Framing Service-Learning Experiences: Evidence From a Survey Experiment Engaging Prosocial and Pre-Professional Identities

Universities are increasingly expected to integrate civic and social goals into their curricula, yet it remains unclear how to engage students whose motivations are primarily professional. Service-learning experiences (SLEs), which combine academic study with community service, are one strategy, but student self-selection complicates design and evaluation. Because SLEs help cultivate the voluntary sector’s future volunteers and donors, who gains access is a question for the sector, not only for educators. This study examines how prosocial and pre-professional identities shape students’ interest in SLEs and whether course framing influences engagement. In a preregistered survey experiment, students evaluated SLEs framed as descriptive, volunteer-focused, or career-focused. Altruistic values and pre-professional identity modestly but significantly predicted interest; volunteer identity did not. Course framing had no effect. These findings suggest civic and professional orientations may be more compatible than assumed, and engagement depends less on framing than on integration within broader curricular and developmental pathways.