The impact of teachers’ and supervisors’ involvement on students’ skill and affective development in service-learning

Abstract

LEE Leemen

The study reported an assessment of a university-wide curriculum-based service learning program and, based on the assessment data, analyzed the impact of teachers’ and supervisors’ involvement on students’ skill and affective learning outcomes. The study (n=750) showed that in general the students agreed that their participation in service-learning enhanced their communicative and problem-solving skills and contributed to their positive attitude toward service learning and helping others. The study suggested that student journal keeping and discussions among teammates may be the areas that need more attention in program implementation. Using the structural equation model (SEM) method, the study tried to analyze the different effects of involvement of teachers, supervisors, and students on students’ learning outcomes. It is found that students’ involvement, measured by students’ preparation for and understanding of the services as well as students’ frequent discussions with teammates, has a significant positive relationship with the learning outcomes. Moreover, the involvement of teachers and supervisors has positive influence on the students’ learning outcomes. Further, analysis indicated that the positive influence of the involvement of teachers and supervisors on the learning outcomes is mainly through the “indirect effect” (through the influence on students’ involvement, which contributes to learning) rather than through the direct path between the involvement of teachers and supervisors on the learning outcomes.