The Incorporation of Service-Learning into a Management Course: A Case Study of a Charity Thrift Store
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Literature Review
2.1. Service-Learning Management Course
2.2. Impact of Service-Learning
2.3. The Expected Benefits of Service Design
3. Implementation of the Service-Learning of Management Course
3.1. Work at Each Stage and Process or Service Method
3.1.1. Background and Service Time
- Attend school;
- Department;
- Each member’s expertise and special experience;
- Expected date and time of service.
3.1.2. Interviewing and Confirming Needs
- Assist in internal employee education, training, and process improvement. Since people with disabilities account for about 60% of the organization’s employees, customer service will inevitably lead to a gap in understanding and slow responses. Therefore, we hope that the young volunteer team will raise the relevant issues of suggestion in internal employee education and training;
- Optimizing the Carpenter’s Home image and assisting in social media management. Due to the slow understanding and reply of employees, some people have an unsatisfactory impression of the organization. Therefore, we hope that the volunteer team will propose a plan to optimize the Carpenter’s Home image and give advice on group media to the operating agency;
- Beautify the Carpenter’s shop. There are many reminders posted on the facade of the Carpenter’s Home, including donation time, donation location, a reminder of the classification of donated materials, and related activities of the sales base, which makes the store messier. Staff and youth units can help organize relevant information and beautify the storefront.
3.1.3. The Way of Communication
3.1.4. Specific Implementation
3.2. Specific Implementation Time and Corresponding Content
- 21 October (Thursday) 9:00–12:00: Visit the Carpenter’s Home and confirm the needs with the volunteer supervisor. The young volunteer team also found areas that needed adjustment through field visits and thought about possible plans for marketing the Carpenter’s Home;
- 28 October (Thursday) 9:00–12:00: The youth volunteer team will give feedback and suggestions on the needs of the service unit and further propose the implementation method expected by the team. After reaching a consensus with the volunteer supervisor, the specific follow-up method was determined; in addition, the volunteer team also communicated with the adjustment situation found in the last on-site inspection and proposed a feasible plan;
- 4 November (Thursday) 9:00–12:00: According to the conclusion of the previous demand and the feasible plan focus, the relevant finished products are provided to the volunteers for supervision. In addition, it is confirmed with the supervisor whether the finished product needs to be modified, and then corrections are made according to Supervisor feedback.
- Confirm service unit demand on 21 October;
- Volunteer team to discuss ideas from 21 to 27 October;
- Give feedback and actionable suggestions on 28 October;
- Initiate production of finished products from 28 October to 3 November;
- Delivery of related finished product on 4 November.
3.3. Implementation Way
- It is recommended to use five minutes of internal staff education and training every Wednesday to remind and list the relevant matters that need attention in the service;
- Provide service note manuals to internal staff.
- The establishment of an electronic product station; that is, the current electronic product service station does not have obvious signs or descriptions of the service items provided by the place. It is recommended to post notices to facilitate the public to inquire about these services;
- Provide a template for the announcement, that is, provide design templates of different sizes to unify the style of in-store publicity and cultural publicity. The design will combine the Carpenter’s Home’s and environmental protection concepts, and it is expected that the main colors of brown and green will be used;
- Post information collection, that is, collect the in-store leaflets and publicity items, and make a unified style poster;
- Slogan thinking, that is, slogan thinking is expected to place the slogan on the second-hand store pillar;
- Design the punch-in wall, that is, design the space outside the second-hand store and coffee shop to use the punch-in wall to attract customers.
- Volunteer positions; that is, the Carpenter’s Home can use the experience written by volunteers;
- Daily posting of employees, that is, taking photos of employees’ daily work, expressing the concept of giving full play to their own value and providing services even if they are physically and mentally inconvenient, and asking the public to be considerate and tolerant;
- Combining posts with employee characteristics and products, that is, taking employees as an example, combining original products or items donated by the public for publicity;
- Activity lecturer introduction post, that is, become the activity lecturer of the long-term care activity of the week in order to attract the public to sign up for the event. In addition, allow the public to judge whether the professional field meets the needs of the elderly by explaining the lecturer’s experience and expertise;
- Featured donation stories: when people donate materials, you can ask if the items have a featured story, which can be used as an inspiration source for articles to promote second-hand stores;
- The remarks column at the bottom of the post provides corresponding remarks according to the different attributes of the post, such as second-hand stations, furniture stations, special information, etc.
