lyddon, Bradford, & Nelson, 1993).
Research Hypotheses (Quantitative)
Quantitative Hypetheses

This part of the study explored differences among three groups of students (Group 1, Group 2,
and Group 3) based on two measures: Global Identity and Attachment. For Global Identity
signiﬁcant differences from Time 1 (Spring 1995) to Time 2 (Spring 1997) were analyzed. For
Attachment, only the differences in scores were analyzed at Time 2, since this measure was
administered only at Time 2. The testing of hypotheses were organized according to each
variable measured.

GLOBAL IDENTITY: There were ﬁve hypotheses (H01, H02, Ho3, H04, and H05) that were
tested for global identity and they are presented in the null form. A chance probability of .05 or
less (p<.05) was required to reject these null hypotheses.

H01: There are no signiﬁcant differences between the community service group of students
(Group 1 and 3) and the group of students without any prior community service (Group 2) in
respect to the percentage of scores from the Non-Exploration status categories (diffused and
foreclosed) and the Exploration status categories (moratorium and achieved) for ideplggieal
identity at Time 2 (1997).

Thus, students ﬁ'om Group 1 and Group 3 will be combined to form one Service Group and
compared with the Non-Service Group (Group 2) with respect to their scores on the ideological
items of global identity at Time 2 (1997).

H02: There are no signiﬁcant differences between the community service group of students

(Group 1 and 3) and the group of students without any prior community service (Group 2) in

55

respect to the percentage of scores from the Non-Exploration status categories (diffused and
foreclosed) and the Exploration status categories (moratorium and achieved) for W
identity at Time 2 (1997).

Thus, students from Group 1 and Group 3 will be combined to form one Service Group and
compared with the Non-Service Group (Group 2) with respect to their scores on the interpersonal
aspects of global identity at Time 2 (1997).

I13: For the Group 1 students there are no signiﬁcant differences between Time 1 and Time 2
scores for either ideological and interpersonal identity. That is the percentage of students falling
in the Exploration (moratorium and achieved) and Non-Exploration (diffused and foreclosed)
statuses will not differ from Time 1 to Time 2.

Thus, students in Group 1 will be analyzed with respect to developmental changes ﬁom 1995 to
1997 on ideological and interpersonal identity.

H04: For the Group 2 students there are no signiﬁcant differences between Time 1 and Time 2
scores for either ideological and interpersonal identity. That is the percentage of students falling
in the Exploration (moratorium and achieved) and Non-Exploration (diffused and foreclosed)
statuses will not differ from Time 1 to Time 2.

Thus, students in Group 2 will be analyzed with respect to developmental changes from 1995 to
1997 on ideological and interpersonal identity.

H05: For the Group 3 students there are no signiﬁcant differences between Time 1 and Time 2
scores for either ideological and interpersonal identity. That is the percentage of students falling
in the Exploration (moratorium and achieved) and Non-Exploration (diﬁused and foreclosed)

statuses will not differ from Time 1 to Time 2.

56

Thus, students in Group 3 will be analyzed with respect to developmental changes from 1995 to
1997 on ideological and interpersonal identity.
ATTACHMENT: There were two hypotheses (H06 and H07) that were tested for attachment and
they are presented in the null form. A chance probability of .05 or less (p<.05) was required to
reject these null hypotheses.
H06: There are no signiﬁcant difference in students’ reported mean attachment scores to their
mm among Groups 1, 2, and 3.
Note: Separate planned comparisons will be conducted to test mean differences between the
Service Groups and the Non-Service Group on mothers’ attachment scores. These comparisons
will be adjusted using a Bonferroni procedure to adjust the alpha level (see Kirk, 1995, pp. 137-
138).
H07: There are no signiﬁcant difference in students’ reported mean attachment scores to their
mere among Groups 1, 2, and 3.
Note: Separate planned comparisons will be conducted to test mean differences between the
Service Groups and the Non-Service Group on fathers’ attachment scores. These comparisons
will be adjusted using a Bonferroni procedure to adjust the alpha level (see Kirk, 1995, pp. 137-
138)
Qtewiew Qpestiops (Qualitative)

There were two interrelated research questions that served as important points of inquiry
for the qualitative component of this study. They were the following:
1. What kinds of caring behaviors and attitudes were learned at home as the students were

growing up that may have been fostered in other contexts in their lives?

57

2. How are these caring behaviors and attitudes expressed today within the signiﬁcant contexts in
the students’ lives?
Students were asked to share in focus group sessions their personal stories and ideologies about
what it means to be a caring person.
Research Assumptions
The following are assumptions inherent in this study:
1. It is assumed that students who had volunteered service for the community acted in good faith
to help others help themselves in community settings while behaving in an ethical manner.
2. It is assumed that students responses in answering the questionnaire items about themselves
were genuine/truthful.
3. It is assruned that students who volunteered their time doing service to the community were
beneﬁtting themselves and the community where they served.
4. It is assumed that students who attended the focus group sessions were responding genuinely
to the questions during the interview.
Data Collection
As indicated earlier there were two parts, or waves, to this study. The ﬁrst part of the
study was concerned with collecting data for a questionnaire. This questionnaire was mailed out
to the subsample of 110 students. The data from this questionnaire was used mainly for the
quantitative measures of the study and will be discussed in the quantitative section. The second
part of the study pertained to the focus group sessions and therefore will be discussed in the

qualitative section.

58

Quantitative

As described earlier, there were three groups of students selected for the subsample in this
study (Groups 1, 2, and 3). The day that permission was granted from UCRIHS (University
Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects) to collect data for this project (see Appendix
C for a copy of this permission), March 26, 1997, all 110 students in the subsample were mailed
copies of the questionnaire (See Appendix A). A return envelope was included in the packet
mailed to the students and they were asked to return the questionnaire in this packet by May 14,
1997 to be included in the study. Students were given two reminders, one by telephone and
another via e-mail, to return the questionnaires before the deadline. Upon receipt of the
questionnaire, students were mailed a $20.00 check for participating in the study. In total, there
were 74 returned questionnaires reﬂecting a 67.3% response rate.
Qualitatiue

In the questionnaire that was mailed to the students, there included a statement about
being contacted for a focus group. The ﬁrst 15 students who returned their questionnaires in each
group were contacted to attend a focus group. Thus, there were separate focus group sessions
held for each group in the study and they lasted 1V2 hours. Students in Group 1 were asked to
attend a focus group on April 19, 1997 at 11am. Students in Group 2 were asked to attend a
focus group on April 19, 1997 at 1:30pm. Students in Group 3 were asked to attend a focus
group on April 17, 1997 at 7pm. These dates and times for the focus groups were selected based
on the students’ schedules given to the investigator via telephone. Unfortunately, the dates of the
focus group sessions occurred very near to the end of the semester and only four students in

Group 1, one student in Group 2, and four students in Group 3 attended the sessions. The

59

students who attended the focus group sessions received $10.00 for their participation. Students
reported scheduling conﬂicts as a result of (1) work duties (2) having a class at the time, or (3)
having to study for ﬁnal examinations. Although the participants were few, the data gathered on
these participants were very informative.
Data Anaﬂsis

Data were analyzed based on three separate forms of data: (3) responses ﬁ'om the questionnaires
recently administered in 1997 (including a measure of global identity and attachment), (b)
responses from a past measure on global identity administered in 1995, (c) information given from
attending recent focus group sessions in 1997 . Again, the analyses were performed separately for
the two methodologies. In the discussion of these ﬁndings pertinent data from the two
methodologies will be integrated and illuminated.
Quaint} atiye

Presentation of the analyses proceeded in varying steps to arrive at a thorough
examination of the variables. First, descriptive statistics on the characteristics of the students’
background were conducted. These initial analyses provide an understanding of the demographic
characteristics of the students in the study. Second, analyses for the data on global identity is
discussed in terms of the ﬁve hypotheses stated above (H01, H02, H03, H04, and H05). Chi-square
tests of signiﬁcance were conducted to test for signiﬁcant differences in the observed and
expected frequencies within the cells of the contingency tables. For all ﬁve hypotheses 2X3
contingency tables were constructed to test the variables in question. Since the measure on global
identity was administered twice, in 1995 and 1997, developmental changes are interpreted ﬁom

the chi-square analyses in H03, H04, and H05. Third, analyses for the data on attachment were

60

analyzed for mean differences among the three groups of students with respect to students’
reported attachment to their mothers and fathers. One-way AN OVAs were used to reveal any
signiﬁcant differences among the three groups of students in H06 and H07. Given that data
represent a small sample and the nature of the relationships of these variables to each other have
not been empirically tested, sophisticated forms of analyses (i.e., structural equation models using
multivariate designs) were not employed.
Marius

This part of the data analysis served as a complement to the quantitative ﬁndings discussed
above. The author served as the moderator for all three focus groups. She had an undergraduate
student assist her during one focus group session and her dissertation director assist her in two
focus group sessions. The assistants recorded their observed verbal and nonverbal responses to
key issues in the interviews. Each session was tape recorded and transcribed for use in
interpreting the ﬁndings. The recorder had available a lap top computer with a word processor
installed on the hard drive to assist her in the note taking process. The moderator used a ﬂip chart
to record key points reported by the participants. After each session, the moderator and the
recorder met to compare key ideas. These ideas were converged and recorded using the
suggestions offered by Vaughn, Schumm, & Sinagub (1996), “Pointers for Analyzing Focus
Group Interview Data” (p. l 11). Key themes were then identiﬁed and integrated into the
quantitative ﬁndings in order to interpret and expand the key variables in question: community
service, identity, attachment, and care. Speciﬁc emphasis was placed on care and how students

learned the importance of engendering care in community service activities.

Chapter 4 -- RESULTS

As stated previously, the primary purpose of this study was to explore how
selected constructs of identity, attachment, and caring behavior are related to engaging in
community service. This exploration will provide an understanding of the vital role that
signiﬁcant relationships in students’ lives play in their own development and in their
impact on others through community service. A combination of quantitative and
qualitative methodologies were employed to address this purpose.

Organization of Data Analysis

The data analysis for this study will include three sections. First, results of the
descriptive analyses will be presented and will focus on the unique demographic
characteristics of the three groups of students. Second, each hypothesis addressed in the
prior chapter will be tested with the appropriate statistics. Third, key themes from the
focus groups will be highlighted and described according to the information provided by
the students. The results of these sections will be analyzed separately to highlight each
component of the data. For the ﬁrst two sections statistical/quantitative analyses were
used ﬁrst to describe the data and then to test the hypotheses. For the last section, a
qualitative approach involved generating themes from the focus groups. The succeeding

discussion chapter will then provide an interpretation and integration of these ﬁndings.

61

62

Descriptive Findings

The quantitative analyses are based on a sample of 74 out of 110 mailed
questionnaires, a total response rate of 67.3%. In Group 1, 25 out of 31 students (80.6%)
returned questionnaires; in Group 2, 17 out of 39 students (43.6%) returned
questionnaires; and in Group 3, 32 out of 40 students (80.0%) returned questionnaires.
This in itself is a signiﬁcant ﬁnding (x2(2, _N_ = 110) = 15.40, p<.000). Students who
volunteer their time to engage in service activity are also more inclined to cooperate in
being a part of a study related to the topic. The qualitative analyses will elaborate on the
relevance of this ﬁnding for the service groups (Group 1 and 3) by describing how these
students care about their environment as well as their perceptions about how they learned
to care for others.

From the 74 responses, the demographic data presented in Table 2 reveal some

 

 

 

interesting ﬁndings.
Table 2
’ h r1
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3
Sex "
Female 19 (76.0%) 8 (47.1%) 24 (75.0%)
Male 6 (24.0%) 9 (52.9%) 8 (25.0%)
Race
Asian 2 ( 8.0%) l ( 5.9%) 3 ( 9.4%)
Black 4 (16.0%) 1 ( 5.9%) 2( 6.3%)
Hispanic or Latino ---------------
White 18 (72.0%) 15 (88.2%) 23 (71.9%)
American Indian ---------------
Mixed ---------------

Other 1 ( 4.0%) 0( 0.0%) 4 (12.5%)

63

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 2 (cont’d)
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3

Majer; (7 missing)

Humanities/English/Communications 1 ( 4.5%) 1 ( 6.7%) 3 (10.0%)

Social Sciences/History 2 ( 9.1%) 3 (20.0%) 2 ( 6.7%)

Math/Science/Engineer/Health Sciences 9 (40.9%) 8 (53.3%) 12 (40.0%)

Education/Human Development 6 (27.3%) 0 ( 0.0%) 7 (23.3%)

Business 4 (18.2%) 3 (20.0%L 6 (20.0%)
CunentAge

19 years or younger I ( 4.0%) 0 ( 0.0%) 0( 0.0%)

20 years 8 (32.0%) 8 (47.1%) 16 (50.0%)

21 years 12 (48.0%) 7 (41.2%) 12 (37.5%)

22 years 3 (12.0%) 1 ( 5.9%) 4 (12.5%)

23 years 1 ( 4.0%) 0( 0.0%) 0( 0.0%)

24 years 0( 0.0%) 1 L5.9%) 0( 0.0%)
Warming (1 missing)

Not Active 4 (16.0%) 8 (47.1%) 10 (32.5%)

Active in Service 21 (84.0%) 9 (52.9%) 21 (67.7%)
HighestEdueatinnltsachedbe/lnther (4 missing) ’ b

Less than College Graduate 6 (26.1%) 12 (75.0%) 9 (29.0%)
Wm or Higher 17 (73.9%) 4 (25.0%) £01.0%J
HighestEducationReamedhyiathar (4 missing) ’

Less than College Graduate 13 (56.5%) 8 (50.0%) 7 (22.6%)

College Graduate or Higher 10 (43.5%) 8 (50.0%) 24 (77.4%)
among:

Oldest 6 (24.0%) 8 (47.1%) 12 (37.5%)

Middle 8 (32.0%) 4 (23.5%) 7 (21.9%)

Youngest 9 (36.0%) 5 (29.4%) 11 (34.4%)

Oﬂ‘l Child 2 ( 8.0%) 0( 0.0%) 2 ( 6.3%)

f ' n ' F

1 or 2 Children 12 (48.0%) 7 (41.2%) 17 (53.1%)

3 or 4 Children 10 (40.0%) 8 (47.1%) 15 (46.9%)

5 or more Children 3 (12.0%) 2 (11.8%) 0 L00%)

i ° m hi1

Both Parents 17 (68.0%) 13 (76.5%) 27 (84.4%)

Other Arrangement 8 (32.0%) 4 (23.5%) 5 (15.6%
BMW (6 missing)

$20,000 or less 1 ( 4.5%) 0( 0.0%) 1 ( 3.2%)

$20,001 to $30,000 2 ( 9.1%) l ( 6.7%) 0( 0.0%)

$30,001 to $50,000 3 (13.6%) 5 (33.3%) 4 (12.9%)

$50,001 to $75,000 8 (36.4%) 3 (20.0%) 10 (32.3%)

$75,001 or more 8 (36.4%) 6 (40.0%) 16 (51.6%)

 

64

 

 

 

Table 2 (cont’d)
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3

Kerk fer Bay in Cellege in 1995

Did Not Work 8 (32.0%) 4 (23.5%) 11 (34.4%)

Worked 17 (68.0%) 13 (76.5‘VQ 21 L65.6%)
Currently Engaged in Cemmpnity Service b

Yes 6 (24.0%) 1 ( 5.9%) 11 (34.4%)

No 19 (76.0%) 16 (94.1‘V9 21 (65.6%)

 

“Signiﬁcant Chi-Square Differences at p<.05 among the three Groups

bSigniﬁcant Chi-Square Differences at p<.05 for Service Groups vs. Non-Service Group
The data in Table 2 portray ﬁndings for 13 separate demographic characteristics in the
sample. For each characteristic, two separate planned comparisons were made. First, the
data across all three groups were compared using the chi-square test. Second, the data
between the service groups, Groups 1 and 3, and the non-service group, Group 2, were
compared using the chi-square test. Both of these comparisons used alpha levels of .05 as
a criterion for signiﬁcance of the chi-square tests. As Table 2 shows, the following
variables yielded signiﬁcant ﬁndings:

1. Sex: In the ﬁrst comparison across all three groups there were not signiﬁcant ﬁndings
(x2(2, N = 74) = 4.93, p<.085). However, when the service groups were compared with
the non-service group, there were signiﬁcant ﬁndings (x20, N = 74) = 4.92, p<.027). The
service groups (76.0% in Group 1 and 75.0% in Group 3) had more females represented
in the group than the non-service group (47.1% in Group 2).

