Benefits and Outcomes of Experiential Education

Document Type:Thesis

Subject Area:Education

Document 1

At a personal level, opportunities like these also influence character development, independence, and confidence development that occur when students learn about their lives by reflecting on experiences relating to the new challenging circumstances. Identifying the benefits of experiential studies has become very essential because most universities, colleges, and other institutions of research and learning have significantly embraced this type of learning in their programs. According to studies, universities and other higher education institutions need to find ways of increasing student access to experiential education opportunities (Kuh). According to Kuh, this experiential opportunities is referred to as “high impact educational practices”. In the U. Outcomes are the results of an activity or program, and they can be positive or negative. Research Project refers to a paper containing research review or literature that involve scientific search for knowledge that can be reflected upon by the writer or other researchers.

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Self-efficacy refers to perceived capability to form desired action or behavior. Service-learning program is an academic program that has a society service parameter. It can entail necessary direct service time in hours or class results of project of a group that is aimed at facilitating organization or community members, or both (Kayes). Empowerment increases in proportional to learner’s acquisition in ability to affect their own social, spiritual, professional, and personal lives. They will be able to set their own goals and keep track of their progress as they believe in themselves. Experiential learning, therefore, is a technique to acquire the tenets to empower education because outcomes from experiential learning are solid, concrete and applicable in life. Service learning and internships have been studied for long by researchers.

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Internship refers to the general term that designate learning programs that experience-based (Moore). Enrolling in a program that is service-learning has a positive impact on student’s self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is often assessed in experiential study plans or courses and have varied outcomes (Conway, Amel and Gerwien). There are research studies that have used advanced techniques of measuring self-efficacy. For instance, in a study conducted in 2003, a quality relationship was realized between counseling of self-efficacy and participation in programs that involved service-delivery in practicum counseling participants (Barbee, Scherer and Combs). The result measure was directed to specific objectives, making the identification easier. Additionally, practices recommended in reflection, engagement attitudes, and literature, were assessed and used as predictors variables in University of Loyola experiential education sample.

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The study was successfully completed in 2017. Research methods The first study was conducted in students from Loyola University in Chicago, who participated in an experiential study that involved service-learning and academic internship. The study was conducted from 2016 August to 2017 May. Approximately 600 students were successfully enrolled in internship programs, and 1900 were sign up in service-learning programs over the 2016-2017 academic year. About 17 students in service learning and 13 learners in service based focused programs did post-testing. When both the pre testing category and post-testing were matched, only 7 service-learning students completed both the tests, and only 8 service-focused students completed both tests. In this study, a link to pre-test survey was sent for all service-learning and service-focus courses. For both the studies discussed above, the students arrived at online survey, and read and approved the available consent form.

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The students entered the site and the survey began. The analysis utilized scale of General Self-Efficacy (GSE), attitudes on diversity subscale, and civic and academic responsibility subscales. The GSE is a scale composed of 10 items. It was designed to analyze optimistic self-benefits of life demands. To be specifically, this scale refers to the philosophy that a person’s actions are accountable for successful results (Luszczynska, Scholz and Schwarzer). The score of the scale from every question ranged from 1-4. CASQ was used and the yielded 6 scale scores that were developed via factor analysis. The CASQ showed strong validity and reliability (Moely, Mercer and Illustre). A Likert-type 5 point scale was used for diversity subscale, and the 5 points ranged from 1 representing strongly disagree up to 5 which is strongly agree.

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A Cronbach alpha subscale for differences was given as 0. 71, while the reliability for test-retest ranged lied between 0. The process was based on outcome variables, whereby the values were imputed for 5 civic responsibility students, none self-service students, 8 for students on attitude about learning and school, and 6 for students on diversity. The predictor variables and outcome were assessed for outliers just before assessment (Shadish, Navarro and Matt). The outliers in the data were windsorized after they have been identified. In this project, 7 outliers were identified and removed; they included 2 predictor variables and 5 outcome variables. The demographics for experiential learning have been tabulated in table 1. Experiential based learning scholars Service based learning scholars Students on internship N Mean Range N Mean Range N Mean Range Pre-Self-Efficacy 279 3.

