Faculty publish journal articles related to service-learning in communications

Elon University School of Communications faculty have published two journal articles evaluating the effectiveness of service-learning as a tool for teaching communications in the journal Teaching Journalism and Mass Communications.

Communications associate professor Amanda Sturgill, assistant professor Phillip Motley and lecturer Staci Saltz evaluated the ability to use service-learning to teach professional skills, such as portraying sources accurately and packaging multimedia into a successful narrative. Their paper, “Using Service Learning to Teach Communication Skills in the Context of Economic Diversity,” found that students who engaged in service-learning gained skill in understanding and portraying diverse sources.

Sturgill and Motley collaborated on “Indirect vs. Direct Service Learning in Communication: Implications for Student Learning and Community Benefit,” also published in the summer edition of TJMC. This paper found that if students participate in service-learning without directly contacting the population served, they can still learn communications skills, but do not learn as much about the community being served and its needs and issues.

TJMC is a peer-reviewed journal published by the Small Programs Interest Group of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications.

To read both articles, visit http://aejmc.us/spig/journal/current-issue/.