2. Highest Education Reached by Mother: In both the ﬁrst comparison across all three
groups (x2(2, N = 70) = 11.66, p<.003) and in a comparison of the service groups with the

non-service group 080, N = 70) = 11.62, p<.001), there were signiﬁcant ﬁndings.

65

Students whose mothers had a college degree or higher were more represented in the
service groups (73.9% in Group 1 and 71.0% in Group 3) than in the non-service group
(25.0% in Group 2 ).

3. Highest Education Reached by Father: For the ﬁrst comparison across all three
groups, there were signiﬁcant results (x2(2, N = 70) = 7.20, p<.028). However, in
comparing the service groups with the non-service group, the results were not signiﬁcant
060, N = 70) = 0.86, p<.353). The two service groups differed widely in terms of
fathers’ higher education (43.5% in Group 1 and 77.4% in Group 3) while data on the
non-service group fell somewhere in between. Half of the students from the non-service
group had fathers with college degrees or higher (50.0% in Group 2).

4. Currently Engaged in Community Service: In the ﬁrst comparison across all three
groups there were not signiﬁcant ﬁndings (x2(2, N = 74) = 4.90, p<.087). However, when
the service groups were compared with the non-service group, there were signiﬁcant
ﬁndings 060, N = 74) = 4.08, p<.043). The service groups (24.0% in Group 1 and
34.4% in Group 3) had far more students continuing to volunteer for community service
than the non-service group (5.9% in Group 2).

These data were also subjected to a descriptive analysis of the students’ responses
concerning the types of people who inspired them to help others in need. Students were
asked, “In thinking about people who have inspired you to help others in need, please list
these people and their relationship to you (e.g., Mark Smith, High School Teacher; Mary
Doe, Father; Pastor Bob, Church Pastor)”. Students’ responses were coded according to

the different types of inspirers in their lives. Table 3 shows the frequencies of these types

66

of inspirers across the three groups. Analysis of these data followed the same procedures
as Table 2 with chi-square testing.

Two types of inspirers merit a discussion of their ﬁndings. The ﬁrst type is the
Religious/ Spiritual Inspirer. Although the comparisons across the three groups were not
signiﬁcant (x2(2, N = 74) = 4.35, p<.114), the comparison between the service groups and
the non-service group neared signiﬁcance (760, N = 74) = 2.83, p<.093). From the
service groups 14 out of 57 students (24.6%) indicated at least one Religious/Spiritual
Inspirer as inﬂuencing their decision to help others in need. Conversely, only 1 out of 17
students (5.9%) from the non-service group indicated at least one Religious/Spiritual
Inspirer as inﬂuencing their decision to help others in need. This student in the non-
service group is also the only student who indicated current involvement in community
service activities and was the only participant in the focus group session for the non-
service group of students. The second type is the Other Inspirer. The comparisons across
the three groups were signiﬁcant (x2(2, N = 74) = 9.51 , p<.009); however, the comparison
between the service groups and the non-service group were not signiﬁcant (x2(1 , N = 74)
= 3.41, p<.065). This second ﬁnding again neared signiﬁcance. From the service groups,
20 out of 57 students (35.1%) indicated that at least one other person besides a parent,
teacher, coach, grandparent, other family member, and religious/spiritual leader inﬂuenced
their decision to help others in need. This is in direct comparison to the non-service group
wherein only 2 out of 17 students (11.8%) indicated the “other” person type of inspirer as
an inﬂuencer in their motivation to help others in need. People who were indicated as

Other Inspirers included: (a) gieroyfriend, (b) family ﬁiend, (c) own personal friend, ((1)

67

co-worker, (e) professor not teaching the student, (0 counselor, (g) support group people
at a crisis center, (h) principal, (I) doctor/physician, (j) camp director, (k) school nurse, (1)
“high school dorm mom”, (m) sorority, (n) fraternity, (o) supervisor at work, and (p)

graduate student. These inspirers were as diverse as the life experiences of the students

who petitioned their support and guidance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 3
S udent Ins ' ers Grou 3
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3
I ir r
Yes 16 (64.0%) 6 (35.3%) 17 (53.1%)
No 9 (36.0%) 11 (64.7%) 15 (46.9%)
r 1r r
Yes 11 (44.0%) 4 (23.5%) 11 (34.4%)
No 14 (56.0%) 13 (76.5%) 21 (65.6%)
Qpaeh Ihspirer
Yes 1 ( 4.0%) 1 ( 5.9%) 1 ( 3.1%)
No 24 (96.0%) 16 (94.1%) 31 (96.9%)
r ar n I irer
Yes 1 ( 4.0%) 1 ( 5.9%) 3( 9.4%)
No 24 (96.0%) 16 (94.1%) 29 (90.6%
h rF ' Ins irer
Yes 3 (12.0%) 0( 0.0%) 1 ( 3.1%)
No 22 (88.0%) 17 (100.0%) 31 (96.9%)
' i iri lIn ir r
Yes 8 (32.0%) 1 ( 5.9%) 6 (18.8%)
No 17 (68.0%) 16 ( 94.1%) 26 (81.3%)
cherlnsm '
Yes 13 (52.0%) 2 (11.8%) 7 (21.9%)
No 12 (48.0%) 15 (88.2%) 25 (78.1%)

 

aSigniﬁcant Chi-Square Differences at p<.05 among the three Groups

68

Test of Hypothgep
Also included in this study were two instruments concerning students’ global
identity and attachment to parents. A set of ﬁve hypotheses were tested concerning global
identity and two sets of hypotheses were tested concerning attachment to parents. The
results of these tests are listed along with the speciﬁc hypotheses in the subsequent text.
For all statistical tests, an alpha level of .05 was used to reject the following null

hypotheses.

GLOBAL IDENTITY
H01: There are no significant differences between the community service group of
students (Groups 1 and 3) and the group of students without any prior community service

(Group 2) in respect to the percentage of scores from the Non-Exploration status
categories (diffused and foreclosed) and the Exploration status categories (moratorium

and achieved) for mm at Time 2 (I 99 7).

The ideological subscale of the EOMEIS-2 was used to compare the identity statuses of
the service groups (Group 1 and 3) and the non-service group (Group 1). These items
addressed the domains of occupation, religion, politics, and philosophical life style. Table
4 shows the result of the statistical comparison of these two groups using a chi-square
test.

The results in Table 4 for Time 2, 1997, address this hypothesis, H01. There were
not signiﬁcant differences between the percentage of students in the service groups and
the non-service group in ideological identity. Although 71.9% (p=41) of the students in
the service groups had scores indicating exploration (moratorium or achieved identity

statuses), the non-service group had 52.9% (h=9) of the students in high exploration. This

69

 

 

Table 4
1-0.: ’ 0‘0.0°-._ c‘nlt fr ' '-. ONn-o-‘ ‘1'.--
Service Groups Non-Service Group
(Groups 1 and 3) (Group 2)
Tme' 1: 1995’
Non-Exploration (Diffused and Foreclosed) 20 (35.7%) 11 (68.8%)
Exploration (Moratorirun and Achieved) 36 (64.3%) 5 (31.3%)
ﬂ 1, N = 72) = 5.54%019
lime 2; 1997
Non-Exploration 16 (28.1%) 8 (47.1%)
Exploration 41 (71.9%) 9 (52.9%)

Z2! 1, N = 74) = 2.15Lpf.143

’ There were more than 5 missing items on the measure for two cases in 1995. Thus, the
N for 1995 is smaller by two missing cases.

difference of 19% between the two groups was not statistically sufficient to reject this null
hypothesis. Therefore, students in this sample with community service backgrounds were
just as likely to be exploring the ideological domains of identity as the non-service group
of students. The signiﬁcant ﬁndings in 1995 (Time 1) between the groups on ideological
identity support the equivocal ﬁndings in 1997 (Time 2). The greatest change from Time

1 to Time 2 occurred for the non-service group of students, from 31.3% in the exploration

statuses in 1995 to 52.9% in 1997.

H02: There are no significant differences between the community service group of
students (Groups I and 3) and the group of students without any prior community service
(Group 2) in respect to the percentage of scores from the Non-Exploration status
categories (diffused and foreclosed) and the Exploration status categories (moratorium

and achieved) for imerpersgngl identity at Time 2 (1997).

The interpersonal subscale of the EOMEIS-2 was used to compare the identity statuses of

70

the service groups (Group 1 and 3) and the non-service group (Group 1). These items
addressed the domains of ﬁiendship, dating, sex roles, and recreation. Table 5 shows the

result of the statistical comparison of these two groups using a chi-square test.

 

 

Table 5
.!'1._n'm‘ 0 . ni for O, o_-,‘ ' 0.0
Service Groups Non-Service Group
(Groups 1 and 3) (Group 2)
W“
Non-Exploration 10 (17.9%) 4 (25.0%)
Exploration 46 (82.1%) 12 (75.0%)
X20, Nf=72) = 0.41, p<.525
Ifmre' 2; 1292
Non-Exploration 9 (15.8%) 4 (23.5%)
Exploration 48 (84.2%) 13 (76.5%)

ﬂ 1, N = 74) = 0.54, p<.462

" There were more than 5 missing items on the measure for two cases in 1995. Thus, data
are reported for two missing cases.

The results in Table 5 for Time 2, 1997, address this hypothesis, H02. There were not
statistically signiﬁcant differences between the percentage of students in the service groups
and the non-service group in ideological identity. Both the service groups (84.2%) and
the non-service group (76.5%) had a high percentage of students in the exploration
statuses of interpersonal identity. These equivocal ﬁndings are supported from the data
from Time 1 (1995) in Table 5. Most of the students in both the service groups (84.2%)

and the non-service group (76.5%) at Time 1 were already in exploration of their

interpersonal identity.

71

The following three hypotheses are stated consecutively with Tables 6 and 7
following them. These tables address the hypotheses, with Table 6 focusing on ideological
identity and Table 7 focusing on interpersonal identity. The results of the analyses will be
discussed after the presentation of each table.

H03: For the Group 1 students there are no significant differences between Time 1 and
Time 2 scores for either ideological and interpersonal identity. That is the percentage of
students falling in the Exploration (moratorium and achieved) and Non-Exploration
(diffused and foreclosed) statuses will not dijfer from Time I to Time 2.

H04: For the Group 2 students there are no significant differences between Time I and
Time 2 scores for either ideological and interpersonal identity. That is the percentage of
students falling in the Exploration (moratorium and achieved) and Non-Exploration
(diffused and foreclosed) statuses will not differ from Time 1 to Time 2.

H05: For the Group 3 students there are no significant differences between Time I and
Time 2 scores for either ideological and interpersonal identity. That is the percentage of
students falling in the Exploration (moratorium and achieved) and Non-Exploration
(diffused and foreclosed) statuses will not differ from Time I to Time 2.

 

 

 

 

Table 6
.9‘1.! tortor t- oanelloue Irsni :1" {4117"
Students Students
At 1995 At 1997
Total Samplea
Non-Exploration (A) 31 (43.1%) 24 (33.3%)
Exploration (B) 41 (56.9%) 48 (66.7%)
it of Students 1997 1997
A a
1995 A 17 14
1995 B 7 34

 

 

 

 

 

x’(l,N=72)=ll.33,p<.001

 

72

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 6 (cont’d)
Students Students
At 1995 At 1997
Group 1°
Non-Exploration (A) 9 (37.5%) 4 (16.7%)
Exploration (B) 15 (62.5%) 20 (83.3%)
it ofStudents 1997 1997
A a
1995 A 4 5
1995 B 15
x20. u = 24) = 3.00, p<.005
Group 2"
Non-Exploration (A) 11 (68.8%) 8 (50.0%)
Exploration (B) 5 (31.3%) 8 (50.0%)
it ofStudents r997 1997
A B
1995 A 8 3
1995 n 5
XM = 16) = 7.27, 3:007
Group 3
Non-Exploration (A) 11 (34.4%) 12 (37.5%)
Exploration (B) 21 (65.6%) 20 (62.5%)
it ofStuduIts 1997 1997
A B
1995 A 5 6
1995 a 7 14

 

 

 

 

 

x20, 13 = 32) = 0.45, p<.502

' There were more than 5 missing items on the measure for two cases in 1995. Thus, data

are reported for two missing cases.

The results from Table 6 show that there are signiﬁcant differences between 1995

and 1997 for Groups 1 and 2 while the ﬁndings are not signiﬁcant for Group 3. Five

students in Group 1 and three students in Group 2 changed from Non-Exploration to

Exploration on the Ideological subscale. In order to interpret this result in a

developmental framework, one would need to take into consideration the percentage of

73

students who started within Exploration for each group. In Group 1, 62.5% of the
students were already in the Exploration category in 1995 compared to 31.3% of the
students in the Exploration category for Group 2. In Group 3, 65.6% of the students fell
into the Exploration category. These ﬁndings show that students who have engaged in
some kind of community service activity (Groups 1 and 3) by the end of the course (ISS
335) in 1995 already had higher identity exploration scores than the students who did not
have prior community service experience (Group 2).