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00 Post-Self-Efficacy 279 3. 00 Pre-Civic Responsibility 279 3. 89 Post-Civic Responsibility 279 3. 89 Pre-Attitudes about Diversity 279 3. Academic internship and self-efficacy did not produce substantial increase in diversity and school learning attitudes, civic responsibility and self-efficacy in post and pre-testing as shown in table 2. Service learning program lead to partial increase in diversity and school learning attitudes, civic responsibility and self-efficacy in post and pre-testing. The time effect was assessed and service-learning participants showed a positive surge from pretesting category to post testing category in the aspect of self-efficacy only: F(1,1800) = 5. 160 and p was 0. Diversity and school learning attitudes, and civic responsibility lacked any differences during the study. This meant that all those participants who reported completing hours of direct service showed a higher positive raise from the pre-testing category to the post-testing in terms of diversity attitudes.

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Other outcomes did not significantly changed. On analysis of engagement in the study, linear regression assessment showed a positive civic responsibility change (β=0. 130, B=0. 04, t(269. 730, t (269. 909, p=0. 00001, R²Δ=0. 0300), school learning attitudes (B=0. 660, t(269. 04,R²Δ=0. Moreover, a higher interest gave prediction of positive divert attitude changes (B= 0. 209, t(275. 089, p =0. 00001, R²Δ=0. 04) as shown in Fig 5. Figure 4: Interaction effects of time and condition for civic responsibility Figure 5: interaction outcomes of time and the condition for diversity attitudes. Civic responsibility had the main significant effect of condition [F (1,277)=7. 93, p=0. 01], followed by self-efficacy [F(1,277) = p=0. Figure 7: Service-learning participant responses to new opportunities internship created for them Figure 8: Experiential studies participant responses to new opportunities internship created for them The 24% participants who responded to comments said they were interested in continuing with their work or service at the place where internship was conducted.

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Of all the experiential participants, 18% of them said the experience during internship led to job offers, and 12% of them said that the experiential learning led to powerful references, interviews, or connections to better jobs. Additionally, experiential learning led to participants’ increase in interest. Study limitation The research study was successfully conducted but there were some limitations. Of all the students who registered for the study, not all took part in the study. Discussion This study provides a detailed description of experiential learning effectiveness, and the way some program parameters and participant (student) attributes impact civic responsibility, perception, learning and school perception, and self-efficacy. The results from the study showed that student’s interest in their programs or courses, reflection frequency, and engagement degree in service project can foretell higher outcome scores.

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This study adds better and relevant methodologies and fills the loop holes in experiential education. Studies done in these experiential learning areas reveal that students results increased generally in areas studied in this project (Conway, Amel and Gerwien). The finding of Conway, Amel and Gerwien suggested that studies might produce positive results for civic, personal or social outcomes, but the service amount in form of hours did not predict the exact effects, and they suggested more research to be conducted in experiential learning outcomes. Participants in service-learning programs performed tasks or provide services that are not familiar to them, and therefore, in contrast to internship programs, may give participants more opportunities where they were required to show their competence. Self-efficacy increase in service-learning population could be caused by design and structure of the program (Feldman and Weitz).

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Research shows that opportunities and feedback that are affected by other persons have an effect in self-efficacy (Brooks, Cornelius and Greenfield). Despite the significant self-efficacy increase for the service-learning participants having been predicted, there was lack of substantial findings in the group that was in internship, overall experiential learning, and between groups. The measure can explain the inconsistent self-efficacy findings in the different groups. Several research reviews have shown evidence that support civic responsibility and citizenship changes in post-testing and pre-testing (Billig) (Perry and Katula). Because internships are directed towards career development, civic responsibility was not evaluated in this research project. Service-learning participants did not practice substantial civic responsibility changes because of some reasons. First, lack of measure sensitivity in evaluating changes over the program, and second, there must be some ceiling effects.

