DIRECT OR INDIRECT: IMPACT OF SERVICE TYPES ON STUDENTS’ SELF- EFFICACY AND CONTENT LEARNING THROUGH SERVICE LEARNING IARSLCE, 2010 Euljung (EJ) Chun, Miami University

Framework  SL in Teacher Education  SL as a way to learn diversity: Participation in SL helps pre-service teachers gain first hand experience in SL and deeper understanding of diversity while developing appropriate sensitivity toward diversity. (Allen, 2003)

Types of SL (Pritchard & Whitehead, 2004)  Direct service: Face to face meetings with individuals in need  Indirect Service  Advocacy: taking a stand on an issue. promoting a cause as advocate How do the types of service learning experience affect students’ outcomes?

Research Question  What is the impact of types of SL, direct and indirect, on students’ learning about learners with exceptionalities?

Setting  Psychology of Learners with Exceptionalities  59/59 students in two session  Mostly Sophomore (22/23) and Junior (20/21)  Mostly Ed majors (39/38)  Mostly Caucasian (54/52)

SL intervention  Minimum 20 hours of service  Direct Service: Local service learning projects include…Tutoring students with special needs, Helping people with disabilities with daily chores, Best Buddies, Art Therapy…  Indirect Service: Helping a newly started special education school in Zambia  The Types Randomly Assigned

Process and Data Collection  Needs Assessment : Identifying community’s needs  Action Plan: Aligning learning goals with service  Service  Reflection: three times throughout the semester  Pre-, Post- Administration of Questionnaires: Attitude Toward Diversity (Phillips & Ziller, 1997), Community Service Self-Efficacy (Reeb, Katsuyama, Sammon, & Yoder, 1998), Teacher Self-Efficacy (Tschannen & Woolfolk, 2001; Foster & Meijier, 1988)  Final Project Presentation

Analysis-Pre- and Post- Questionnaires  The difference between the post mean and the pre mean  ANOVA, α =.05 significance  Less than 80% of response were excluded.  Full participation in Pre- and Post- were counted. Attitude toward diversity (39/46) Community self efficacy (39/45) Teacher Self-efficacy 1 (39/44) Teacher Self efficacy 2(39/42)

Analysis-Reflection  Three sets of reflections were read by two researchers.  Independent coding  Applied Pritchard & Whitehead (2004)’s students outcome:  Academic (Knowledge, Comprehension, Application), Service (Competence, Caring), Personal Growth (Self- awareness, Problem-solving, Career awareness, Community commitment)  + suggestions  Disagreement discussed, reached consensus

Satisfaction  Post administration  (n=40/47)

Results  Attitude toward Diversity: no significant change regardless of the types of service and majors  Community Service Self Efficacy: no significant change depending on the types in general, but there was a change depending on majors( p=0.029): Within education majors, direct service group shows more increase (0.08) in community self- efficacy while indirect service group shows decrease (-0.57)

 Teacher self-efficacy: Regardless of types of service and majors, all students showed increase in teacher self-efficacy (p=0.03)  Satisfaction: More satisfaction in Direct service group (p=0.015)

Rank Order of items  Community Service Self-Efficacy:  I am confident that, in future community service activities, I will be able to interact with relevant professionals in ways that are meaningful and effective. (Indirect service)  I am confident that, through community service, I can help in promoting equal opportunity for citizen. (Direct service)

Reflection-Academic  We also had definitions and symptoms of different disabilities reinforced for us (knowledge)  My learning from this project helped me realize that even though these students may take a little longer to understand or learn the material, that inside they are kids. They want and have the same wants and needs as every other students in the school (comprehension)  These strategies reflected some of the suggestions from the course lecture on behavior including the need to teach behavior, be proactive, and set routines and rules early. (Application) 

Reflection- Personal Growth  This first lesson had not gone exactly as I had hoped, leaving me to question my ability to take on the teacher and leader role of this group. (Self-awareness)  My group and I have been brainstorming on ways we can include nutrition in our brochures. However, after much debate, we came to a conclusion that there really is no good ways to discuss nutrition in a brochure since they don’t have the resources to better there nutrition…we eventually decided that we would spend our entire focus on trauma. (problem solving)

Reflection-Personal Growth  My service learning experience is contributing to the skills I will need as a future school psychologist (career awareness)  I will be more likely to reach out to communities, both local and abroad, and try to help them in any way I can by providing materials they may need in order to effectively teach the students. (community commitment)

Reflection-Service  This experience has lead me to appreciate the many efforts of others and understand to the slightest extent the amount of effort involved in a career such as this. (Competence)  I was struggling to figure out how far I was to push him without sacrificing my “cool” status, knowing that if I lost it I would no longer be able to reach him. (care)

Reflection-suggestion  One major problem was the lack of communication between my group and those in Zambia.  Some aspects of my project would have been better if there was more structure and organization.

Reflection  How much under each coding?  Academic: More comments on Competence and Application in direct service group  Personal Growth: More comments on Self- awareness, career awareness, community commitment in direct service group, more comments on Problem-solving in indirect group  Service: More comments on service competence and caring in direct service group

So….?  Direct or indirect did not make difference in terms of teacher self efficacy and attitude toward diversity, which is their content learning.  There was a difference in community service self-efficacy.  In reflection, direct service group commented more about Academic outcomes and Personal growth.

Limitation or room for improvement  Quality of service  Unexpected events during service  Diverse service activities students involved in (choices vs. rigorous research design, reality of placement of large number of students)

Questions?  Eul Jung Chun 