| Author: | Lai, Sze Yeung |
| Title: | Learning motivations, experiences, and outcomes for university students : a case study of a fashion-related service-learning program in Hong Kong |
| Advisors: | Hui, Patrick (ITC) |
| Degree: | Ph.D. |
| Year: | 2022 |
| Subject: | Service learning -- China -- Hong Kong Student volunteers in social service -- China -- Hong Kong Fashion -- Social aspects Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | Institute of Textiles and Clothing |
| Pages: | xiv, 133 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | Service learning (SL) has become an important pedagogical approach in university curricula, providing opportunities for students to deliver social services to underprivileged people in the communities. Once students are appropriately motivated and supported, their social/civic responsibility can be nurtured. This research project seeks to reveal the true value of a service learning (SL) program and to investigate how students' prosocial behaviour can be enhanced by participating in it, as well as how such behaviour can be linked to learning motivations and learning experiences through the adoption of a pragmatist paradigm as the research foundation with a two-stage, multi-methods approach. In Stage-1, both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used in the three exploratory studies: (1) an interview with the program leader to better understand the SL program under study; (2) a qualitative reflective report study to investigate whether learning experiences obtained from a fashion-related SL program can enhance students' quality of life in the future; and (3) an exploratory questionnaire survey to reveal students' perceptions of the learning outcomes of the captioned program in terms of communication and social skills, social and civic responsibility, professional and intellectual competency, and personal aptitude. In Stage-2, a mixed-methods approach was applied to the main study in four steps: (1) development of the research model and hypotheses to set a theoretical foundation; (2) a main questionnaire survey to validate the developed model; (3) a post-hoc semi-structured interview study to explain the controversial phenomenon regarding the impacts of extrinsic motivations on learning experiences and learning outcomes found in the survey; and (4) a control group study to identify any differences in findings between a fashion-related SL program and SL programs of other disciplines. The results of these studies support the major arguments of this research project. First, SL is a useful pedagogy for the enhancement of students' social and civic responsibility. Second, mandatory regulation is not a good motivation for students to join a SL program. Third, extrinsic motivation is much more complicated than intrinsic motivation, and impacts of different types of extrinsic motivation vary widely. Fourth, the design and context of an SL program seem to be the most important factors attracting students to join it. Furthermore, the SL program adopted in this project is a two-semester program using fashion as the main theme offered to university students in Hong Kong to achieve the anticipated learning outcomes. The unique features of fashion allow students to apply professional knowledge of fashion and interpersonal skills to serve people in need. Since there are very few research studies focusing on fashion-related SL, the findings of this project enlarge our understanding of how fashion can be used as a communication medium to link students and service recipients through the implementation of an SL program. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | open access |
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