The increase in the percentage of students who changed from Non-Exploration to
Exploration is similar for Groups 1 and 2, 20.8% and 18.7% respectively. However, in
examining this change from Non-Exploration to Exploration one needs to consider the
context and beginning point of exploration for these two groups in 1995. The increase for
Group 1 students seems to be more dramatic than the increase for Group 2 students. One
the one hand one would expect the typical college environment to encourage non-
exploring students to think critically about their identity, especially the domains within the
ideological subscale (occupation, religion, politics, and philosophical lifestyle). This is
demonstrated in Group 2 students. However, the fact that Group 1 students made a
signiﬁcant change from 62.5% to 83.3% supports the contention that service-learning is
still an important pedagogical tool for those students who begin college at an already
higher level of exploration. Thus, the ﬁndings support rejection of the null hypotheses H03

and H04 but not H05 with respect to ideological identity.

74

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 7
tuentinElrintt onlnt ro Inti 19 7
Students Students
At 1995 At 1997
Total Samplea
Non-Exploration (A) 14 (19.4%) 12 (16.7%)
Exploration (B) 58 (80.6%) 60 (83.3%)
4 ofStudents 1997 1997
A B
1995 A 6 s
1995 B 6 52
mg: 72) = 8.58, p<.004
Group 1’ll
Non-Exploration (A) 4 (16.7%) 3 (12.5%)
Exploration (B) 20 (83.3%) 21 (87.5%)
4 of Students 1997 1997
A B
1995 A 2 2
1995 B 1 :9
ﬁrm: 24)=6.l7,p<.020
Group 2a
Non-Exploration (A) 4 (25.0%) 3 (18.8%)
Exploration (B) 12 (75.0%) 13 (81.3%)
4 of Students r997 1997
A B
1995 A 2 2
1995 B r 11
120,13: l6)= 3.42, p<.070
Group 3
Non-Exploration (A) 6 (18.8%) 6 (18.8%)
Exploration (B) 26 (81.3%) 26 (81 .3%)
# of Students r997 1997
A B
1995 A 2 4
1995 B 4 22

 

 

 

 

 

x2(1,1~_r_=32)= l.03,p<.310
’ There were more than 5 missing items on the measure for two cases in 1995. Thus, data
are reported for two missing cases.

75

The results for Table 7 have been interpreted using a similar developmental
framework. Most of the students in all three groups were already in exploration of their
interpersonal identity in 1995: 83.3% in Group 1, 75.0% in Group 2, and 81.3% in Group
3. Given that most of the students had already been actively exploring the interpersonal
domains of their identity in 1995, it is not surprising that changes on this subscale were
minimal. Table 7 shows that one student from Group 1 and one student from Group 2
moved ﬁom non-exploration to exploration status in 1997. The signiﬁcant ﬁnding for
Group 1 is mitigated by the fact that most of the students, 19 out of 24 (79.2%) were
already in the exploration category in 1995 and remained so in 1997. Thus, the ﬁndings in
the data do not support rejection of the null hypotheses H03 and H04, and H05 concerning
interpersonal identity.

ATTACHMENT

Two hypotheses, H06 and H07, address students’ reported attachment to their
parents. Students in the sample answered a questionnaire covering attachment to their
mother and father, the IPPA. As described above this instrument addresses three
dimensions of attachment about each parent: (a) trust, (b) communication, and (c)
alienation. Mean total attachment scores among the three groups of students were
analyzed using a one-way AN OVA. H06 addresses the mean differences for students’
attachment to their mothers. H07 addresses the mean differences for students’ attachment
to their fathers.

H06: There are no significant differences in students’ reported mean attachment scores to
their media's among Groups I, 2, and 3.

76

H07: There are no significant differences in students’ reported mean attachment scores to
their fathers among Groups I, 2, and 3.

Data ﬁ'om the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA) (Armsden &
Greenberg, 1987) for students in the three groups did not yield signiﬁcant ﬁndings. The
IPPA is designed for separate assessment of individuals’ attachment to their mother and
father. Attachment refers to a general feeling of psychological security that students
perceive with respect to their parents. Given the continuous measure of the IPPA, mean
comparisons were made between the three groups of students (see Table 8). Scores on
the IPPA can range between a low score of 25 and a high score of 125, with higher scores
indicating stronger attachment. Data for mothers’ attachment did not reveal signiﬁcant
differences among the three groups (see Table 9). Mean comparisons among the three
groups on fathers’ attachment scores also did not uncover signiﬁcant results using one-
way ANOVA comparisons (see Table 10).

Although there were not signiﬁcant differences on attachment among Groups 1, 2,
and 3, interesting ﬁndings related to mothers’ and especially fathers’ attachment scores
emerged. In looking at the range in scores for fathers’ attachment in Table 1, one notes
that Groups 1 and 3 students reported a larger range in scores than Group 2 students.
Groups 1, 2, and 3 range in scores are as follows: 81, 40, and 93, respectively. This
variance in range was tested using the Levene test of homogeneity of variance (cited in
Norusis/SPSS Inc., 1993, p. 187). Results indicated that there were not signiﬁcant
differences in the variance of scores on fathers’ attachment for these three groups (Levene

statistic (2, 70) = 2.6679, p= .076). However, when Groups 1 and 3 scores were

77

combined to form a Service Group and this group was compared with the Non-Service
Group, there were signiﬁcant differences in the variance of scores (Levene statistic (1, 71)
= 5.6494, p= .020). The dispersion of scores in Figure 2 for Group 2 students, the Non-
Service Group, shows less variance around their mean than Groups 1 and 3. This violates
an assumption of homogeneity of variance required for signiﬁcance testing using the
ANOVA procedure (Kirk, 1995, p. 100).

A similar ﬁnding occurs for the dispersion of scores on mothers’ attachment. The
range in scores for mothers’ attachment in Groups 1, 2, and 3 are as follows: 65, 34, and
64, respectively. Again, this variance in range was tested using the Levene test of
homogeneity of variance. Results indicated signiﬁcant differences in the variance of scores
on mothers’ attachment for the three groups (Levene statistic (2, 71) = 4.2449, p= .018).
When Groups 1 and 3 were combined to form a Service Group and this group was
compared with the Non-Service Group, there were also signiﬁcant differences in the
variance of scores (Levene statistic (1, 72) = 5.3073, p= .024). The dispersion of scores
in Figure 3 for Group 2 students, the Non-Service Group, shows less variance around
their mean than Groups 1 and 3. These data suggest that there are some students, who
despite the lower/weaker reported attachment to their mothers and fathers engage in
community service activities.

Although these ﬁndings, in effect, caution the interpretation of mean score
differences on attachment across the three groups, it leads one to question why this is
happening. It could be that the Service Group of students are representing two separate

populations of students: one group who become attracted to community service as a way

78

to connect themselves to others due to weaker attachments with their parents (a resilient
group of students); and another group of students who become attracted to community
service as a form of modeling civic responsibility that they learned from their parents while
still living at home. Forthcoming sections discuss the signiﬁcance of these ﬁndings both

quantitatively (page 106) and qualitatively (page 88).

 

 

 

 

Table 8
M r nAtahment Mhr Fhr

Mean Score (SD) Minimum/Maximum Scores
Total Sample
Fathers’ Attachment 93.56 (20.15) 32.00/ 125.00
(N=73)’
Mothers’ Attachment 102.92 (15.58) 60.00/ 125.00
(N=74)
Group 1
Fathers’ Attachment 89.22 (23.34) 41.00/ 122.00
(n=25)
Mothers’ Attachment 103.80 (19.44) 61 .00/ 125.00
(n=25)
Group 2
Fathers’ Attachment 90.75 (12.19) 70.00/110.00
(n=16)a
Mothers’ Attachment 104.53 (9.39) 86.00/ 120.00
(n=l7)
Group 3
Fathers’ Attachment 98.34 (20.17) 32.00/ 125.00
(n=32)
Mothers’ Attachment 101.38 (15.14) 60.00/ 124.00
(n=32)

 

“ The father of one of the students was deceased indicating a missing value.

79

Table 9

(me-way AN QVA for Methere’ Atteehment

 

 

 

 

 

Source Sum of Mean df F Value F
Probability Scmares Squares
Between Groups 139.5671 69.7836 2

0.2817 0.7553
Within Groups 17585.3877 247.6815 71
Table 10

-w AN V f r ’ A chm

Source Sum of Mean df F Value F
Probabiligl Squares Squares
Between Groups 1328.9153 664.4577 2

1.6666 0.1963
Within Groups 27907.6827 398.6812 70

 

80

Figure 2: Dispersion of Data on Fathers’ Attachment by Group

Fathers' AttachmenUG-roup 1

7

 

 

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Figure 3: Dispersion of Data on Mothers’ Attachment by Group

10

Mothers' Attach menUGroup 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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82

 

Additional Quantitative Applyses

The above analyses address the hypotheses for the study, but one question
remains. The data do not support signiﬁcant differences between the service groups
(Groups 1 and 3) and the non—service group of students in identity development
(ideological and interpersonal) and attachment to their parents. However, do the data
support signiﬁcant differences in identity development and attachment to the students’
parents between the two service groups, Group 1 and Group 3? Tables 11 and 12 below

display the ﬁndings for the data on ideological and interpersonal identity, respectively.

 

 

Table 11
-Q' , 9'. .9 Mllnti f0r em "14'... o ' 1 01013.1“ 'l ‘ Sh‘l‘n '
Service-Learning Prior Service
(Group 1) (Group 3)
I. 1‘ 199 5,
Non-Exploration (Diffused and Foreclosed) 9 (37.5%) 11 (34.4%)
Exploration (Moratorium and Achieved) 15 (62.5%) 21 (65.6%)
X2! 1, N = 56) = 0.06J<.810
I. 2. 1997
Non-Exploration 4 (16.0%) 12 (37.5%)
Exploration 21 (84.0%) 20 (62.5%)

2‘2! 1, N = 57) = 3.21, p<.074
‘ There were more than 5 missing items on the measure for one case in 1995. Thus, the N
for 1995 is smaller by one case.

83

 

 

Table 12
.I‘I.’ . ' Ir‘r Olazln'fll fro.‘ ."'_I_L_.,°1_‘ 'rlo, ‘ ' ‘EM"! ‘
Service-Learning Prior Service
(Group 1) (Group 3)
11m e 1; 1995’
Non-Exploration (Diffused and Foreclosed) 4 (16.7%) 6 (18.8%)
Exploration (Moratorium and Achieved) 20 (83.3%) 26 (81.3%)
f( 1, N = 56) = 0.04, p<.841
Trm' e 2; 19912
Non-Exploration 3 (12.0%) 6 (18.8%)
Exploration 22 (84.0%) 26 (81.3%)

ﬂ 1, N = 57) = 0.48, p<.488
’ There were more than 5 missing items on the measure for one case in 1995. Thus, the N
for 1995 is smaller by two cases.

 

The results of these data do not demonstrate signiﬁcant differences between the two
service groups, Groups 1 and 3. One noteworthy ﬁnding from Tables 11 and 12, are the
results from the data in 1997 of ideological identity. The results neared signiﬁcance.
Students involved in the service-learning activity (Group 1) from the course showed more
students in Exploration on Ideological Identity than the other prior service students
(Group 3), 84.0% and 62.5% respectively.

The differences between these two groups on attachment scores also did not reveal
signiﬁcant ﬁndings. From Table 8 above, one notes that the mean score for Attachment to
Mothers in Group 1 was 103.80, while the mean score for Attachment to Mothers in
Group 3 was 101.38. This mean score difference of 2.42 was not signiﬁcant (1 (55) =

1.58, p=.120). The scores for Attachment to Fathers was also not signiﬁcant (1(55) =

84

0.53, p=.599). The difference between mean scores for Group 1 (89.22) and Group 3
(98.34) scores was 9.12. Students in the service groups did not reveal distinct differences
in their scores for attachment to either parent. Overall, the data on global identity and
attachment do not demonstrate differences between the service groups.
Qualitative Findings

In addition to the quantitative data, qualitative information was gathered for each
of the three groups of students. Three separate focus group sessions were offered, one for
each of the three groups of students. Since the focus groups were conducted during the
end of the Spring Semester, many scheduling conﬂicts occurred due to the fact that
students were studying for ﬁnal exams, working, and attending classes. Data ﬁom nine
students overall, were coded and analyzed for themes of care, identity, and diversity.
Attendance in the focus groups was represented as follows: (a) four students ﬁom Group
1, (b) one student from Group 2, and (c) four students from Group 3. As stated
previously, the student who attended the session for Group 2 students indicated being
presently active in community service activities. Since all the participants in the focus
groups had experience in community service activities, the data were interpreted
highlighting the themes relevant for community service students. Although the turn out of
students at the sessions was small, the data obtained from the students were rich with
explanations that the quantitative measures did not capture.
Cm

What is the relationship between care and community service? What do the

students in the service groups think about their role as caring individuals and what and

85

who inspired them to be caring individuals? The focus group sessions addressed these
questions by asking the students: (a) “What does it mean to be a caring person?” (b)
“What important activities have they accomplished that has helped others in the
community?” and (c) “As a child how was caring viewed in their homes?”

Students’ were asked to describe speciﬁcally what it means to be a caring person
and the beliefs associated with being a caring person. The responses ranged from personal
reﬂections about situations they had encountered to more global statements about society.
The personal statements revolved around people with whom students had signiﬁcant
relationships. These included family members, ﬁiends, co-workers or peers at school.
From these relationships the students agreed that to care about others, the relationships
needed to encompass both a reciprocity of mutual affection as well as the ﬁ'ustration of
allowing others the independence to fail at times. The failing incidents usually ended up
hurting the students who initiated the caring act. Mutual affection entailed some of the
following statements:

Putting others’ needs ahead of yourself, being open and supportive, and to
share feelings.

I put understanding of others’ feelings. I put a time taker. . . .Taking time
with your friends. Sometimes you might be too busy.

Somebody who is interested in the well being of another person. Either
offering them a place to stay if they need a place to stay or someone to
come and talk to and who is just generally being interested in them being...
I want to say healthy or not happy. Yes healthy just to know and they are
happy with the way things are going and if they are not then being there so
they know that there is someone they can talk to.

