Measuring+civic+responsibility+Tools+challenges+and+strategies

﻿Sayaka Machizawa, Associate Director of Community Partnerships, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology [smachizawa@thechicagoschool.edu]
 * ﻿ Measuring civic responsibility: Tools, challenges, and strategies **



**Keywords:** Civic responsibility, qualitative, qualitative, Community Service Attitudes Scale, contradictory measures

**Track:** Civic learning outcomes for students in K-12 and higher education

**Format:** Poster presentation


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**Summary:** Fostering civic responsibility is one of the primary goals of service-learning. In order to assess changes in students’ sense of civic responsibility transpired through participation in community projects we administered both qualitative and quantitative measures.

For quantitative survey, we used the Civic Responsibility Survey (CRS) that is comprised demographic and Likert scale questions. Pre/posttest design was employed and the CRS was administered before students are placed in the community and after spending six months working in community sites. A total of 41 completed both pre and post surveys. One of the interesting findings of the quantitative assessment was that more students came to believe after volunteering in the community that they have little control over societal problems. One might suspect that students entered a community project holding the unrealistic expectation of solving deep social problems. Thus, they had developed a more realistic approach to serving the community and more comprehensive understanding of complex social problems over time. Furthermore, the effect of community engagement on students’ sense of civic responsibility and competency was mediated by service hour. In general, those who served longer hours were more likely to report an improvement in their competency and self-efficacy over time.

The qualitative survey was comprised of three open ended questions. The survey was administered six months after students were placed in community sites. A total of 30 students completed the survey. Over 77% of the respondents reported that their community experiences transformed their sense of civic responsibility in that they promoted understanding and awareness of personal responsibility, the community needs, and societal problems.

Our study demonstrates how combining qualitative and quantitative measures enable us to capture the complexity of civic education outcomes.

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