Studying Student Benefits of Assigning a Service-Learning Project Compared to a Traditional Final Project in a Business Statistics Class

Figures & data

Table 1: Did working on this project help to meet the stated learning objectives?

	SL Group N = 54	Traditional Grp N = 50	Combined	p-value
Likert scale LO met?	50/96.15%	48/96%	98/94.23%	0.938
Experimental Design	25/46.3%	30/60%	55/52.88%	0.158
Data Collection	50/96.15%	47/94%	97/93.27%	0.774
Summary/Descriptive Stat	40/74.1%	34/78%	74/71.15%	0.495
Inference/CI, Hypothesis Test	47/87.04%	38/76%	85/81.73%	0.145

Table 2: Written reflection comments compared

Reflection written comments	SL Group N = 54	Traditional Grp N = 50	p-value
Real World Experience	33/61.11%	19/38%	0.019*
Positive Experience	48/88.89%	40/80%	0.105
Benefit to Others	39/72.22%	0/0%	0.000**
’May’ benefit others	48/88.89%	42/84%	0.233
Student development	47/87.04%	33/66%	0.005*
Help in upper level classes	24/44.44%	25/50%	0.715
Help in Professional life	33/61.11%	29/58%	0.373

* p-value calculated using the two-sample proportions test in Minitab™.

** p-value calculated using Fisher's Exact test in Minitab™.

Table 3: Student assessment

Assessment	Group (NSL=54, NT=52)	Mean ± SE	Pvalue
Project 1	SL	43.30      1.16
	Traditional	41.46      1.40	0.313
Final Project	SL	44.57      0.96
	Traditional	44.37      1.16	0.890
Final Exam	SL	76.93      2.30
	Traditional	75.60      2.67	0.706
Total Grade	SL	82.43      1.53
Percent	Traditional	80.73      1.90	0.485