4. Service Effectiveness and Results
4.1. Internal Personnel Education and Training
4.2. Process Improvement
4.3. Optimize and Beautify the Store
4.4. Recommendations for Promotion Agencies and Social Media Posts
4.5. Students’ Reflection on Service-Learning
4.6. Feedback from Service Objects
5. Service-Learning Satisfaction Survey
5.1. Motivation and Purposes
- To investigate the satisfaction of college students’ participation in service-learning;
- To explore whether college students’ satisfaction with participating in service-learning is different because of gender and identity.
- What is the satisfaction level of college students participating in service-learning?
- What is the satisfaction level of college students of different genders participating in service-learning?
- What is the satisfaction level of college students with different identities participating in service-learning?
5.2. Research Architecture Design
5.3. Research Objects
5.4. Research Tool
5.5. Reliability Analysis
5.6. Research Results
5.6.1. Sample Structure Analysis
5.6.2. Service-Learning Satisfaction Analysis
5.6.3. Gender Analysis
5.6.4. Identity Analysis
6. Discussion
- The most satisfied dimension with the service-learning satisfaction of college students is social care (knowing how to help others, contributing to the society, encouraging others to participate in service, etc.; expectations, recommending to others, exchanging ideas, and integrating into life, etc.). The overall scale analysis shows that the service-learning satisfaction scale is in the upper middle.
- There is a significant correlation between the service-learning satisfaction of college students and gender.
- There is a significant correlation between college students’ service-learning satisfaction and identity.
7. Conclusions
7.1. Contributions
7.2. Service Review and Future Planning Suggestions
- The service time is limited, and it is difficult to fully observe students; that is, the service hours of the youth team are all on Thursday mornings, and the employees who come into contact with the Carpenter’s Home are relatively repetitive, so it is difficult to comprehensively observe the characteristics of all employees who need to be educated and trained. Employees with disabilities have their own particularities, but these are difficult to observe comprehensively due to the limited service time. It is a pity to think about the education and training mode for employees with different conditions;
- The benefit observation time is too short; that is, since this service is mainly based on operational improvement plans, it is difficult for most projects to produce significant benefits in a short period of time, so it is difficult to implement and communicate with each other the revision of relevant strategies and suggestions within a semester.
- The first corner of the book is children’s reading time. The proposed implementation method is to hold a guided reading time for children. Parents are invited to have fun with their children. Parents can also shop in the second-hand stores during this time.
- The second point is that too much clothing inventory causes labor and storage costs. It is recommended that disadvantaged groups can directly take the items they need and provide them to those who really need assistance while reducing the burden of inventory space.
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A
Dear students, The purpose of this questionnaire is to understand how much effect service-learning on the “Management + Service Learning Course”. Please fill in the answers carefully and truthfully based on your actual situations. All information obtained in this questionnaire is only used as a reference for academic research, thank you! Sincerely yours, Tsai-Lun Cho, Ph.D. Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan 200 Chung Pei Road, Chung Li District, Taoyuan City, Taiwan 32023, R.O.C. E-mail: [email protected] Risks and Benefits: This questionnaire was conducted anonymously and my participation in this research did not involve any significant risks. In terms of income, it is beneficial to research related to service-learning through the questionnaire. Voluntary Participation: This questionnaire is my voluntary participation, and I can interrupt filling out the questionnaire at any time. Statement of Consent: Once this questionnaire is clicked to start, it means that I have agreed, which is regarded as a signed written consent. I agree that the researcher of this study may use my records to provide for current and future research. |
5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | ||
1 | Learn how to deal with people | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
2 | Gain a sense of achievement | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
3 | Improve in self-confidence | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
4 | Demonstrate the ability based on my expertise | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
5 | Perform well based on service-learning | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
6 | Learn to help people | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
7 | Contribute to helping others or society | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
8 | Contribute to participating in local or community affairs | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
9 | Develop my citizen responsibility (caring about society) | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