First I put “One that helps others.” Second one I put “giving a damn.”
That’s the only thing that came to mind. That’s the truth I think. If you

86

are caring you give a damn and then I put “Wanting to help others beneﬁt
and get rewards in return.” Whatever they may be.

Statements about being ﬁ'ustrated with allowing the independence of others to fail usually
centered around ﬁiends/peers at school or people with whom they are residing.

I was trying to help someone and it’s like they wanted help but they

couldn’t do it. They just kept going back to their old ways and I know that

it is going to get them in trouble again. As much as it hurt me to say that I

have no more energy to help you but I wish you the best of luck because it

just seemed like I was putting everything in the help down but they

couldn’t help themselves. . .

I have learned about caring from being up here. I joined a sorority house

because my dad was in a frat. I joined a house and 1 really wasn’t into it

and our house had a lot of problems this year. We had a couple of

incidents. There were some bad things going on and it was like I was right

in the middle of it and I didn’t want to care. I wanted to walk away. I

wanted to be “You know it’s a sorority” . . The more you do the tied in

you are and you want to get out of there but you can’t. You care about

these people. You care about that person next to you who you never talk

to but you know it is your sister. It’s weird you know.

Being able to integrate the togetherness reﬂected in mutual affection and the
separateness of allowing others independence is central to the self’s identity. For these
students, their development of the self extended to service activities in the community. As
far as helping others in the community, all of the focus group participants indicated past,
current, or future endeavors that were philanthropic toward the community. These
activities included: (a) serving as a camp counselor at Boy Scouts, (b) baby sitting, (c)
serving as a camp counselor at Girl Scouts, (d) assisting local politicians in community

government, (e) assisting athletes in the Special Olympics, (f) assisting foreign students in

social events, (g) volunteering at a crisis hot line, (h) tutoring children in math, (I) holding

87

“crack” babies, (j) and taking medically fragile patients shopping. All of the activities
involved direct contact with the people being served. Students described the positive
feelings they felt engaging in these activities and said that many times this served as an
impetus to continue to serve others in the community. One student stated, “Scarily
enough, I’m a Boy Scout and being a Boy Scout is not the coolest thing on the block.
I’ve done it for awhile though and it has been great. It’s one of my most favorite things.”
This student continued to describe the positive support between the campers, counselors,
and masters that helps to sustain his interest and enthusiasm with the Boy Scouts.

Since the service activities seem to serve a core element of their developing selves,
the investigator was curious about how the students learned to care. Thus, in part of the
focus group sessions students were asked how they learned to care about others. All of
the students indicated that they learned how to care through the examples of their parents
or other family relatives. Most of the time the learning occurred through an adoption of
positive examples set by their parents.

It [caring] was deﬁnitely modeled in my house. To explain my household,

I come from a Hungarian family. Both my parents are immigrants. The

tightest thing that you have is your family right so you got to help them

out. It is interacting with your siblings and father and it is all about “giving

a damn and caring, helping each other.”

When I think of a caring person, I think of my mom. She did everything

for her kids and her family. When I have to follow someone I always think

of how my mom would have reacted in that situation. She’s never yelled in

her life. She’s just a very caring person and... that’s how I was raised and

that’s how she raised me to be.

My mom was pretty religious, she was Catholic and everything and she has

always instilled in me to treat others with respect and to put them before
you sometimes - like their feelings.

88

I remember one thing that my mother - my father was more laid back - but

my mother always told me like right now to just remember people for no

reason; drop them a card or something, remember their birthday, remember

something that might be special to them just to let them know that you are

thinking of them so that they know.
However, one student reported a negative example set by her parents about which she was
able to come to an understanding that helped in her own actions.

In my house caring wasn’t a physical caring. There wasn’t really a lot of

emotional caring shown. . . .I think that friends are always more caring than

adults at least in my life anyway. It seems like it is true, it’s genuine caring

instead of just playing the role.
This student is the only student who attended the focus groups with low attachment scores
to both her mother and father. For this study, a low attachment score is represented by
having an attachment score to mother or father that is below one standard deviation of the
mean ﬁom the total sample. In this sample, a low father attachment score is below 74 and
a low mother attachment score is below 88. Her scores on father and mother attachment
were 41 and 79, respectively. Despite the low attachment scores, this student found other
ways to stay connected to the community by providing a service in her younger years.
She describes how baby sitting has helped her become a caring person.

I think that the deﬁning moment I guess with me is I used to baby-sit when

I was younger. I baby-sat the kids across the street three times a week so I

got to know them really well and you’d realize that they’d picked up your

habits. If you promised them something and you forgot about it, they

remembered. I think it taught me a lot to be responsible, and a caring

person.
This student characterizes the “resilient” student described in an earlier section (page 78).

Further work researching the motivation of these resilient youth on caring for others needs

to be conducted. This work would beneﬁt the service-learning ﬁeld by uncovering how

89

service work beneﬁts youth and the communities they serve.
151m

The student in the previous passage discussed how caring for children in her
neighborhood “taught” her how to be responsible and a caring person. By reﬂecting on
the events of baby sitting, this student learned more about an aspect of her identity she
admires and respects. This kind of reﬂection was commonly shared in the focus group
sessions. Care about humanity seemed to be an inherent quality of the service students.
These students described not only how they learned to care for others, but also how it
helped them learn about themselves by being sensitive to the needs of others.

When I was in Girl Scouts I went to a homeless shelter. People always say
that I am so emotionless and I don’t care. . . and it was before I actually
interacted with people who don’t have anything I totally saw them different
then. “Why don’t they get away, why are they always begging?” When I
actually went into a soup kitchen I actually saw that these people didn’t
have anything and that maybe they are not. . . People who stand on the
side of the expressway or something, you always think that they probably
have money but then you see that maybe they really don’t. I think that’s
what turned me around. These people are here because they don’t have
any place else to go. We have these big houses and we actually have a
home and it made me realize that there are people that don’t have anything.
I think that’s what made me care more. I wasn’t mean to them anymore.

The place that I work about a year ago, our student advisor took over a
program that was at the service-learning center. International Interactions
and she took over coordinating it and asked if I wanted to be one involved.
So the ﬁrst semester I was involved with a student from Korea and we
would go out for coffee and movies and we would just kind of talk. Then
second semester she asked me if I would be a student coordinator and I
have been doing that ever since. I get to see the problems that they have or
the shocks that they go through rather than just seeing them in the
academic life. So I think that has helped. It has made me a little more
sensitive to the huge shock that they go through and maybe that’s... you
can trace it, why they... if they do come in and they are being unreasonable
or they are upset that you just know it’s not just because they are rotten

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people.
Other students reported having adopted an ethic of care and optimism that transcends the
apathetic picture portrayed about the youth in the present generation.

You get out of life what you put into it. If you are going to be spiteful and
have hate towards someone all that negative energy is going to just get
back at you and that there is really not a purpose to it. If you just let that
go and use positive affects then it is just going to beneﬁt you later.
Character is the most important thing you really have and if you know that
you are being honest and truthﬁrl in helping people than that’s. . .nobody
can take that away from you, that’s who you are.

If you do something for someone and they don’t really know about it and
you don’t get credit for it. I think that is even more important because it is
like a little bit of positive energy you are putting into the world and you
don’t get anything out of it. So it’s kind of like you are the only person
that knows and that is still important.

I said that being a man means being responsible but I had only said that. I

think that your character relates back to your parents. That is the type of

person my dad is. He does a lot of things by example a lot of the things

he’s never really told me like what it means to be a man but maybe after

your third or fourth year at college you realize that the things that he told

you what he did was all about being a man and that showed that he cared.
From these passages it becomes clear that reﬂection on community service activities and
exploring how students’ were socialized to become the “selves” they are at the present has
allowed the students to have a deeper understanding about their identity. Helping others
has beneﬁtted the students’ philosophical beliefs and has had a positive impact on their
behavior.
Divegsity

The theme of diversity was captured during the sessions when the moderator asked

the participants to discuss their perceptions about the relationship among diversity and

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“intolerance”, “tolerance”, and “appreciation”. The complexity of students’ responses
acknowledged their perception that some of the people and institutions they have
encountered seem to follow a hypocritical lifestyle while other people and institutions
welcome and even celebrate diversity. Examples of hypocrisy and diversity included:

I see a correlation between care and a sense of duty. I think people care
because they feel like they are supposed to care a lot of the times. I think
that’s a big difference between a really caring person and then people who
just do it who have just been taught that’s the right thing to do.

I think people feel like they have to be diverse. You always read about it,
you always hear it. The professors and people chirping about it but it
doesn’t happen though. You talk about it, it’s all words. I just remember
from living in the dorms going in the cafeteria and it would still be so
segregated.

Today’s society does not appear to be working together. They want you
to think that they are but everybody sort of has their own agenda.

I agree with everything that they are saying about society today. It really
has become so individualistic that nobody thinks about the other person.
Before you had the small communities and then you really didn’t have
anybody for miles and miles and so in order to keep your communities and
sustain the life of your community, everybody had to help. But as society
has grown, people have become more concerned about where they get in
life and if their life is good. The community has become so big that in a lot
of ways everybody doesn’t have their heart and soul into helping everybody
else and making sure that everybody is at the same standard and level, it’s
not going to work.

Examples of celebrated diversity included learning at home as well as in school contexts.

The ﬁrst passage below is from a student describing her initial appreciation of diversity. It
resulted ﬁom having grown up in a living situation that was different from that of most of
the students in the sample who lived with both parents as children. The second passage is

from the same student discussing what she has learned from taking courses on diversity

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and going overseas to study for one semester.

My father and her [mother] were divorced when I was two and she had to
work usually nights so there was always somebody at our house. . . .It
really helped to get along with people who were different than I was. I had
to learn to actually share because a lot of them had kids. 80 I agree that it
actually helped a lot in my independence and the way that I relate to other
people and knowing that not everybody is in the same situation that I am,
that you have to take that into account.

[W]e are still so dependent on how diverse that our society is. That each
group contributes something in their own way that makes us unique. It is
not just one controlling group even if it looks that way. It is but within that
one controlling group there are just so many people who contribute to it
that come from such diverse and different backgrounds that otherwise
somebody ﬁom a small town in Michigan wouldn’t be exposed to and
wouldn’t know about.

Another student describes how she learned appreciation of diversity through her service-
learning experience at Allen Street School.

And I think that for this class [ISS 335] the fact that I had the opportunity

to go and teach at school and there was an incentive, I really learned a lot

ﬁom it. It was a great experience but had there not been that incentive I

don’t know if I would have done it. I mean I did learn something. I wasn’t

preached about diversity but in this experience I did learn something about

diversity.
Students have described how the different contexts in which they were placed, either
through home or school, allowed them the opportunity to learn about and celebrate
diversity. They were clear in stating that really to learn and celebrate diversity, people
must be given exposure and opportunities through natural contexts. One student stated,
“I think when you force diversity on someone it makes them more hesitant to even want to

learn about it.”

During the session with Group 3 participants, a brief discussion about curriculum

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and teaching styles ensued as it relates to diversity. The members in the group
acknowledged that our US. educational system is grounded in individualistic and
competitive learning. They discussed how little attention is placed on the diverse needs
and learning styles of students while they were going through school. Some examples of
this theme are as follows:

I think back to when I had this class and also the class that I have now is
that it differs across cultures too because in some cultures... if I am not
mistaken in the Japanese culture... shared community is like the overall
scheme of things. We watched this video... it was schools in America,
Japan, and Germany and how they differ. In American school systems if
you don’t get the material they don’t care, they move on. But in the
Japanese culture if you don’t understand something they take some of the
kids that are a little bit smarter in the class and they sit them down with
those that may not be as bright or might not have the talent right yet and
they make them work together. So I think that a lot of times the way your
culture is structured it can affect the whole community as having a shared
group of... In America everything is an individualistic type of society.

I think the problem was that when America started to get so individualistic

was actually when schools came about because they were modeled after the

factory. In the factory there is no sense of community. Its one and

another, and another. . .

I don’t ever remember like if there were 3 people in the class that didn’t get

it that the whole class would just help them get it. They would have to

come in by themselves, on their own time to get it. So it was just about

you getting ahead and staying on track with yourself.
These excerpts point to the notion of diversity among student learners. The participants
indirectly related this conversation to service-learning, where active participation with
others in the community forces one to adopt a style of serving others that is helpful to the

people being served. Without doing so in providing a service, the optimal needs of the

servee are compromised. For example, if the college student went to the Allen School

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classroom expecting that he or she would be “doing” all the activities for an assigned task
in a group as opposed to facilitating cooperative learning, many of the Allen School pupils
would become bored and distracted. This kind of teaching style results in a passive
learning role. This investigator is left to ponder the question, “How much more would the
learning process be enhanced if educators truly adopted a more ﬂexible teaching style to

meet the diverse needs of students?”

Chapter 5 -- DISCUSSION

Brief Descﬁptig of the Stutdy

This study was designed to explore the relationship of identity, attachment, and
care to participating in community service among college students. A large lecture course
at Michigan State University served as the pool of students. From that class of 393
students, 74 out of 110 students sampled had volunteered to be a part of the study. There
were two waves to the study. The ﬁrst wave involved the administration of a
questionnaire to gather information about students’ demographics, identity, and
attachment. The second wave entailed attendance of students at focus group sessions that
dealt with their beliefs about caring. The students in the study were placed in one of three
groups: (a) service-learning (community service), (b) non-service experience, and (c) prior
service experience (community service). Speciﬁc objectives guided the study’s focus on
the identity, attachment, and care of the groups of students who participated. These
objectives were organized according to four major areas of inquiry:
1. The ﬁrst question was whether college students who were involved in community
service had more advanced scores on identity development and stronger/more secure
attachments to their parents than the students who did not engage in community service
activities.

