Empathy and Experiential Learning: How a Community-Based Project Enhances the College Experience

Abstract

A sample of thirty college students in service-learning based courses was compared to a control sample of two hundred twenty students in a standard lecture course to examine the effect of service-learning curriculum on empathy as measured by a questionnaire. It was hypothesized that the treatment group’s scores would be the same as the control before completing the course and would show a significant increase after treatment. Results showed that there was no difference between the groups before treatment, but that participation in service-learning produced a significant increase in empathy.