Does Service Learning Work? Attitudes of College Students Toward Individuals With Disabilities

Abstract

Background: Service-learning has been used in adapted physical activity and education (APA/E) courses in kinesiology. However, evidence has been lacking to clarify the need for utilizing service-learning in APA/E courses as an avenue to change attitudes of students. Purpose: This study aimed to compare two APA/E courses, one with service-learning and another without, to examine the effect of hands-on experiences working with individuals with disabilities on the attitudes of kinesiology undergraduate students. Methodology/Approach: Seventy-six undergraduate students enrolled in two APA/E courses were divided into the experimental ( n = 28) and control group ( n = 48). Only the experimental group had service-learning, which required working with children with autism in a physical activity program for 8 weeks. Both groups completed a self-efficacy measure and the Multidimensional Attitudes Scale Toward Persons With Disabilities (MAS) questionnaire at pre- and posttest. Findings/Conclusions: The results showed a significant positive change in the experimental group’s affect subset scores of the MAS and the self-efficacy measure. No significant changes in all variables were found in the control group. Implications: The findings of the study indicate that including a service-learning component in APA/E courses would be essential to change attitudes and increase self-efficacy of kinesiology students.

Mixed methods research in service-learning: an integrative systematic review

“…Nonetheless, there is a broad consensus (Butin 2010;Puig 2009; Speck and Hoppe 2004) on the need to identify S-L methodology as an educational methodology that challenges traditional pedagogical discourses; a methodology that expands the scope of teaching activity beyond the classroom (Wang et al 2020), generates spaces for the development of social engagement (Marco-Gardoqui et al 2020) and ethical behaviours (Lee et al 2020), promotes autonomy, self-efficacy (Gerholz 2017), engagement (Folgueiras et al 2018) and critical thinking (Kuntjara 2019), generates satisfaction with the learning achieved (Lorenzo-Moledo et al 2021), and facilitates meaningful learning (Celio et al 2011). This methodology "is based on the idea that mutual assistance is a better mechanism for personal, economic, and social progress than competition and the obsessive pursuit of success" (Puig 2009: 10).…”

Value Assessment for a Theory-Oriented Flipped Classroom of Physical Education Based on Multi-Source Data Analysis

“…e same correlation analysis was conducted for the 2013 year group. e correlation values between Physical Education courses and other core course for the 2013 and 2014 years were extracted and constructed into Table 1, and the values were averaged for both years [22]. From Table 2 can be seen that the three courses with the highest correlations are Computer Networking, Physical Education and Object-Oriented Programming, indicating that they have the greatest influence on each other.…”

Research on Service-Learning in Physical Activity and Sport: Where We Have Been, Where We Are, Where We Are Going

“…The positivist paradigm is the second most frequent. In these cases, the research design, the instruments used, and the quantitative methodology attempt to measure the effects of SL [ 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 ]. Finally, a single paper was classified in the third group [ 32 ].…”

“…On the other hand, moving now to the quantitative investigations or the quantitative part of those using mixed methods, a very recurrent research instrument was questionnaires [ 28 , 30 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 ]. The validated questionnaires used were the Entrepeneurship Competency Scale [ 51 ], the Subjective Happiness Scale [ 28 ], and the Multidimensional Attitudes Scale Toward Persons With Disabilities questionnaire [ 29 ], among others. Furthermore, some specific instruments were used on a few occasions.…”

“…A. (2020) [ 29 ]. USA Positivist Quantitative Validated questionnaires Instruments Generalizability Sample Deepening more Marttinen, R., Daum, D. N., Banville, D., and Fredrick, R. N. (2020) [ 90 ] USA Interpretative Qualitative Conversational techniques Reflective narratives Narratives without reflection Not mentioned Deepening more Rodríguez-Costa, I., González-Rivera, M. D., Ortega, C., Llabrés-Mateu, J. M., Blanco-Morales, M., Abuín-Porras, V., and Díaz-Pulido, B.…”