Chapter 6: Finding The Community in Service-Learning Research: The 3-"I" Model

“How should an evaluation model be designed in order to acknowledge, measure, and reflect the dynamic community impact of service initiatives, and specifically, service-learning programs?” By design, the 3-“I” Model answered the research question by offering a new approach to community impact evaluation. The 3-“I” Model intentionally included three distinct yet related dimensions in order to evaluate community impact as a process. The first “I”, the Initiator dimension, considered goal setting, partnership development, shared understandings, and the development of a knowledge base to facilitate the change process; the second “I”, the Initiative dimension, addressed the initiative implementation process, measures, indicators, and community involvement and participation; and the third “I”, the Impact dimension, considered implementation strategies and results, intended outcomes and goals, and the flow of the impact knowledge back to the Initiator dimension. This impact-as-a-process research framework guided the research design and directed the methods, data gathering and piloting, which unfolded in ways that proved the model’s capacity to meet its research objective. The 3-“I” Model involved both quantitative and qualitative research and was tested in a community where multiple projects of a university service-learning program were underway. The triangulation of the multiple sources of evidence proved the presence of community impact as well as the community impact process by demonstrating (a) initiator and community commitment to a utilization-focused service initiative based on community relevance and utility, (b) collaboration and goal sharing between the initiators of the service and the community, (c) positive and negative impact factors, (d) strategies that served the intended goals, (e) impact goals achieved, (f) community changes that occurred as a result of the service initiative, and (g) extent to which results were shared in order to improve future performance.