Service Learning in Business Education: What Perceptions and Expectations Do Undergraduate and Graduate Students Have of Service-Learning Courses?

Service Learning is a modern teaching-learning concept, which combines curricular content with supporting charitable organizations. The effects of courses using this concept on the students' competences development has already been described in empirical studies. Within these studies the aspects regarding the instructional design were less emphasized unlike in this paper in which they are focused on. In addition to a conceptual foundation of service-learning and a literature review on the impact of service-learning, two didactic prototypes will be presented in the form of empirical case studies. The focus of this research is to describe the attitudes and perceptions of undergraduate and graduate students attending service-learning courses and which conclusions can be drawn on the instructional design. In this article, the concept of service-learning is understood as a course- and credit-based learning and teaching method (in contrast to community-service), which require a specific instructional design to evolve purposeful and curricular learning connections between the course and service projects outside the course.