The majority of research done on Community Service Learning has investigated the benefits, outcomes and learning experiences of students engaged in service learning programmes. This article comments on research done on attitudes and perceptions that students hold about community service learning before the integration thereof into their academic programme.

The research was quantitative by nature following a descriptive design, using a questionnaire (survey) to measure the attitudes and perceptions of teacher training students. The questionnaire was administered to 168 third year teacher training students (N=168) at the Faculty of Education, University of Pretoria. The Community Service Learning Attitudes and Perception Scale (CSLAPS) developed specifically for this kind of investigation was used in the analysis of the data.

The findings of the study indicated that the majority of students are positive about doing community service learning as part of their training mainly for the potential benefit it may add to their career development. The results of this study offers information that will enable academic staff and institutions to design curricula for academic programmes that take these attitudes and perceptions into consideration and address them positively to enhance the
learning experience.