Developing Altruistic Behavior and Motivation to Donate Blood: A Role for Educators and Service Learning Projects

This paper proposes that schools can participate with communities to partially alleviate the concerns about a steady blood supply. A review of the literature reveals the effective use of social learning models to encourage high school students to participate in blood drives. Combining an educational approach with a psychological approach to obtain higher rates of participation, expected outcomes are similar to those cited for service learning projects. Additionally, it is noted that the act of donating blood increases self esteem, and that blood donors have more favorable attitudes than non-donors as demonstrated by scores on measures that assesses affective, cognitive, and behavioral domains. It is believed that schools can incorporate information and activities into their service learning projects that will promote motivation to make the decision to donate blood. (Contains 41 references.) (GCP)