Reflections
The study that I had conducted is based on data from a survey on service-learning that my cohort did prior to the service-learning project and afterwards.
Among the 48 students, 83.3% are females while the other 16.7% are males. The students’ desire to volunteer is operationalised using 6 Likert-scale questions measuring their attitudes towards volunteering in terms of desire, with 1 representing “strongly disagree” and 5 representing “strongly agree”.
First, I hypothesise that gender is associated with a desire to volunteer. The data of all 48 students were analysed.
An independent t-test showed no significant difference between males (M = 18.88, SD = 2.36) and females (M = 20.05, SD = 2.26) in desire to volunteer before the service-learning project, t(46) = 1.33, p =.190.
Second, I hypothesise that there is a difference between one’s desire to volunteer before and after the service-learning project. Eight of the students did not answer all relevant questions, thus they were not included in the test.
A Wilcoxon Signed-Ranks test was used to assess whether students’ desire to volunteer increased after the service-learning project.
Results indicated that participants’ desire to volunteer was not significantly different before and after the service-learning project, Z = 1.56, p =.119.
Overall, 11 participants reflected a stronger desire to volunteer before the service-learning project (Sum of Ranks = 147.00), 11 participants’ general desire to volunteer did not change, while 18 participants reflected a stronger desire to volunteer after the service-learning project (Sum of Ranks = 288.00).
The results suggest that gender has no impact on students’ desire to volunteer, contrary to common beliefs that females are more inclined to do community service.
Therefore, we should be more open-minded because males and females could be equally motivated when it comes to social work, and we should encourage both genders to volunteer, instead of comparing them with other people of the same and/or opposite gender.
I believe that individuals might be deterred from volunteering if we continue to instil them with the baseless idea that it is normal for males to be less active in community work because females are biologically disposed to be more compassionate than males.
However, it is worth remembering that all participants are pursuing a Diploma in Psychology Studies in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and thus are likely to have similar attitudes about community service, and possibly a certain aptitude for volunteer work.
In addition to that, there were only 8 male participants in the study, a stark contrast to the 40 female participants involved, which might have skewed the data significantly and caused the results to be inaccurate.
Therefore, I believe that it is highly likely that the results cannot be generalised to students in other academic schools and/or courses.
I believe that the results of the cohort are not congruent with my own personal service-learning journey because there was definitely a significant decrease in my desire to volunteer after the service-learning project.
I have planned community service projects, as well as participated in a few in the past, but it was my first time doing one that lasts for more than a day, much less planning a service-learning project spanning over a couple of weeks.
It was of course very enriching and I am very grateful to have such an opportunity, but I’m afraid one of my main takeaways from the service-learning experience is that this lifestyle is probably not for me.
I was excited to meet the children and although it was quite challenging to manage them, I was still enjoying the project for the most part. However, when the day of the second session came, I started to, with lack of a better word, feel bored and could no longer keep up with the children’s energy and enthusiasm.
It is irresponsible, but I believe that I perform better when I only need to interact with the charges once because then I will be able to do my best for every volunteer project I participate in and my vigour will not deplete as quickly with time. (675 words)