Abstract
Introduction:
International service-learning (ISL) integrates academic study with community engagement in cross-cultural settings, offering students opportunities for holistic development. While prior scholarship highlights ISL's cognitive and professional benefits, its emotional dimensions remain understudied.
Purpose:
This study investigates the emotional dimensions of ISL among college students. Adopting a noncognitive theoretical framework, it emphasizes emotions as reflexive, embodied responses rather than secondary byproducts of cognition. The objectives are threefold: to explore how students experience emotions during ISL, to identify cultural variations in these experiences, and to inform the design of culturally responsive pedagogies that foster emotional competence and intercultural understanding.


Method:
An interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA) will guide the study. Participants will include college students involved in cross-cultural service-learning activities 2025 in Ghana. Data gathering scheduled to begin in October 2025, will involve one focus group discussion and in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Analysis will follow established IPA procedures, prioritizing participants' subjective accounts of emotional experiences.
Results:
As the project is currently in the planning stage, findings are forthcoming. Anticipated outcomes include insights into the emotional complexities of ISL. These findings are expected to deepen understanding of how culture mediates emotional experiences in cross-cultural service-learning contexts.
Conclusions:
By centering emotions as essential to ISL, this project addresses a critical gap in the literature. The study will contribute to educational practice by informing the development of culturally sensitive pedagogies and enhancing students' emotional competence. More broadly, it will advance cross-cultural psychology and foster scholarly collaboration in the study of emotional experiences and service-learning, to promote dialogue and innovation in education and intercultural research.