2. The second question was whether there were any differences in identity development

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and attachment between the two groups of students engaged in community service. The
one service group participated in service-learning for part of the course while the other
service group had some experience in community service that was unrelated to the course.
3. The third question was whether there were any developmental gains among the service
and non-service students on global identity. If there were gains in development, this study
addressed whether the community service experience had any additional gains over the
students who did not have this type of experience.
4. The fourth question was an attempt to examine whether there were any qualitative
differences among the three groups of students in their conceptual understanding of care,
the activities they have engaged in that helped others in the community, and how they
learned to care. This objective could not be completely addressed because of the small
number of students who attended the focus group sessions.
Each of these areas will be discussed in the subsequent text using the particular hypotheses
and research questions relevant to the speciﬁc factors of the study.
Discussion of Quantitative Findings

Three out of the four major objectives delineated above will be addressed in this
section on the quantitative analyses. A series of seven hypotheses were delineated to
investigate two factors: identity and attachment. Five of the seven hypotheses pertained to
students’ identity exploration while the remaining two hypotheses addressed students’
attachment to their mothers and fathers. The results cited in the previous chapter specify
the analyses of the hypotheses. This section will discuss the ﬁndings by providing one

possible interpretation of the results. Prior to addressing the above stated main objectives,

97

a discussion of the results on the descriptive ﬁndings is presented.
D ' iv ' i

The following demographic information about the students was collected and
analyzed for signiﬁcant ﬁndings: (a) sex, (b) race, (c) college major, ((1) age, (e) parents’
service experience, (f) highest education reached by mother, (g) highest education reached
by father, (h) birth order, (1) number of children in their family, 0) living arrangement as a
child, (k) parents’ estimated income in 1994, (1) work for pay in college in 1995, (m)
currently engaged in community service. The results for these data are presented in Table
2 in Chapter 4. From this list, (a) students’ sex, (b) highest education reached by students’
mothers, and (c) current engagement in community service discriminated between the
service students and the non-service students. One variable, highest education reached by
father, discriminated among the three groups of students. A discussion of these ﬁndings
follows.
1. Sex: The data revealed that there were more female students who were involved in
community service experience than male students. Over 7 5.0% of the students involved in
community service activities in this sample were female. This ﬁnding is similar to Fitch’s
(1987) ﬁnding that 78% of the 76 college students he sampled about motivations to
engage in community service were female. However, this contrasts with Levine’s (1994)
ﬁnding that of over 9,000 college students who were sampled had a high percentage of
both men (62%) and women (66%) involved in volunteer activities. Despite the
discrepancies in the proportion of males and females volunteering, one must acknowledge

that being connected to others by helping in the commtmity deﬁnitely appears to serve a

98

primary role in the lives of the majority college females. This helping behavior is also
characteristic of males in this sample but to a lesser degree. Interpreting these ﬁndings
leads one to the theoretical work of Carol Gilligan (1988, 1982/1993) and the literature
researching socialization of boys and girls (Chase-Lansdale, Wakschlag, & Brooks-Gum,
1995; Leaper, 1994; Parsons & Bales, 1955) . The data in this sample support Gilligan’s
theorizing that females’ development is more centered on a morality of care. However,
the fact that there are a large number of males involved in community service does not
diminish the importance of service in both male and female students’ lives. It would
appear that the differences in the ways boys and girls are socialized may make it easier for
girls to ﬁnd community service an easy avenue for the type of “connected learning” that
such service implies. Girls traditionally are socialized by adults to be more expressive or
nurturant and are reinforced as young children to favor affrliative over assertive play.
Girls are also encouraged to internalize kindness and compassion in interpersonal
relationships. Boys, on the other hand, are socialized by adults to be more instrumental or
task-oriented in completing activities and are reinforced as young children to favor
assertiveness and competitive play. Additionally, the style of interacting among boys with
same-sex peers tends to lean toward a dominance hierarchy that is easily assimilated into
the work culture of the United States. Thus, the connectedness and reﬂection involved in
serving others in community service activities would be easily assimilated into the learning
among females, while it remains more distant and less characteristic for learning among
males.

2. Highest Education by Mother and Father: The data on mother’s education revealed

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that mothers with college degrees or higher were more likely among students who had
engaged in community service activities than students who were not involved in
community service activities. In fact, over two-thirds of the service group students in this
sample had mothers with college degrees or higher while only one-quarter of the non-
service students had mothers with college degrees or higher. However, this difference
between the groups is not as well-deﬁned for the educational attainment of fathers. The
ﬁndings showed that having fathers who had less than a college degree characterized
about halfof the students who were involved in service-learning and also the non-service
group; yet, the results of the data on fathers’ educational attainment for students who had
service experience but did not volunteer for service was similar to the ﬁndings on mothers’
educational attainment. These ﬁndings lead the investigator to think about the importance
of mothers’ inﬂuence in engendering a caring ethic to their children. Again, the writing of
Carol Gilligan (1988) is relevant. She stated:

Predispositions toward justice and toward care can be traced to the

experiences of inequality and of attachment that are embedded in the

relationship between child and parent. And since everyone, thus, is

vulnerable to oppression and to abandonment, two stories about morality

recur in human experience. The different parameters of the parent-child

relationship-~its inequality and its interdependence or attachment--may

ground different feelings which differentiate the dimensions of

inequality/equality and attachment/detachment that characterize all forms of

human connection (p. 5).
In this passage, Gilligan illuminates the polarities that exist in parenting. A parent is the
adult in the relationship, thus, establishes the boundaries and provides for discipline when

the boundaries are “broken”. This disciplinary role establishes the inequality/equality

relationship that allows for autonomy. However, parenting also involves a bonding or

100

love relationship with a child. This kind of parenting engenders caring, validation, and
warmth/aﬁection. This role addresses the issue of attachment/detachment that is inherent
in any relationship. Since mothers play a crucial role in carrying out the polarities of
parenting, especially the attachment/detachment polarity, it logically follows that caring
for others in the community would be adopted out of a relationship with the mother. A
mother with a college degree is exposed to many different contexts where relationships
occur, and is thus more “equipped” with places to extend a caring ethic. This philosophy
may be extended from mother and father to their son or daughter. One outlet for applying
this caring ethic is through community service.
3. Current Engagement in Community Service: These data revealed that students
who were involved in community service experience in the past were more likely to be
currently involved in community service. More than two-thirds of the students from the
service groups were currently involved in service activities, while only one student ﬁom
the non-service group was currently involved in service activities. This ﬁnding is similar
to the results from a large scale study conducted by the INDEPENDENT SECTOR with
over 1,400 adolescents and 2,500 adults in the United States (Hodgkinson, 1995). From
this study it was found that over seven out of ten adults who volunteered reported that
they had prior community service experience as a child. Thus, volunteering begets
volunteering.

The types of people who inspired the students to volunteer for community service
was another demographic characteristic that was analyzed. The results for these data are

presented in Table 3 in Chapter 4. There were several types of inspirers described by

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students. They were categorized according to the following: (a) parent, (b) teacher, (c)
coach, (d) grandparent, (e) other family member, (f) religious/spiritual leader, and (g)
other people. The only type of inspirer who signiﬁcantly discriminated among the three
groups of students was “other” inspirers. These inspirers came from a variety of contexts
including personal relationships, family friends, support groups, school administrators,
health professionals, camps, sororities, fraternities, and people from work. These contexts
are elaborated in the qualitative section highlighting the importance of them in their ability
to care for others in the community.

Another ﬁnding related to the type of inspirers, although not statistically signiﬁcant
concerns the “religious/spiritual” inspirer. Close to one quarter of the students who had
community service experience mentioned that aﬁiliation with people in religious/spiritual
contexts provided the opportunity for them to engage in service activities. Only one
student from the non-service group mentioned a religious/spiritual inspirer. She is
currently engaged in community service activities. As far as service activities are
concerned, religious contexts deﬁnitely appear to be crucial for engendering a caring ethic
in the community. This ﬁnding has been cited in other works of Youniss (1993) and the
INDEPENDENT SECTOR (Hodgkinson, 1995). Youniss cited churches and other
institutions as places where learning about service opportunities arose. The
INDEPENDENT SECTOR reported in their large survey on Giving and Volunteering in
the United States that having belonged to a youth group was one of the strongest
predictors for engaging in community service, second only to having past volunteer

experience. This strength in combining learning at the academy with the needs and

102

philosophical exposure from churches, synagogues, and other places of worship reﬂects a
major oversight in the social science ﬁeld. As stated by one family science scholar, “This
gap reﬂects the lack of attention paid to religion in recent scholarly writings about
families” (Cherlirr, 1997, p. 209). Filling this gap would provide a crucial link for those
studying student development and service-learning.
Identity

One of the major tasks for college students involves a further exploration with
certain aspects or domains of their identities. A major factor in this study entailed an
examination of students’ global identity. Students’ scores on a self-report measure were
analyzed for two areas of identity: ideological and interpersonal. Speciﬁc hypotheses were
formulated and applied in the analysis of global identity. These hypotheses are restated as
a reminder to the reader.

Hypothesis 1: There are no signiﬁcant differences between the community service group
of students (Groups 1 and 3) and the group of students without any prior community
service (Group 2) in respect to the percentage of scores from the Non-Exploration status
categories (diffused and foreclosed) and the Exploration status categories (moratorium

and achieved) for ideelegieel identity at Time 2 (1997).

Hypothesis 2: There are no signiﬁcant differences between the community service group
of students (Groups 1 and 3) and the group of students without any prior community
service (Group 2) in respect to the percentage of scores from the Non-Exploration status
categories (diffused and foreclosed) and the Exploration status categories (moratorium

and achieved) for MW at Time 2 (1997).

Hypothesis 3: For the Group 1 students there are no signiﬁcant differences between Time
1 and Time 2 scores for either ideological and interpersonal identity. That is the
percentage of students falling in the Exploration (moratorium and achieved) and Non-
Exploration (diffused and foreclosed) statuses will not differ from Time 1 to Time 2.

Hypothesis 4: For the Group 2 students there are no signiﬁcant differences between Time
1 and Time 2 scores for either ideological and interpersonal identity. That is the

103

percentage of students falling in the Exploration (moratorium and achieved) and Non-
Exploration (diffused and foreclosed) statuses will not differ from Time 1 to Time 2.

Hypothesis 5: For the Group 3 students there are no signiﬁcant differences between Time
1 and Time 2 scores for either ideological and interpersonal identity. That is the
percentage of students falling in the Exploration (moratorium and achieved) and Non-
Exploration (diffused and foreclosed) statuses will not differ from Time 1 to Time 2.
The ﬁrst two hypotheses were tested to determine whether the students involved in
community service activities had or were presently exploring the ideological and
interpersonal aspects of their identity in greater proportion than the students not involved
in community service activities. Thus, the data were analyzed statistically to assess
whether there were any veritable group differences in identity exploration among the three
groups of students who had varying degrees of service experience. The last three
hypotheses addressed the question of whether there were any unique developmental
changes in students’ identity exploration with respect to their experience in community
service activities. The discussion of the results will entail the group comparisons and the
developmental ﬁndings.
Group Comparisons

Prior to displaying the ﬁndings related to the overall college experience, a brief
discussion related to the identity statuses is warranted. Chickering and Reisser’s (1993)
theoretical views on student development as well as other literature support the view that
students who enroll and complete four years of college are more likely to be students who

are motivated to explore their own identity (Marcia, Waterman, Matteson, Archer, &

Orlofsky, 1993). This exploration would yield scores within the moratorium and achieved

104

statuses. Other literature supports the notion that identity exploration occurs as a
continuous process, such that most individuals will cycle between moratorium and
achieved identity statuses for a large portion of their lives (Stephen, Fraser, & Marcia,
1992). Therefore it was not surprising to ﬁnd that many of the students in this sample
scored as either moratorium or achieved in 1995 (59.9% in the ideological subscale and
80.6% in the interpersonal subscale ) and 1997 (66.7% in the ideological subscale and
83.3% in the interpersonal subscale) on the identity scales. Given these recent ﬁndings,
the developmental analyses will reﬂect a collapsed version of the statuses into two groups:
Non-Exploration (Diffused and Foreclosed) and Exploration (Moratorium and Achieved).

The service students were compared with the non-service students with respect to
their exploration of ideological and interpersonal identity. To address the hypotheses,
students were classiﬁed into one of two categories: non-exploration and exploration.
The results revealed that, although more of the community service students fell students
fell in the higher status categories (moratorium and achievement) of ideological identity in
1997 (71 .9%) than the non-service students (52.9% in 1997), the ﬁndings were not
statistically signiﬁcant (see Table 4). Four students involved in service activities moved
from non-exploration to exploration from 1995 to 1977, while three students not involved
in service activities made this change.

Similar ﬁndings occurred for the students with respect to their interpersonal
identity. However, the majority of the non-service students (75.0%) and the service
students (82.1%) were already in the Exploration stages in 1995, Time 1, and remained

there two years later in 1997, Time 2 (see Table 5). Only one student changed from non-

105

exploration to exploration among those who were involved in service activities. One the
other hand, there was no change for the students not involved in service activities.
Developmental Findings

In examining the speciﬁc changes in identity status among the three service groups
from 1995 to 1997, one can observe signiﬁcant ﬁndings (see Tables 6 and 7). As is clear
from the previous group comparisons, most of the students in the sample were already in
the exploration status of interpersonal identity. Thus, there were not signiﬁcant
developmental changes on the interpersonal subscale. While the college environment
traditionally encourages students to explore domains within the ideological area, one
would not expect drastic change during the college years in those domains represented in
the interpersonal subscale (ﬁiendship, dating, sex roles, and recreation). Much of the
exploration occurs in early to middle adolescence, that is, in the middle school and high
school years (Adams, Gullotta, & Markstrom-Adams, 1994; Santrock, 1993). Therefore,
students beginning college are typically in the exploration status on the interpersonal
identity subscale.

Although there were not signiﬁcant ﬁndings on the interpersonal subscale, an
examination of the ideological subscale does reveal some developmental changes. The
proportion of students volunteering for the service-learning part of the course at Allen
Street School who changed ﬁ'om a non-exploration to exploration status (20.8%) was
similar to the proportion for non-service students (18.7%). However, as stated
previously, further examination of the data showed that the “baseline” for each of these

groups of students was different. More than half of the service students (62.5%) were

106

already in exploration on the ideological subscale, while less than a third of the non-service
students (31 .3%) were in exploration in 1995. As stated previously, it is expected that the
typical college environment would encourage non-exploring students, such as in Group 2,
to explore the domains of the ideological subscale (occupation, religion, politics, and
philosophical lifestyle). However, there were marked differences for the two separate
service groups. Students who did not partake in the service-learning part of the course
showed relatively no change from 1995 to 1997, 65.6% and 62.5% respectively.
However, students in the service-learning group showed signiﬁcant gains, ﬁ'om 62.5% to
83.3%. Therefore, it appears that the context of the service-learning aspect of the course
contributed to the change. Students who are encouraged to engage in reﬂection sessions,
as the service-learning students had been required to do, may have learned a critical style
of thinking that allowed them to develop even further than they would have by simply
engaging in community service. Further research in this area would be needed to validate
this interpretation.
Attachment

Attachment was another factor examined in the study. Students were asked to
respond to a self-report measure asking about their current relationships with their
parents. There were separate questions for each parent. Lower scores on the measure
indicated a weaker attachment to the parent in question. Two hypotheses were tested by
comparing mean differences across the three groups. To remind the reader, the
hypotheses are restated below:

Hypothesis 6: There are no signiﬁcant differences in students’ reported mean attachment

107

scores to their methers among Groups 1, 2, and 3.

