Associate Professor; Head Department of Computing; Service-Learning and Leadership Office, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Abstract: Academic service-learning (SL) and community/voluntary services are often conflated despite much effort to educate the community on their differences. This study aims to investigate how, if at all, Hong Kong secondary school teachers’ understanding of SL deviates from academic SL model as it is commonly defined in literature.
711 teachers and school social workers were surveyed online and were asked to indicate the extent of correctness of 8 statements on different facets of SL.
A high percentage of respondents agreed that SL is basically about encouraging/requiring students to take part in volunteering or community services, letting students learn in the community and good SL programmes should put more emphasis on students’ learning than on meeting the needs of the community. Significant differences were found among teachers from schools with different religious background, their previous experience in academic SL and whether they are part of the school management. No significant group differences were found in their participation in volunteering/community service activities, number of years in teaching, their responsibilities at school and their teaching areas.
The results confirm the prevalence of misconceptions that still exist about SL in the secondary school sector, particularly in the conflation of SL with community/voluntary services. Over one-fourth of the respondents are also unsure about whether SL can do harm. The prevalence of misconceptions about SL indicates the needs to address these misunderstandings among secondary school teachers, together with other capacity building strategies to achieving sustainability and high impact SL implementation within the secondary education sector.
Narrative: Background Academic service-learning and community/voluntary services are often conflated despite much effort in the academic community, especially among the pre-university sector. In Hong Kong, for instance, in the webpage of the Education Bureau from the Government, service-learning is defined as “learning through service. It is a type of teaching and learning concept and practice integrating community service into the curriculum. Service-Learning promotes students’ learning and personal development through planning, implementing, reflecting and assessing their service experience” (Education Bureau, 2014). This definition does not distinguish between SL and community/voluntary services. This conflation would inevitably affect the quality of the SL projects carried out within secondary schools, and negatively affect its potential impacts on students’ learning. These misconceptions seems to be a common phenomenon, at least in the Asia-Pacific region. This study aims to investigate the level of understanding of Hong Kong secondary school teachers and allied professionals towards service-learning, and the deviation from the currently prevalent academic SL model as detailed in Furco and Billig (2002). Methodology Participants Our study targets teaching staff and school social workers from 45 Hong Kong secondary schools voluntarily participating in a funded project for capacity building in service-learning in secondary schools. The final sample of 711 participants consisted of 377 females (53.0%) and 344 males (47.0%) with a 24.1% actual response rate. 74.3% indicated that they did not have any prior training in SL. Instruments A six-point Likert scale was used to collect data about the participants’ conception and understanding of the principles of SL. The scale was developed by our research team and commented on by experienced SL educators. Participants need to report their views about the correctness of 8 statements ranging from 1 (totally incorrect) to 6 (totally correct) with an additional “Don’t know” option (see Appendix B). Statements 1, 2 and 5 were negatively-worded, which are incorrect based on Furco and Billig’s SL model. Procedure The survey was conducted through an online questionnaire created using Qualtrics. A link to the online questionnaire was sent to all the participating schools’ designated coordinator of all the participating schools, with a unique token assigned to each eligible participant. The coordinator then identified target respondents and helped to remind them to complete it. The survey was open from 26th September 2022 to 31st December 2022, and a total of three reminders were made by calling and emailing to the coordinators. Three reminders by telephone call and email were sent to the coordinators over the following three months. Participation in this study was voluntary. Upon survey completion, participants received a HK$50 (~US$6.38) supermarket coupon as a compensation for their time. Ethical approval for this study was granted by the University’s Institutional Review Board.
Results The descriptive statistics uncovered a number of misunderstandings and misconceptions. A high percentage of respondents agreed with Statements 1, 2, and 5 (Statement 1: 87.4%; Statement 2: 69.6%; Statement 5: 65.5%), which are incorrect according to Furco and Billig’s SL model. 25.6% of participants choosing the “Don’t know” option on Statement 8 (whether SL can do harm).
Non-parametric tests were conducted to explore whether there were group differences in training experience, academic SL experience, participation in volunteering/ community service activities, positions, responsibilities at school, teaching areas, and number of years in teaching.
Kruskal-Wallis H tests revealed that there were statistically significant differences in the score of Statement 4-5 among schools with different religious backgrounds. For Statement 4, χ2(3) = 12.77, p = 0.005, with a mean rank score of 374.72 for Protestant, and 319.99 for schools without religious background (p = 0.006). For Statement 5 (negatively-worded), χ2(3) = 13.81, p = 0.003, with a mean rank score of 299.25 for Protestant, and 359.14 for no religion (p = 0.003). None of the other comparisons were significant after the Bonferroni adjustment (ps > .05). Besides, significant group differences were found in academic SL experience on the score of Statement 2 (χ2(2) = 12.29, p = 0.002), Statement 3 (χ2(2) = 10.42, p = 0.005), Statement 4 (χ2(2) = 17.87, p <.001), Statement 5 (χ2(2) = 7.02, p = 0.024), and Statement 6 (χ2(2) = 7.87, p = 0.020). Pairwise comparisons after Bonferroni correction indicated that there were significant differences between the group of “no, and not plan to” and “no, but I want to” in Statement 2 (p = 0.002) and Statement 4 (p = 0.010). Between the group of “yes” and “no, and not plan to” in Statement 3 (p = 0.004), Statement 4 (p <.001), Statement 5 (p = 0.019) and Statement 6 (p = 0.015). No significant group differences were found in participation in volunteering/community service activities, number of years in teaching, and their responsibilities at school.
Mann-Whitney U tests showed that there were significant differences between teachers and principals/vice-principals in Statement 4 (U = 17023.00, p = 0.011; mean rank of teachers = 331.31, mean rank of principals/vice-principals = 401.29) and Statement 7 (U = 15015.50, p = 0.035; mean rank of teachers = 313.59, mean rank of principals/vice-principals = 371.20). Mann-Whitney U tests showed no group differences in whether they teach STEM courses and whether their teaching areas were socially-related.
Conclusion The results confirm the prevalence of misconceptions about SL among secondary school teachers, at least in Hong Kong. These misconceptions are particularly severe with respect to the intentionality of the learning process and outcomes in SL (e.g. distinguishing SL from community/voluntary services and SL being basically about letting students learn in the community), and the principle of reciprocity. More troubling is the fact that over one-fourth of the respondents are also unsure or unaware that SL can do harm. Teachers from schools with a Protestant background seem to have a better understanding about SL, whereas respondents without SL experience nor plan to be involved in SL have more misconceptions in general. The prevalence of misconceptions indicate the needs to address these misunderstandings among secondary school teachers, together with other capacity building strategies to achieving sustainability and high impact SL implementation within the secondary education sector.
