Competencies, motivation and commitment of university students through service-learning experiences

Throughout the present work we intend to know if Service-Learning (SL) experiences causes positive consequences in the acquisition of competences knowledge (conceptual, procedural and behavioral), as well as in motivation and commitment of university students. For this purpose, we analyzed the SL experiences of a group of 198 students, using questionnaire CASee-A(U). The results indicate that students present high scores in the three types of competencies, especially in behavioral ones, also, in motivation and commitment. In addition, we appreciate the influence caused by behavioral competencies on motivation, and, also, on commitment. Finally, we propose and test a mediational model, where motivation is a mediating variable in the relationship of influence of behavioral competencies on commitment. Among the practical implications we want to highlight the importance of promoting SL experiences at university level, since it not only favors the acquisition of competencies knowledge, especially behavioral ones, but it is also for motivation and commitment. In addition, we demonstrate the impact that motivation has on SL experiences.