Abstract:
Students' perceptions of a communicationintensive (CI), service-learning (SL) project in a senior-level dietetics course, Medical Nutrition Therapy II, were evaluated. Students were required to develop an interactive, educational module for training Cooperative Extension Service agents on cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or obesity. Students presented multiple drafts of the modules to the instructors and to professional audiences for review, and wrote partner evaluations and reflection papers about their experiences with the project. Results provide insight on students' perceptions and barriers encountered throughout the multicomponent SL, CI group project. Students found the CI/SL course challenging, but rewarding, in terms of cognitive growth, self-efficacy, professional development, and course content; however, we found students need to participate in discipline-specific communication activities earlier in the program because some were unable to perform basic communication tasks, such as locate and assess information found on the Internet or in the peer-reviewed literature. Courses should also include problem-solving exercises to enable students to critically think when difficulties are encountered.
Keywords:
student evaluation, communication, service-learning, dietetics course
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