Service learning within community-engaged research: Facilitating nursing student learning outcomes

The objective of this manuscript is to describe a method of integrating baccalaureate nursing student service-learning experiences within a randomized controlled trial conducted in a community setting to facilitate student learning and expose students to the nursing scientist role. Placing students in a research service-learning experience involved several steps beginning with finding a nursing program for potential collaboration where this service-learning opportunity would be a natural fit with course content and formalizing the collaboration between the two institutions. Upon receipt of research grant funding, researchers and course faculty worked to navigate logistics and place students within the service-learning experience. After research training, 35 students assisted with intervention delivery and completed course assignments to document their learning. The collaboration described between a community-engaged research team from a research-intensive university and course faculty from a distant institution could be replicated with all types of nursing research.