Researchers such as Tinto (1993), Astin (1975) and Kuh (1995) have found that most students who are engaged with their college environment have a greater connection with the institution and in some instances, higher rates of persistence than non-engaged students. Today, colleges and universities offer a variety of extracurricular options such as student government, athletics and various clubs and organizations. In addition to these options, institutions are also offering students more opportunities to volunteer. Such opportunities include community service and service learning, which incorporates classroom material into activities outside the classroom. Florida State University (FSU) estimates that nearly 2,000 students participate in service activities each year. The goal of this study was to examine the effect of volunteering on two measures of academic achievement: grade point average and persistence from freshman to sophomore year.
Student transcript data was provided by the Registrar. The study drew on the population of native FSU freshman for the 2006-07 academic year, which was comprised of 5,974 students. Of that population, 464 students earned at least one hour of service at Florida State University. Linear and logistic regressions were used to analyze four hypotheses related to the effect of the volunteering on academic achievement. These models predicted that for every hour of service that a student earns, their GPA would increase by .05. However, the results did not indicate a significant effect of volunteering on persistence from the Spring 2007 to Fall 2007 semester.
The results of this study offer support for continued research of this topic, as there are several areas for further review of this relationship, particularly on campuses that are dissimilar to Florida State University, which has a very high persistence rate (nearly 90%) and has shown an obvious interest in service opportunities.
