[OSU-SLSR] Invitation: Help evaluate the Service-Learning Quality Assessment Tool

[slearning]

Dear Ohio State Service-Learning Community,
Please see the message below for an invitation to participate in the evaluation of a new quality assessment tool for service-learning.  If you teach service-learning courses and especially if you have conducted research on service-learning pedagogy, please consider participating in this work.
Thanks, and have a great weekend,
Claire


Claire G. Sweigart, J.D.
Program Director
Office of Student Academic Success Service-Learning
614-247-4439 Office
service-learning.osu.edu<http://service-learning.osu.edu/>
Pronouns: she/her/hers / Honorific: Ms.






Dear Colleagues,



We hope you are all staying well and healthy during this challenging time.



We write to you with the hope that we might take your mind off of the virus for a little bit by participating in an effort to help us improve an instrument designed to assess the quality of service-learning courses.  Over the past five years, as part of a U.S.Department of Education-funded national project focused on investigating the impacts of community engagement on higher education students' educational success, we - a team of researchers from the University of Minnesota and the University of Georgia - have been engaged in developing a standardized assessment tool designed to provide a quantitative measure of quality for credit-bearing service-learning courses.  Specifically, the tool - Service-Learning Quality Assessment Tool (SLQAT) -  incorporates a set of 28 service-learning practices that research studies have found essential for promoting positive student outcomes.  The tool takes into account these elements to establish a composite numerical score that indicates the "quality" of service-learning courses.



We have shared preliminary versions of this measurement tool with scholars and practitioners at conferences and workshops across the globe for input and feedback.  We now invite you to join us in the second phase of our research focused on assessing the reliability and validity of our tool.  Specifically, we are looking for service-learning scholars, practitioners, and supporters to assign relative weights each of the instrument's 28 elements by completing a survey in which you will assign each element a score, based on what you believe its level of influence is on student learning outcomes.



The anonymous survey will take about 20 minutes to complete. Your decision whether to participate will not affect your current or future relations with the University of Georgia or the University of Minnesota. There are no benefits (i.e. incentives) to you, or risks expected from participating in the survey.





If you are interested Please click on this link to respond to the survey.<https://umn.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_es1qqzBrndpvVs1>



Please email slqat at umn.edu<javascript:> with any questions or concerns.



Priority deadline: June 22



Thank  you for your consideration.  We wish you safety and good health in the days to come.



Sincerely,



The SLQAT Research Team

Shannon Brooks

Andrew Furco

Laurel Hirt

Isabel Lopez

Paul Matthews

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