Graduate service-learning experiences and career preparationdissertation
Аннотация: Over the past thirty years there has been an increase in the study and practice of service-learning in graduate education. As a form of experiential learning, service-learning integrates academic coursework with service or community engagement through purposeful and structured course design and reflection. Despite the fact that the primary reason an individual pursues graduate education is for professional or career related purposes, there is a disconnect between graduate students' educational goals and employers, many of whom have indicated that students are often ill-equipped for the workforce upon graduation. This disconnect presents an opportunity to explore the relationship between service-learning and career preparation for graduate students. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between service-learning and career preparation from the perspective of graduate students as adult learners. Using Knowles' (1980) adult learning theory as the theoretical framework, this study employed interpretive phenomenological analysis as the method of inquiry. Interviews were conducted with six recent graduates from the Master of Science in Media Advocacy program at Northeastern University, all of whom took a service-learning course during their first semester in the program. Analysis of the interviews yielded four conclusions: (1) integrating a service-learning experience into a course in and of itself may not inherently support students' career goals, even when there is strong alignment between the degree program, principles of service-learning, and students' drive to positively contribute to society through their career, (2) for both novice and experienced professionals, graduate students can build skills and self-efficacy through service-learning that relate to their continuous career trajectory, (3) service-learning can highlight tensions between students' social roles, and (4) students are aware of how the structures of academia impacted the extent to which service-learning related to their career preparation. Overall, findings suggest that graduate students perceive service-learning as a powerful way to make direct and indirect connections to their career preparation. Knowledge generated from this study is intended to inform the way faculty and other educators conceptualize, design, and implement service-learning experiences, aligning them with graduate students' professional goals and outcomes.--Author's abstract
Год издания: 2021
Авторы: Lisa Roe
Ключевые слова: Service-Learning and Community Engagement, Social Work Education and Practice, Athletic Training and Education
Открытый доступ: bronze