| This study examined the effects of an extended summer service-learning program on the moral reasoning of a service-learning group as compared to a group of students who did not partake of the service-learning program. Additionally, three variables, moral identity, religiosity, and moral judgment, were examined prior to the intervention to determine if they were reliable predictors of service-learning participation. A pre-post quasi-experimental design was employed with two groups of traditionally-aged college students from a large Midwestern religiously-affiliated university. The Service-learning group participated in an 8-week summer service opportunity that was coupled with a reflection/learning component that took place over the semester following the summer service project (hereafter, intervention). The service-learning group and the comparison group, which did not partake of the service project, were administered two instruments prior to the intervention: the Notre Dame Student Life Survey (NDSLS), containing the Moral Identity (MIS) and Religiosity (RS) scales, and the Defining Issues Test (DIT), which was the measure of moral judgment in this study. The DIT was again administered at the conclusion of the intervention. The findings revealed that there were statistically significant increases in the moral reasoning of the service-learning group participants over that of the comparison group, participants who showed a negligible decline in moral reasoning from pre- to post-intervention. A logistic regression analysis, employed to determine possible predictor variables, indicated that two of the three examined variables were reliable predictors of service-learning participation: moral identity and moral reasoning. Religiosity did not prove to be a reliable predictor in this study. |