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In this research, most students commenced with high civic responsibility sense and made positive scores increase, but they had bigger scores in pretesting and was hard to notice deviations or changes. Similarly, learning and school attitudes were not affected by enrollment in experiential studies program. This is contradicting with reality where learning and school attitudes are regular and optimistic outcome measures in experiential education (Conway, Amel and Gerwien). From the study, academic internships and self-learning students did not differ from each other significantly in terms of outcome measures. The participants in internship program were mainly placed in NGO’s, at which service-learning participants were volunteering. The participants were evaluated on the number of hours they were engaged in. Via questions that were open ended, the study revealed that career development for students is affected significantly by experiential learning.

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According to NACE, approximately ¾ employers who responded to 2009 yearly job outlook showed that they hire experience students in what they have studied (NACE). Experience is an important factor in graduates and is the trend that has been there since the early 1990’s. Additionally, competition for high profile jobs remains vital, and experience is a very important aspect that every professional or graduate can easily be a qualified manager (Fleetwood and Shelly). According to Gault, Duety and Leach, practical learning has a huge influence in shaping career in employment market (Gault, Leach and Duey). This study has provided enough information on outcomes of engagement levels, reflections, service experience and interests in specific field of study. It has also contributed to efforts materialize and re-conceptualize outcomes of learning and learning processes by revealing how students take advantage of new ideas, people, experiences, and attitudes that they encounter on daily basis through service experience.

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Above all, the study results and findings should educate and inform our expectations and comprehension of experiential education programs and direct how both evaluations and courses could make the future better. From the studies mentioned in this study, we can deduce that a lot of information has been studied by scientists, and this study is just one of the many studies conducted in the past. Therefore, the information revealed in this study can be assessed and improved by other scientists. ____ • People should contribute to the community willingly ____ • I am planning to promote peace and love in my neighborhood ____ • I can impact positively on local problems. ____ Academic subscale The following should be rated between 1 (S. A) and 5 = [S. D] • School programs are pertinent to my non-academic life ____ • I love reading course materials in school.

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____ • The school course content is intellectually exciting ____ • I love courses that are practical in real life. Scherer and D. Combs. "Pre-practicum service-learning: Examining the relationship with counselor self-efficacy and anxiety. " Counselor Education and Supervision (2003): 108-119. Betz, N. " Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching, Literature, Language, Composition and Culture (2002): 229–254. Billig, S. H. and R. M. Document. 5 July 2010. <http://www. isi. edu/natural-language/teaching/cs562/2009/readings/B06. I. , J. A. Durlak and A. B. "Teaching and learning in the social context: A meta-analysis of service learning‟s effects on academic, personal, social, and citizenship outcomes. " Teaching of Psychology 36 (2009): 233-254. Davidson, W. S. , et al. A. Weitz. "Summer interns: Factors contributing to positive developmental experiences. " Journal of Vocational Behavior (2013): 267-284. Fenzel, L. and S. H.

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Billig. “Meaningful service” in K-12 Service-Learning Standards for Quality Practice: An Annotated Bibliography. Document. " Education & Training (2010): 76-88. Holbrook, A. L. and J. A. Studying service-learning: Innovations in education research methodology. Mahwah, NJ: : Erlbaum, 2003. Kayes, D. C. "Experiential learning and its critics: Preserving the role of experience in management education learning and education. High Impact Education Practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2008. Loyola University Chicago. Experiential Learning. 3 April 2009. Moely, B. E. , A. Furco and J. Reed. " Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning (2002): 18-26. Moore, D. "Forms and issues in experiential learning. " New Directions For Teaching & Learning. NACE. " Administration and Society (2001): 330-365. Reeb, R. N. , et al. "The Community Self Efficacy Scale: Evidence of reliability, construct validity, and pragmatic utility.

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