The Relationship Between Community Service Participation and the Academic Achievement and Course Enrollment Decisions of High School Students

Students who take academically rigorous classes increase their likelihood of academic success. The problem addressed in this study was that the number of new students enrolling in rigorous Advanced Placement (AP) classes at a suburban high school in the southeastern U.S. had slowed from a yearly increase of 20% from 1998–2007 to only 6% per year from 2008–2010. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether the community service (CS) program at this school might encourage more students to enroll in more rigorous academic classes. The theoretical framework was grounded in John Dewey's philosophy that CS is an essential component of a well-rounded academic education. This quasi-experimental study compared data between two groups of 11th and 12th grade students, one which had participated in CS and one which had not. The study used two research questions to explore the relationship between CS participation and grade-point average attained or the number of AP classes attempted. Results from the independent-measures t tests indicated that statistically significant mean differences in grade-point average and the number of AP classes attempted did exist between these two groups. Conclusions suggested that students who participated in CS were more likely to choose rigorous academic courses and to earn better grades in the classroom. The study recommended recruiting more students into CS-oriented clubs at the school as a first step toward improving their academic achievement and increasing the number of students in AP classes. The study may contribute to social change by providing justification to implement CS programs in secondary schools in order to increase the number of high academic achievers who are well-prepared for college-level study.