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Service-learning is a pedagogy that combines academic study with service to the community. Voluntary work placements are integral to service-learning and offer students an ideal opportunity to develop their employability skills and attributes. In a service-learning course, it was considered good practice to raise students' awareness of the development of these skills and attributes. To enable this, the assessment in the course was adapted accordingly, and thus an innovative, summatively co-assessed oral presentation was introduced. This study investigates the effects of using this type of assessment, in which students were required to give an oral presentation of their critical reflections on the employability skills and attributes they had developed during the course. This practitioner research study was a small project using qualitative semi-structured interviews and a focus group with students engaged in service-learning. Although this study uses service-learning pedagogy as its basis, the concept and practice of summative co-assessment is transferable to other academic courses.

Service-learning is a form of experiential learning that combines academic coursework with voluntary service in the community. There is a dearth of critical analysis of the effects of service-learning. To address this issue, this practitioner research aimed to explore and understand its effects. An inductive approach, using qualitative and grounded theory methods, was used. Twelve semi-structured, in-depth individual interviews and two focus groups, one held at the beginning and the other at the end of the students' service placement, were conducted. Sequential and comparative analysis was made of the data gathered from various sources related to the course. The study demonstrates how intellectual and personal development can occur through service-learning. It also highlights potentially negative effects, but suggests that, overall, service-learning is potentially conducive to students' transformation.