Hypothesis 7: There are no signiﬁcant differences in students’ reported mean attachment
scores to their fathers among Groups 1, 2, and 3.

The results on attachment did not indicate signiﬁcant mean differences across the three
groups of students. Moreover, the data were also not signiﬁcant in ﬁnding mean
differences between (a) the students who had community service experience and the
students without service experience, and (b) the students who were the service-learners
for the course and the students who had some service experience but did not participate in
the experience for the course. However, an interesting and unexpected ﬁnding was
revealed from the data on attachment. Students who had been involved in community
service exhibited a wider range of attachment to both their mothers and fathers than the
students who did not have community service experience. As stated previously, this wider
range of attachment to their parents among the service students could be representing two
separate kinds of students who become involved in community service. The ﬁrst kind of
student could be considered a “resilient” service student, in whom attachments to either
parent were not strong but who found other people with whom to have quality
relationships as well as models of community service activities. The second kind of
student could be considered the “ideal” service student, for whom community service
activities were modeled at home by family members and allowing them to internalize this
type of caring for community as their own. Acknowledging this potential difference in the
kind of student who volunteers for community service provides more information about

how students arrive at the decision to volunteer. These results also reveal that quality

108

relationships with students’ parents are not the sole determinants for engaging in
community service. Thus, learning to care about the community can be fostered through
other important relationships than the family context.

The attachment data in this sample do support the interpretation of the “ideal” and
“resilient” types of student volunteers when one compares the distribution of low and high
scores ﬁ‘om the students involved in community service with the students not involved in
community service, The cutoffs for a high or a low score on attachment were obtained by
taking one standard deviation above or below the total mean score from all three groups
of students. For mothers, the high and low scores were 118 and 88, respectively. For
fathers, the high and low scores were 112 and 74, respectively. There were a total of 14
students with high attachments to their mothers and 14 students with high attachments to
their fathers. Of these students with high attachments, there were only two students with
high attachments to their mothers and zero students with high attachments to their fathers
represented by the non-service group. Moreover, there were a total of 12 students with
low attachments to their mothers and 10 students with low attachments to their fathers.
Of these students with low attachments, there was only one student with low attachment
to his or her mother and one student with low attachment to his or her father represented
by the non-service group. Figures 2 and 3 in Chapter 4 provides a pictorial display of
these ﬁndings. Thus, the question remains as to what other characteristics the students in
the “resilient” type exhibit other than low attachments to their parents. Further research in

this area would lead to a better understanding of the college student volunteer.

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Discussion of Qualitative Findings

The fourth and last objective delineated at the beginning of the chapter will be
addressed in this discussion of the qualitative ﬁndings. Brieﬂy, the objective lead the
investigator to examine whether there were any qualitative differences among the three
groups of students in (a) their perceptions of care, (b) caring behaviors exhibited toward
the community, and (0) how they learned to care. As stated earlier, the ﬁndings for the
qualitative analyses can only be interpreted through the lenses of students who have
engaged in community service. The reason for using this type of interpretation is that
there was not a good representation of students ﬁom each of the focus group sessions.
Researchers in the ﬁeld have suggested that the ideal number of participants in a focus
group session should be between six and twelve (Krueger, 1994; Vaughn, Schumm, &
Sinagub, 1996). Since the total number of participants across the three groups of students
was nine, the data were analyzed using their combined responses. While this strategy
allowed for a broader interpretation of data from the students who had experience in
community service, it did not allow the investigator the ability to discriminate among the
three groups.

Despite the inability to compare across the groups, the researcher was able to
examine the following two research questions from the qualitative analyses in Chapter 3.
that were associated with the qualitative analyses were able to be examined.

1. What kinds of caring behaviors and attitudes were learned at home as the
students were growing up that may have been fostered in other contexts in their

lives?

110

2. How are these caring behaviors and attitudes expressed today within the
significant contexts in the students’ lives?

The ﬁndings ﬁom the qualitative data supported and clariﬁed the quantitative
analyses while focussing on the broad research questions stated above. Students’
statements about caring and diversity reverberated through two main themes: authenticity
and interdependence. These themes were highlighted when the students described what it
meant to care, how they learned to care, and their perceptions about diversity. Students
related the attachments they had with their parents to their own beliefs about who they had
become. Students shared stories about how they encountered college life that was not
always congruent with their personal beliefs and aspirations. They lived experiences that
had given breadth to their morals and principles. These experiences have been met with
celebration and cynicism. Their descriptions about care and diversity thus mirrored their
identities.

Being sensitive to the theorizing of Bronfenbrenner (especially the emphasis placed
on acknowledging the importance of contexts) and Erikson (especially his work on
psychosocial stages of development) allowed the investigator the ability to critically
explore students’ descriptions of authenticity and interdependence. Authenticity was
captured in the voices of students describing their struggles with people who have behaved
hypocritically as well as the students who reported their parents as inspirers.
Interdependence involved the students’ descriptions of mutual affection and care for the
people they live with and the people in the communities they served. The kind of

authentic living reported by the students revealed their search for truth and integrity. It

111
seems to foreshadow the kind of integrity described by Erikson (1959/1980) in his eighth
psychosocial stage of development. He deﬁnes integrity:

It is the acceptance of one’s own and only life cycle and of the people who

have become signiﬁcant to it as something that had to be and that, by

necessity, permitted of no substitutions. It thus means a new different love

of one’s parents, free of the wish that they should have been different, and

an acceptance of the fact that one’s life is one’s own responsibility (p. 104).
Although these students have not reached a state of mature integrity with one’s life, they
are in a period of transition, ﬁ'om adolescence to adulthood. Redeﬁning in relationships
occurs, especially with their parents. They are realizing that many of the values they have
adopted are, for the most part, an extension of their parents’ philosophy. However, this
extension takes on a unique form through their identities. Realizing this transmission of
values and associated standards from their parents allows students the capacity to connect
with others. This connecting with others ultimately forms a path chosen by the students
that is an outgrth of their signiﬁcant attachments with others and their unique identities.
Students are left to follow a path that allows for either an interdependence that appreciates
diversity in others or they can follow a path that is more constraining about the diversity of
others.

Chickering and Reisser (1993) have described some of the important elements in
the paths of college students. These elements are delineated through seven developmental
vectors (competence, emotions, autonomy, interpersonal relationships, identity, purpose
and integrity). The last of the seven vectors, integrity, bears a close resemblance to

Erikson’s deﬁnition of integrity. They describe integrity as a way of reﬁning core values

and beliefs “for interpreting experience, guiding behavior, and maintaining self-respect” (p.

112

51). Contained in this vector are three sequential but overlapping stages: (a) humanizing
values, (b) personalizing values, and (c) developing congruence. Students who humanize
values are able to use principled thinking in contexts rather than maintaining a rigid belief
system. For instance, there may be a rule at work to report co-workers’ tardiness to the
supervisor and on one occasion, a co-worker may arrive late to work as a result of hearing
of a death in the family. The worker who is supposed to report the tardiness may choose
not to do so because of the extenuating circumstances that evolved in this co-workers’
family. Personalizing values involves a thoughtﬁrl selection of guidelines from one’s core
beliefs and values that “ﬁt” with one’s identity. Within this stage, one also recognizes and
respects others’ beliefs. Developing congruence involves behaving in ways that are
congruent with one’s personal beliefs (pp. 53-54). Service-learning opportunities provide
the contexts in which students can be challenged to think and act on behalf of others as a

way to humanize, personalize, and develop congruence with their personal belief systems.

Chapter 6 -- CONCLUSION

Summapy

The purpose of this study was to explore how selected constructs of identity,
attachment, and caring behavior were related to engaging in community service activities.
Students ﬁom a large college course at Michigan State University served as the subjects in
the study and were divided into three groups. Two of the groups were community service
groups and one group of students did not have any prior community service experience.
One service group of students was involved in a service-learning part of the course and the
other service group of students had prior community service experience not related to the
course. For the identity measure, data were collected twice, once in 1995 right after
completion of the course and again two years later as a follow up. Results of the data on
identity supported the prediction that there would be gains in ideological identity for the
service students, especially the students who were involved in service-learning. However,
there was no gain in the interpersonal domains of identity for any of the three groups of
students. The interpretation of these results lend support to Chickering and Reisser’s
(1993) seven vector model of student development. In this model, interpersonal aspects
of one’s identity would precede a formal ideological exploration of identity. Since the
design of the study did not provide for randomization of subjects to service groups,

further studies would need to be conducted to support these ﬁndings.

113

114

The results on attachment were collected once in 1997 and did not yield signiﬁcant
mean score differences among the three service groups. However, the distribution of the
scores on students’ attachment to their mothers and fathers showed two distinct types of
service students. The ﬁrst type was termed the “ideal” type. These were students with
high attachment scores to their parents who had adopted a service/caring ethic that they
learned from their parents and other family members and who applied this ethic in their
own lives. The second type was termed the “resilient” type. These students’ scores on
attachment to their parents were low and they found other sources of support outside the
home to model a service/caring ethic that they could then apply to their own lives. The
qualitative ﬁndings supported these interpretations. Further work in this area needs to be
done to understand the nature of these two types of service students.

In addition to supporting the ﬁndings on attachment, the qualitative analyses also
revealed that students who are involved in community service activities are actively
exploring their own philosophical lifestyles in an eﬁ‘ort to come to some semblance of
integration and integrity about their identities. Students openly discussed the conﬂicts
they have had with agency, direct action, and mutuality, trying to understand and “ﬁt in”
with others in the world. The service experiences they have had, whether they were tied
to the course or not allowed them the ability to remain open to understanding the needs of
others and to appreciate the diversity in our culture. Again, ﬁrrther work using focus
group sessions that allow one to compare service group ﬁndings with a non-service group

would enrich the understanding of the data overall.

115

Limitations of the Study

The limitations of this study involve mostly aspects of its design and sample. The
list below describes some these limitations.
1. The use of self-report measures to understand identity and attachment, and having the
students report the descriptions of care in focus groups, both heavily biases the ﬁndings to
only the perceptions of the people who have engaged in community service. Further work
in this area would beneﬁt from actual observations of students as well as from obtaining
the data ﬁom family members and recipients of the service.
2. Additionally, the sustainability of development that occurred from engaging in the
community service activities can not be addressed from the study’s design. Further data
would need to be collected to address whether engaging in service continues to have an
impact on students’ lives.
3. The generalizability of these ﬁndings to the general population is cautioned as the
sample was selected from one class at Michigan State University.
4. Additionally, although statistical tests of inference were employed to measure
differences among the means and observed categorical data among the three groups of
students, extreme caution interpreting these results is warranted. Subjects were not
randomly assigned to the community service groups. Therefore, the internal validity of
this quasi-experimental procedure is questioned (Cook & Campbell, 1976). Any
differences found in identity and attachment among the three groups of students must be
interpreted with respect to the constraints inherent in the study’s design.

5. Chi-square comparisons of the demographic variables (a) race, (b) major, and (c) age

116

were compromised due to the small sample size (74 students). Some of the categories
from these variables did not have any students. Thus, interpretation of the results of these
three variables is cautioned. Before major generalizations can be made ﬁrrther replications
with a larger sample needs to be conducted.

6. Although the theoretical construct of identity is a useful way to look at growth and
change in college student development, there does not exist to date an appropriate
instrument that measures this construct. The investigator chose a measure of identity, the
EOMEIS-2, as an alternative for studying identity. Its applicability to college students and
service learning is questioned because it is not a discriminating instrument on identity
achievement. Most students typically enter college already in exploration of their
interpersonal identity. Thus, only the questions on the instrument addressing ideological
identity would be pertinent for studying college student development. Future work in this

area would need to consider developing a measure suitable for this population.

Implications

The implications for this study are numerous. It is true that the design of the study
does not allow one to generalize conclusions simply from these data. However, if one
takes into consideration the evidence from this study and other ﬁndings in the literature
about the beneﬁts of service-learning and community service, it is clear that this type of
pedagogy is needed on the college campus. The following three recommendations
provide ways to enhance research and practice in the ﬁeld of community service.

1. The conclusions drawn ﬁom the data imply that community service activities enhance

117

the development of college students personally and professionally. Students learn the
needs of people in their community, become sensitive to the bureaucracy surrounding the
issues of these needs, and are motivated, many times, to make a change. This kind of
active learning simulates the world of work outside the academy and is highly desirable by
agencies hiring young graduates. Chickering and Reisser (1993) describe the kind of
academy needed today: “Institutions that impart transferable skills and relevant
knowledge, bolster conﬁdence and creativity, and engender social responsibility and self-
directed learning are needed more than ever” (p. 44). The results ﬁ'om this study provide
more evidence that a curriculum which includes service-learning addresses these stated
needs.

2. The ﬁndings from the identity data provide more evidence that there are differences in
identity development among the students who had been involved in structured reﬂection
sessions as compared to students not involved in structured, reﬂective activities.
Therefore, to strengthen the developmental gains seen in college students, faculty are
encouraged to adopt principles of a service-learning pedagogy. To adopt these principles,
however, one needs to take into consideration the lessons learned from the past (Jacoby
and Associates, 1996). This wisdom addresses the effectiveness and efﬁciency of service-
learning programs. The following basic steps, if taken seriously can lead to enhanced
learning and development among college students: (a) Service-learning must be adopted
into the mission and goals of the university. Without this in place, faculty will spend time
and energy engaged in service-learning activities and will not be reinforced for their

efforts. The students, in turn, will not receive the best instruction possible from the

118

faculty. (b) Service-learning programs must acknowledge the interdependencies among
the three major stakeholders involved: the university faculty, the people in the community
be served, and the college students. By designing service-learning programs with all three
stakeholders’ interests in mind, there is less chance of conveying oppressive and
paternalistic outcomes. (c) Service-learning programs need to incorporate the service
components with the academic learning from classroom instruction. If students do not
receive this integration, they are left to reﬂect on their experiences without having the
necessary training and supervision for the services they will be performing in the
community.
3. The data from this study lead one to ask more questions about the kinds of students
who engage in community service activities. How did the “resilient” type of commrmity
service student learn to care about the community? What would the inspirers say about
the students who engage in community service? Are there any reported qualitative
differences in how students serve the people in the community? These questions can only
be answered through ﬁrrther research in the ﬁeld. Designing an experimental study that
allows one to make formal conclusions from the data gathered as well as expanding the
qualitative methodology to incorporate the servee and the inspirers would enrich further
what has already been learned.

