Assessment of service-learning in higher education: challenges and possibilities

Abstract

Service-learning has expanded unprecedentedly during the last few decades. Despite this, there are many issues remain to be resolved. One such long standing issue is assessment of servicelearning. Although currently many attempts have been made to assess its impact from different quarters at school levels in different parts of the world, in the field of higher education, the nature, quality and applicability of these assessments are questioned for being incomplete or less reliable due to many shortcomings affiliated with the practice of service-learning. Hence, this paper critically reviews the assessment practices, their importance, nature and types in the field of service-learning in higher education. The paper also discusses some of the challenges and possibilities faced by service-learning practitioners for using different assessment sources and procedures for assessing service-learning. Finally, the paper concludes with an emphasis on the need of using different assessment techniques in service-learning as it will be easier to answer the current assessment debates in the field of service-learning.