Service-Learning: opportunity for comprehensive university education. Perspective of students

The challenge of comprehensive education, according to the current approach to Higher Education, requires appropriate teaching-learning strategies for the development of both generic and specific competencies. The inadequacy of ordinary means and even of the application of certain active methodologies for this purpose, suggests the need to find suitable contexts for a more responsible participation of students in learning processes emphasizing its attitudinal aspect. The Service-Learning (SL) methodological strategy offers optimal conditions for this by considering the student's action in the form of service, through the interpersonal relationship involved, as the element that enhances learning. This study shows the students' perception of the contribution of this methodology to the attitudinal dimension of training in ethics-related subjects, through the qualitative information they provide in the reports and reflective reports they write in the final phase of the projects. It is obtained that students value the ApS experience as an appropriate environment for the application of certain attitudinal skills, highlighting commitment and initiative and entrepreneurial spirit, as well as for the experiential understanding of subject content. This is consistent with the specialised literature consulted in this respect and also suggests the contribution of quantitative and control group analyses in order to clarify the contrast between the results.