Finally, the study also speaks to the theories of identity, service learning, and
family relations. These data support the notion that identity and attachment relations in
families are important variables in the development of a service orientation in youth.

Further studies need to reﬁne each of these variables in an effort to develop a model

119

explaining the nature of their inﬂuence in student development.

Conclusion
Small service is true service while it lasts.
Of humblest ﬁiends, bright creature! scorn not one:
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.
To a Child, Written in Her Album
William Wordsworth
The wisdom in this poem about service illustrates the signiﬁcance of service for the
person who commits to this lifestyle. The opportunity to serve others is available to all of
us, even the simplest of creatures. The effect of helping others through service casts a
huge shadow of care over the people who are served and others around who avail
themselves of the service activity. Doing service is an active display of one’s compassion

for humanity. It incorporates care and respect for everyone in the human community. If

we all adopted a life of service, the threats of violence and war would be minimized.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX A
Hello Former Student of ISS 335:

In the Spring Semester of 1995, you were enrolled in a course about U.S. Diversity with
Dr. Cyrus Stewart as the professor. For part of this course, some students volunteered
time at Allen Street School as a service-learning experience. A follow-up study is being
conducted partly related to this experience but with an emphasis on three types of students
from the course: (1) students who volunteered time at Allen Street School, (2) students
who indicated that they had some prior community service experience but did not
volunteer at Allen Street School, and (3) students who indicated that they had not
engaged in any community service experience. 1, Kathy Zawacki, am conducting a follow-
up study related to these three types of students. The overall purpose of the study is to
understand more about how you learn and what sort of caring behaviors are related to
your life experiences.

You have been selected as a possible participant in this follow-up study. The study
involves two parts. The ﬁrst part involves completion of survey instruments. This packet
contains those instruments. The second part involves attendance at a focus group session
to discuss your life experiences, with an emphasis on your family. For completing this
questionnaire packet, you will be compensated $20.00. For attending the focus group,
you will be awarded $10.00. Based on your responses to this ﬁrst part of the study and
your willingness to participate in the focus group sessions, you may be telephoned to
participate in the second part of the study.

The following information is an agreement to participate in this study:

1. I understand that participation in this study is voluntary and that I may withdraw
my consent to participate at any time.

2. I may choose to answer only selected items or attend part of the focus group (if
selected) and not be penalized for partial participation.

3. I understand that all responses to questionnaire items and focus group questions

will be treated with strict conﬁdence and that any reported ﬁndings will exclude
personal identiﬁers linking me to this study.

4. I understand that completion of this packet will take approximately ﬁve sessions at
20 minutes each session.
5. I understand that participation in this project does not affect my status as a student

at Michigan State University in any way.

6. I agree to allow the investigators in this study (Kathy Zawacki, Dr. Esther Onaga,
and Emily Schumacher) to link my current grade point average, current major, and
standing as a student (freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior) to two dimensions
explored in this study.

7. I also agree to have past information collected about me in ISS 335 to be used as
information in this follow-up study.

120

121

APPENDIX A
8. If I have questions related to this study or am interested in the ﬁndings of this
study, I may contact Kathy Zawacki or Dr. Esther Onaga at (517)355-0166.
9. As a continuing part of this research, I understand that I may be contacted in the

ﬁrture and asked to participate in further follow-up procedures.

I voluntarily agree to participate in this study and to be contacted to participate in a focus
group session in the near future.

 

 

Participant’s Signature Date

If you have signed above, please continue by turning the page.

122

APPENDIX A

The following packet includes a series of questions we are asking about you and your
family. It has ﬁve sections. The ﬁrst section, Part 1, asks demographic information about
your life with a special focus about your family life. The second section, Part 2, is a
questionnaire is related to global issues about your identity. The third section, Part 3, is
another questionnaire about your identity but it focuses more speciﬁcally about your
ethnic identity. The fourth section, Part 4, is a questionnaire about the kind of relationship
you have with your mother, father, and close ﬁiends. The ﬁfth section, Part 5, involves
questions related to diversity and career aspirations. Each section contains speciﬁc
directions about how to answer the items on the questionnaire. Please answer the
questions according to the directions indicated for each section. If you have any questions
about how to answer the items, please call Kathy Zawacki at (517)355-0166.

Please answer all questions directly in the spaces provided in this packet. After you have

completed answering the questions to the best of your ability, place the packet in the
enclosed stamped envelope and return it in the mail.

Please return the packet by APRIL 9, 1997. A check for $20.00 will be sent in your name
to the current address you list on the next page.

Please turn the page to begin Part 1.

123

APPENDIX A

Part 1: Demographic Questions

1. Please print your full name, current address (where you can be reached within the
next month), and telephone number in the spaces below.

 

 

 

 

2. Please print your permanent address and telephone number in the spaces below.

 

 

 

 

3. What is the date of your birth? / /
month day year

4. What is your M.S.U. student number?

 

 

5. What is your social security number?
(This information is required to send you a check)

6. Thinking back in your childhood, who were the people you lived with at home?
To answer this question, please indicate in the spaces below all the names of the
people you lived with, their relationship to you, and their current age (e. g., Mary
Smith, Mother, 45).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Please continue on the next page)

124

APPENDIX A

With whom do you presently live? To answer this question, please indicate in the
spaces below all the names of the people you presently live with, their relationship
to you, and their current age (e. g., John Smith, room/suite mate, 20).

 

 

 

 

 

10.

11.

Did your parents divorce while you were still living at home?
Please Circle: Yes No

If you answered “yes” to the previous question, what age were you when they
divorced?

 

In thinking about your experience in ISS 335, did you engage in the service
experience at Allen Street School?
Please Circle: Yes No

If you answered ‘yes” to the previous question, to the best of your ability, please
provide the names of the people you were in contact with and their relationship to
you as a result of this experience (e.g., Johnny, Allen Friend; Mark, ISS 335 peer;
Debbie, Teacher at Allen).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12.

In thinking about your experience in ISS 335, aside from Allen Street School, did
you engage in other community service activities while you were enrolled in the
course?

Please Circle: Yes No

(Please continue on the next page)

125

 

 

 

 

 

 

APPENDIX A
13. If you answered “yes” to the above question, please describe the experience(s) in
the spaces below:
14. Are you currently engaged in community service activities?
Please Circle: Yes No

15. In thinking about people who have inspired you to help others in need, please list
these people and their relationship to you (e.g., Mark Smith, High School Teacher;
Mary Doe, Father; Pastor Bob, Church Pastor).

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Please Continue on the Next Page for Part 2)

126

APPENDIX A

Part 2: Global Identity*

For the next 64 questions, read each item and indicate to what degree it reﬂects your own
thoughts and feelings. If a statement has more than one part, please indicate your reaction
to the statement a a whele. Use the numbers below to indicate how much you agree or
disagree with each statement.

 

l 2 3 4 5 6
Strongly Moderately Agree Disagree Moderately Strongly
Agree Agree Disagree Disagree

 

Please write the number of your response in the blank to left of each statement.

1. __ I haven’t chosen the occupationI really want to get into, and I’m just
working at what is available until something better comes along.

2. __ When it comes to religion I just haven’t found anything that appeals and I
don’t really feel the need to look.

3. __ My ideas about men’s and women’s roles are identical to my parents’.
What has worked from them will obviously work for me.

4. __ There’s no single “life style” which appeals to me more than another.

5. __ There are a lot of different kinds of people. I’m still exploring the many
possibilities to ﬁnd the right kind of friends for me.

6. __ I sometimes join in recreational activities when asked, but I rarely try
anything on my own.

7. __ I haven’t really thought about a “dating style.” I’m not too concerned
whether I date or not.

8. __ Politics is something that I can never be too sure about because things
change so fast. But I do think it’s important to know what I can politically
stand for and believe in.

9. _ I’m still trying to decide how capable I am as a person and what jobs will
be right for me.

(Please continue on the next page)

127

 

 

APPENDIX A
2 3 4 5 6

Strongly Moderately Agree Disagree Moderately Strongly

Agree Agree Disagree Disagree

10. __ I don’t give religion much thought and it doesn’t bother me one way or the
other.

11. __ There’s so many ways to divide responsibilities in marriage, I’m trying to
decide what will work for me.

12. _ I’m looking for an acceptable perspective for my own “life style” view, but
haven’t really found it yet.

13. __ There are many reasons for ﬁiendship, but I choose my close ﬁ'iends on the
basis of certain values and similarities that I’ve personally decided on.

14. __ While I don’t have one recreational activity I’m really committed to, I’m
experiencing numerous leisure outlets to identify one I can truly enjoy.

15. _ Based on past experiences, I’ve chosen the type of dating relationship I
want now.

16. _ I haven’t really considered politics. It just doesn’t excite me much.

17. _ I might have thought about a lot of different jobs, but there’s never really
been any question since my parents said what they wanted.

18. __ A person’s faith is unique to each individual. I’ve considered and
reconsidered it myself and know what I can believe.

19. __ I’ve never really seriously considered men’s and women’s roles in
marriage. It just doesn’t seem to concern me.

20. _ After considerable thought I’ve developed my own individual viewpoint of
what is for me an ideal “life style” and don’t believe anyone will be likely to
change my perspective.

21. __ My parents know what’s best for me in terms of how to choose my friends.

(Please continue on the next page)

128

 

 

APPENDIX A
1 2 3 4 5 6

Strongly Moderately Agree Disagree Moderately Strongly

Agree Agree Disagree Disagree

22. __ I’ve chosen one or more recreational activities to engage in regularly from
lots of things and I’m satisﬁed with those choices.

23. _ I don’t think about dating much. I just kind of take it as it comes.

24. __ I guess I’m pretty much like my folks when it comes to politics. I follow
what they do in terms of voting and such.

25. _ I’m not really interested in ﬁnding the right job, any job will do. I just
seem to ﬂow with what is available.

26. __ I’m not sure what religion means to me. I’d like to make up my mind but
I’m not done looking yet.

27. __ My idea’s about men’s and women’s roles have come right from my
parents and family. I haven’t seen any need to look further.

28. __ My own views on a desirable life style were taught to me by my parents
and I don’t see any need to question what they taught me.

29. __ I don’t have any real close ﬁiends, and I don’t think I’m looking for one
right now.

30. __ Sometimes I join in leisure activities, but I really don’t see a need to look
for a particular activity to do regularly.

31. __ I’m trying out different types of dating relationships. I just haven’t decided
what is best for me.

32. _ There are so many different political parties ideals. I can’t decide which to
follow until I ﬁgure it all out.

33. __ It took me a while to ﬁgure it out, but now I really know what I want for a

career.

(Please continue on the next page)

129

 

APPENDIX A
2 3 4 5 6

Strongly Moderately Agree Disagree Moderately Strongly

Agree Aime Disagree Disagree

34. __ Religion is confusing to me right now. I keep changing my views on what
is right and wrong for me.

35. __ I’ve spent some time thinking about men’s and women’s roles in marriage
and I’ve decided what will work best for me.

36. __ In ﬁnding an acceptable viewpoint to life itself, I ﬁnd myself engaging in a
lot of discussions with others and some self exploration.

37. __ I only pick friends my parents would approve of.

38. _ I’ve always liked doing the same recreational activities my parents do and
haven’t ever seriously considered anything else.

39. __ I only go out with the type of people my parents expect me to date.

40. __ I’ve thought my political beliefs through and realize I can agree with some
and not other aspects of what my parents believe.

41. __ My parents decided a long time ago what I should go into for employment
and I’m following through their plans.

42. _ I’ve gone through a period of serious questions about faith and can now
say I understand what I believe in as an individual.

43. __ I’ve been thinking about the roles that husbands and wives play a lot these
days, and I’m trying to make a ﬁnal decision.

44. __ My parents’ views on life are good enough for me, I don’t need anything
else.

45. __ I’ve had many different ﬁiendships and now I have a clear idea of what I
look for in a ﬁiend.

46. __ After trying a lot of different recreational activities I’ve found one or more

 

I really enjoy doing by myself or with friends.

(Please continue on the next page)

130

 

 

APPENDIX A
1 2 3 4 5 6

Strongly Moderately Agree Disagree Moderately Strongly

Agree Agree Disagree Disagree

47. __ My preferences about dating are still in the process of developing. I
haven’t ﬁrlly decided yet.

48. __ I’m not sure about my political beliefs, but I’m trying to ﬁgure out what I
can truly believe in.

49. _ It took me a long time to decide but now 1 know for sure what direction to
move in for a career.

50. __ I attend the same church as my family has always attended. I’ve never
really questioned why.

51. __ There are many ways that married couples can divide up family
responsibilities. I’ve though about lots of ways, and now I know exactly
how I want it to happen for me.

52. __ I guess I just kind of enjoy life in general, and I don’t see myself living by
any particular viewpoint to life.

53. __ 1 don’t have any close ﬁiends. I just like to hang around with the crowd.

54. __ I’ve been experiencing a variety of recreational activities in hopes of
ﬁnding one or more I can really enjoy for some time to come.

55. __ I’ve dated different types of people and know exactly what my own
“unwritten rules” for dating are and who I will date.

56. _ I really have never been involved in politics enough to have made a ﬁrm
stand one way or the other.

57. __ I just can’t decide what to do for an occupation. There are so many that
have possibilities.

58. __ I’ve never really questioned my religion. If it’s right for my parents it must

be right for me.

(Please continue on the next page)

131

 

 

APPENDIX A
1 2 3 4 5 6
Strongly Moderately Agree Disagree Moderately Strongly
Agree Agree Diggree Disagree

59. __ Opinions on men’s and women’s roles seem so varied that I don’t think
much about it.

60. __ After a lot of self-examination I have established a very deﬁnite view on
what my own life style will be.

61. __ I really don’t know what kind of ﬁiend is best for me. I’m trying to ﬁgure
out exactly what friendship means to me.

62. __ All of my recreational preferences I got from my parents and I haven’t
really tried anything else.

63. __ I date only people my parents would approve of.

64. __ My folks have always had their own political and moral beliefs about issues
like abortion and mercy killing and I’ve always gone along accepting what
they have.

*Bennion & Adams (1986)

(Please Continue on the Next Page for Part 3)

132

APPENDIX A

Part 3: Ethnic Identity“

In this country, people come ﬁrom a lot of different cultures and there are many different
words to describe the different backgrounds or ethnic groups that people come from.
Some examples of the names of ethnic groups are Mexican-American, Hispanic, Black,
Asian-American, American Indian, Anglo-American, and White. Every person is born into
an ethnic group, or sometimes two groups, but people differ on how important their
ethnicity is to them, how they feel about it, and how much their behavior is affected by it.
These questions are about your ethnicity or your ethnic group and how you feel about it
or react to it.