10 | Encourage others to participate in social service | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
11 | Develop my listening skills | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
12 | Improve the ability to communicate with others | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
13 | Enhance the ability to work with others | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
14 | Learn how to respect others | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
15 | Enhance interaction with people from different backgrounds | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
16 | Understand the complex issues facing society | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
17 | Handle emergencies confidentially | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
18 | Increase the ability to analyze problems | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
19 | Increase the ability to solve problems | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
20 | Develop the self-examination ability | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
21 | Recommend this course to others | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
22 | Increase employment opportunities by taking the course | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
23 | Meet my expectations by taking the course | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
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Independent Variable | Dependent Variable |
---|---|
Gender | Service-learning satisfaction |
Identity | Self-knowledge |
Social care | |
Interpersonal interaction | |
Problem solving | |
Course recognition |
Facets | Question | Reliability |
---|---|---|
Self-knowledge | 1. To learn the skills of dealing with people? | 0.776 |
2. Gaining a sense of achievement? | ||
3. Improve self-confidence? | ||
4. Can you use your expertise? | ||
5. How about your own service-learning performance? | ||
Social care | 6. How to help others in learning? | 0.896 |
7. Contribute to helping others or society? | ||
8. For participation in local or community affairs? | ||
9. For cultivating my civic responsibility (such as caring about society)? | ||
10. For encouraging others to participate in social service? | ||
Interpersonal interaction | 11. To develop my listening skills? | 0.866 |
12. To improve the ability to communicate and express with others? | ||
13. To enhance the ability to cooperate with others? | ||
14. Ability to learn to respect others? | ||
15. To enhance interaction with people from different backgrounds (community or organization members)? | ||
Problem solving | 16. To have the opportunity to understand the complex issues facing society? | 0.855 |
17. Confidence in handling emergencies? | ||
18. To increase the ability to analyze problems? | ||
19. Have the ability to solve difficult problems for yourself? | ||
20. For self-reflection through review? | ||
Course recognition | 21. Recommend this course to others? | 0.863 |
22. Will this course help increase employment opportunities? | ||
23. Can this course meet my expectations? |
Average | |
---|---|
Self-knowledge | 3.465 |
Social care | 3.715 |
Interpersonal interaction | 3.654 |
Problem solving | 3.585 |
Course recognition | 3.410 |
Satisfaction | 3.579 |
Facets | Gender | Number | Average | Standard Deviation | t-Value | p-Value |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Self-knowledge | man | 23 | 3.417 | 0.078 | −0.567 | 0.589 |
woman | 29 | 3.503 | 0.037 | |||
Social care | man | 23 | 3.643 | 0.001 | −2.475 | 0.056 |
woman | 29 | 3.772 | 0.012 | |||
Interpersonal interaction | man | 23 | 3.522 | 0.050 | −1.755 | 0.117 |
woman | 29 | 3.759 | 0.041 | |||
Problem solving | man | 23 | 3.539 | 0.019 | −0.801 | 0.449 |
woman | 29 | 3.621 | 0.033 | |||
Course recognition | man | 23 | 3.377 | 0.050 | −0.347 | 0.746 |
woman | 29 | 3.437 | 0.040 | |||
Satisfaction | man | 23 | 3.510 | 0.040 | −2.057 | 0.046 |
woman | 29 | 3.634 | 0.043 |
Facets | Identity | Number | Average | Standard Deviation | t-Value | p-Value |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Self-knowledge | leader | 23 | 3.417 | 0.078 | −0.567 | 0.589 |
member | 29 | 3.503 | 0.037 | |||
Social care | leader | 23 | 3.643 | 0.001 | −2.475 | 0.056 |
member | 29 | 3.772 | 0.012 | |||
Interpersonal interaction | leader | 23 | 3.522 | 0.050 | −1.755 | 0.117 |
member | 29 | 3.759 | 0.041 | |||
Problem solving | leader | 23 | 3.539 | 0.019 | −0.801 | 0.449 |
member | 29 | 3.621 | 0.033 | |||
Course recognition | leader | 23 | 3.377 | 0.050 | −0.347 | 0.746 |
member | 29 | 3.437 | 0.040 | |||
Satisfaction | leader | 23 | 3.510 | 0.040 | −2.057 | 0.046 |
member | 29 | 3.634 | 0.043 |
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Chou, H.-M.; Lee, C.-W.; Cho, T.-L. The Incorporation of Service-Learning into a Management Course: A Case Study of a Charity Thrift Store. Sustainability 2022, 14, 7132. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14127132
Chou H-M, Lee C-W, Cho T-L. The Incorporation of Service-Learning into a Management Course: A Case Study of a Charity Thrift Store. Sustainability. 2022; 14(12):7132. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14127132
Chicago/Turabian StyleChou, Hsien-Ming, Cheng-Wen Lee, and Tsai-Lun Cho. 2022. "The Incorporation of Service-Learning into a Management Course: A Case Study of a Charity Thrift Store" Sustainability 14, no. 12: 7132. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14127132