Design and Assessment of Service-Learning and Community Site Visits in an Undergraduate Introductory Rehabilitation and Human Services Course

Purpose: This mixed-methods study assesses an innovative course design model that integrates community site visits and service-learning at the introductory level for Undergraduate Rehabili-tation Education (URE) students (n = 44).Method: The authors used a survey design to analyze service-learning outcomes and civic atti-tudes to evaluate the course design. A panel of three independent raters analyzed student weekly papers based on research rubrics of the course objectives created by the authors.Results: The results demonstrate that the model is effective in altering student cognitive schemes about human service populations and encouraging students to synthesize academic knowledge and immersive experiences.Conclusions: The study provides evidence for the design of integrating service-learning and site visits throughout the entire semester of an introductory course. This design is what we theo-rize specifically allowed for the two outcomes of primary importance, altered cognitive schemes about human services populations and synthesis of academic and experiential knowledge.