Please ﬁll in:

 

In terms of ethnic group, I consider myself to be

For the next 20 questions, use the numbers given below to indicate how much you agree
or disagree with each statement. (***PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGED SCALE FROM
PART 2'")

 

 

4 3 2 l
Strongly Somewhat Somewhat Strongly
Agree Agree Disagree Disagree
1. __ I have spent time trying to ﬁnd out more about my own ethnic group, such

as its history, traditions, and customs.

2. __ I am active in organizations or social groups that include mostly members
of my own ethnic group.

3. __ I have a clear sense of my ethnic background and what it means for me.

4. __ I like meeting and getting to know people from ethnic groups other than
my own.

5. __ I think a lot about how my life will be affected by my ethnic group
membership.

6. I am happy that I am a member of the group I belong to.

 

(Please continue on the next page)

133

 

APPENDIX A
4 3 2 l
Strongly Somewhat Somewhat Strongly
Agree Agree Disagree Disagree

 

10.

ll.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

I sometimes feel it would be better if different ethnic groups didn’t try to
mix together.

I am not very clear about the role of my ethnicity in my life.
I often spend time with people from ethnic groups other than my own.

I really have not spent much time trying to learn more about the culture
and history of my ethnic group.

1 have a strong sense of belonging to my own ethnic group.

In order to learn more about my ethnic background, I have often talked to
other people about my ethnic group.

1 have a lot of pride in my ethnic group and its accomplishments.
I don’t try to become ﬁiends with people from other ethnic groups.

I participate in cultural practices of my own group, such as special food,
music, or customs.

I am involved in activities with people ﬁom other ethnic groups.
I feel a strong attachment towards my own ethnic group.
I enjoy being around people from ethnic groups other than my own.

I feel good about cultural or ethnic groups other than my own.

(Please continue on the next page)

134

APPENDIX A
Write in the number that gives the best answer to each question.
21. My ethnicity is
(1) Asian, Asian American, or Oriental
(2) Black or African American
(3) Hispanic or Latino
(4) White, Caucasian, European, not Hispanic
(5) American Indian

(6) Mixed; parents are from two different groups
(7) Other (write in):

 

22. My father’s ethnicity is (use numbers above)

 

23. My mother’s ethnicity is (use numbers above)

 

**(Phinney, 1992)

(Please continue on the next page for Part 4)

135

APPENDIX A
Part 4: Relationships***

This questionnaire asks about your relationships with important people in your life; your
mother, your father, and your close ﬁ'iends. Please read the directions to each part
carefully.

PartI

Some of the following statements asks about your feelings about your mother or the
person who has acted as your mother. If you have more than one person acting as your
mother (e. g., a natural mother and a step-mother) answer the questions for the one you
feel has most inﬂuenced you.

Please read each statement and write in your response to each item in the blank to the left
of the statement. Use the numbers below to indicate how true the statement is for you
now. Please select only one number for each statement. (***PLEASE NOTE THE
CHANGED SCALE FROM PART 2**)

 

 

Almost1 Never NotZVery Somitimes Offen Almost Always
or Never True Often True True True or Always True

1. __ My mother respects my feelings.

2. _ I feel my mother does a good job as my mother.

3. __ 1 wish I had a different mother.

4. __ My mother accepts me as I am.

5. __ I like to get my mother’s point of view on things I’m concerned about.

6. __ I feel it’s no use letting my feelings show around my mother.

7. __ My mother can tell when I’m upset about something.

(Please continue on the next page)

136

 

 

APPENDIX A
2 3 4 5
Almost Never Not Very Sometimes Often Almost Always
or Never True Often True True True or Alwgys True
8. Talking over my problems with my mother makes me feel ashamed or
foolish.
9. My mother expects too much from me.
10. I get upset easily around my mother.
11. I get upset a lot more than my mother knows about.
12. When we discuss things, my mother cares about my point of view.
13. My mother trusts my judgment.
14. My mother has her own problems, so I don’t bother her with mine.
15. My mother helps me to understand myself better.
16. I tell my mother about my problems and troubles.
17. I feel angry with my mother.
18. I don’t get much attention from my mother.
19. My mother helps me to talk about my difficulties.
20. My mother understands me.
21. When I am angry about something, my mother tries to be understanding.
22. I trust my mother.
23. My mother doesn’t understand what I’m going through these days.
24. I can count on my mother when I need to get something off my chest.
25. If my mother knows something is bothering me, she asks me about it.

 

(Please continue with questions about your Father on the next page)

137

APPENDIX A
Part II

This part asks about your feelings about your father, or the man who has acted as your
father. If you have more than one person acting as your father (e.g., natural and step-
father) answer the question for the one you feel has most inﬂuenced you.

 

 

Almostl Never N ot2Very Somitimes Offen Almost Always
or Never True Often True True True or Always True

1. __ My father respects my feelings.

2. __ I feel my father does a good job as my father.

3. __ I wish I had a different father.

4. __ My father accepts me as I am.

5. __ I like to get my father’s point of view on things I’m concerned about.

6. __ I feel it’s no use letting my feelings show around my father.

7. __ My father can tell when I’m upset about something.

8. __ Talking over my problems with my father makes me feel ashamed or

foolish.

9. __ My father expects too much from me.

10. _ I get upset easily around my father.

11. __ I get upset a lot more than my father knows about.

12. __ When we discuss things, my father cares about my point of view.

13. __ My father trusts my judgment.

14. __ My father has his own problems, so I don’t bother him with mine.

15. _ My father helps me to understand myself better.

(Please continue on the next page)

138

 

 

APPENDIX A
1 2 3 4 5
Almost Never Not Very Sometimes Often Almost Always
or Never True Often True True True or Always True
16. _ I tell my father about my problems and troubles.
l7. __ I feel angry with my father.
18. __ I don’t get much attention from my father.
19. __ My father helps me to talk about my difficulties.
20. __ My father understands me.
21. __ When I am angry about something, my father tries to be understanding.
22. __ I trust my father.
23. __ My father doesn’t understand what I’m going through these days.
24. __ I can count on my father when I need to get something off my chest.
25. __ If my father knows something is bothering me, he asks me about it.

(Please continue with questions about your Close Friends on the next page)

139

APPENDIX A
Part III

This part asks about your feelings about your relationships with your close ﬁiends. Please
read each statement and place QNE number to the left of each statement that tells how
true the statement is for you now.

 

 

Almost1 Never N ot2Very Somitimes Often Almost 5Always
or Never True Often True True True or Always True

1. __ I like to get my ﬁiend’s point of view on things I’m concerned about.

2. __ My ﬁ'iends can tell when I’m upset about something.

3. __ When we discuss things, my ﬁiends care about my point of view.

4. __ Talking over my problems with ﬁiends makes me feel ashamed or foolish.

5. __ I wish I had different ﬁiends.

6. __ My ﬁiends understand me.

7. _ My ﬁiends encourage me to talk about my difﬁculties.

8. __ My friends accept me as I am.

9. _ I feel the need to be in touch with my ﬁiends more often.

10. __ My ﬁiends don’t understand what I’m going through these days.

ll. __ I feel alone or apart when I am with my friends.

l2. __ My ﬁiends listen to what I have to say.

13. __ I feel my ﬁiends are good ﬁiends.

14. _ My friends are fairly easy to talk to.

15. When I am angry about something, my ﬁ'iends try to be understanding.
(Please continue on the next page)

 

140

 

 

APPENDIX A
1 2 3 4 5
Almost Never Not Very Sometimes Often Almost Always
or Never True Often True True True or Always True
16. __ My friends help me to understand myselfbetter.
17. __ My ﬁiends care about howl am.
18. __ I feel angry with my ﬁiends.
19. __ I can count on my friends when I need to get something off my chest.
20. __ I trust my ﬁ‘iends.
21. _ My ﬁiends respect my feelings.
22. __ I get upset a lot more than my ﬁiends know about.
23. _ It seems as if my ﬁiends are irritated with me for no reason.
24. _ I can tell my friends about my problems and troubles.
25. __ If my ﬁiends know something is bothering me, they ask me about it.

"*(Armsden & Greenberg, 1987) ©

(Please Continue on the Next Page for Part 5)

141

APPENDIX A

Part V.

This last section involves questions related to your learning about diversity, and your
career decisions.

1. Using the table below, describe signiﬁcant events, classes, experiences that have taught

you about diversity throughout the various ages in M (some examples are provided
in the ﬁrst row):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ages 3-10 Ages 11-13 Ages 14-18 Ages 19-22 Ages 23+
(ex.: living next (ex.: social studies (ex.: American literature (ex.: 188210 and
door to a boy class project class in high school) volunteer at economic
with Downs involving ethnic crisis center)
Syndrome) festivals)
2. Describe classes, conditions or situations that have helped you learn about
diversity at MSU?
3. Do you believe MSU should be doing more to educate students about diversity?
Yes No
A. Why is diversity education important or not important?

B. What are effective ways to educate MSU students about diversity?

continued on next page

142

APPENDIX A

From your perspective, what basic truths have you identiﬁed about diversity for

you?

This question involves career decisions that you have made while in college. Using
the table below, describe what inﬂuenced you in choosing and/or changing careers
by brieﬂy noting the factors about the career.

Example:

Career/Maj or

Describe factors
that inﬂuenced
your choice

Career/Major

Describe
factors that
inﬂuenced
your choice

6. If you volunteered at Allen Street School, answer the following questions:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Freshman Sophomore Junior Senior
No Preference Business Marketing Marketing
Business 201 Summer experience
at a marketing ﬁrm
Freshman Sophomore Junior Senior

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did you go back to volunteer at Allen Street after your ISS 335 class?

Yes

No

If yes, what did you do?

Thank you for completing this questionnaire

 

 

APPENDIX B

APPENDIX B

Focus Group Questions

There are note cards in front of you. Please write your name and student number at the top of all the cards
you ﬁll out during this session.

1.

On your note card, write the number “1” in the left margin-~indicating the ﬁrst point. Then write
three phrases or sentences that describe what it means to be a caring person.
----Now, as a group, please share what you wrote.

Let’s describe this further, how was “caring” viewed in your home as you were growing up?
---Do you agree with this view, why or why not?

On your note card, write the number “2” in the left margin-~indicating the second point. Now, write
three beliefs you live by as it relates to you as a “caring” individual.

---Now, as a group, please share what you wrote.

---As a group, please discuss signiﬁcant people or institutions in your life that encourage or have
encouraged caring behaviors (who were these people, what did they do that inspired you, would you
want to be like them?)

On your note card, write the number “3” in the left margin--indicating the third point. Now, think
about the following statement: “A caring person places the needs of others ahead of the self at times,
and works toward the higher shared goals of a community or society” (Chaskin & Hawley, 1994, p.
15). For this point, 1 want you to write a number between 1 and 5, where 5 indicates a high degree of
agreement with this statement.

---Now, as a group, please share what you wrote and discuss why you agree or disagree with this
statement.

On your note card, write the number “4” in the left margin--indicating the fourth point. Now, write
the three most important activities you have done to help others in the community.
---No discussion required.

On your note card write the number “5” in the left margin--indicating the ﬁfth point. Now write the
words (1) intolerance, (2) tolerance, and (3) appreciation. Describe brieﬂy a behavior related to
diversity that corresponds to each one of these words.

---Now, as a group, please share your responses. (ls diversity related to any of these words? Are any
of the words related to each other with respect to diversity?--if so, which ones are and why?)

On your note card, write the number “6” in the left margin--indicating the sixth and ﬁnal point. Write

brieﬂy the relevance of 188 335 to you in your life.
---Now, as a group, please share your responses.

143

APPENDIX C

 

GRADUATE
STUDIES

Unive rsily CommMec on
Research lmlvln'
HumanSuhkcu
(UCRIHS)

Mlt‘htqaﬂ $1312 UOWSIIY
-.-.t, ndnuntwarton 80:1qu
1‘ at: 1 amino Mtcmqon
488241046

all/35.52180
1;) :1u4321171

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f.’ ,. 1. I - I.“ 'MIOY’ #1001!
‘-,':It attu- not. t'vllhlnon

 

APPENDIX C

MLCHKLAN srA'rg

UNIVIIISIIY

March 2‘}, l"’ti
TO. Est 111‘] Hrtmjn
1:33 11 H l‘W‘ Hall
RE. 1191111 97~226
Tl'l‘l.l? PERSONAL AND FAMIL‘r’ l-‘ltt‘l‘ultfi RELATED TO SERVICE
LEARNING IN AN UNDERGRADUATE COURSE ON DIVERSITY

REVlfilUN l«'1f(_)lll-I3)Tl‘.'l) N/A

cnrnoovr r-C
APPRUVAL DATE 03/26/97

The Um versny committee on Research Involvrng Human Subjects' (UCRIHS)
review of lhls proJoct 15 complete. I am pleased to advrse that the
rights and welfare of the human subjects appear to be adequately
totected and methods to obtain informed consent are appropriate.
hereforc. the UCPIHS approved this project and any revrsrons listed

above.

UCRIHS approval is valid for one calendar year, beginning with
the approval date shown above. Investigators planning to
continue a project be ond one year must use the green renewal
form (enclosed with the original approval letter or when a
pr0)uct rs renewed) to seek u date certification. There_is a
maximum of four such expedite renewals possrble. Investrgators
w1sh1nq to continue a project beyond that time need to submit it

again for complete revxew.

RENEWAL:

REVISIONS: UCPlHS must review any changes rn procedures involving human
SUl)](2(:l.‘;, prior to inltlatlon of t (3 change. If. this is done at
tho time o renewal. please use the green renewal form. To
tnv1uc an approved protocol at aha other time during the year,
SPHU your written request to the CRJHS Chair, requesting revrsed
approval and referencing the pTOJCCt'S lRB a and title. Include
1n your request a description of the change and any revised
instruments, consent forms or advertisements that are applicable

PROBLEMS / .

CHANGES: Should orther of the followin arise during the course of the
work, investigators must noti UCRIHS promptly: (1) roblems
(unexpected srde effects, comp aints, etc.) involving uman
subjeCLS or (2) changes 1n the research envrronment or new
information indicating greater risk to the human sub’ects than
cxrsted when the protocol was previously reviewed an approved.

If we can be of any future hcl , please do not hesrtate to contact us

.at (5171355)»2180 or FAX (5171‘! 2-1171.

Sincerel

  

  

I

avid E. Hr'lth, P11

  

CRIllS Char 1

  

new : bed (

VCC: fiat 111 (”'11 '/..'1w:t (‘1: 1

144

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