engleski

Development of Entrepreneurial Skills through Service-Learning

Croatian government recognized service-learning (S-L) as an effective way of connecting students and academics with civil society organizations and the local community and demonstrated its support in 2017. by opening the call for proposals entitled “Support to the development of partnerships of civil society organizations and higher education institutions for the implementation of service-learning programs”. The goal of the call was to increase the number of students with acquired practical knowledge and skills for solving specific social problems and community development. Project “P-S-I Podrška studenata u integraciji marginaliziranih skupina na tržište rada” was one of the 27 granted projects, designed with a goal to develop sustainable service-learning programs on Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb by engaging students in employment support activities for marginalized groups. Elective course Entrepreneurial skills with the implementation of service-learning was designed and conducted to address this issue. A total of 14 psychology graduate students participated in the evaluation of the course by completing the questionnaire at the beginning and at the end of the semester. None of the participants had previous experience with service-learning, but most of them (78.6%) had some experience with volunteering. The most frequent reason for their interest in service- learning was an opportunity to acquire new knowledge and skills (100%), link theory with practice (100%), and help those in need (93%) while the least frequent reason was an opportunity to make potentially useful contacts (36%). Upon completion of the course, students felt significantly more prepared for working on projects (t = 4.37), working with beneficiaries (t = 3.82) and entering the labour market (t = 3.29) and believed the course significantly contributed to it. Additionally, after the course, students had a higher understanding of how useful service-learning is for the students (t = 2.86), community partners (t = 2.28) and teachers (t = 2.28) along with higher understanding of the importance of critical thinking for the success of service-learning course (t = 3.01). However, thought it was expected that the course would improve specific knowledge (e.g. knowledge about the local community and available resources), skills (e.g. teamwork, problem-solving, leadership) and abilities (e.g. tolerance, openness to differences) typically related to the service- learning, upon completion of the course students perceived improvement only in their communication skills (t = 2.12). Qualitative analysis suggests service-learning empowers both students (“Now I feel more competent for working with “real” people”) and beneficiaries (“I expected them to be somewhat sceptic or insecure towards active engagement of students, but they seemed content”), but also suggest (re)consideration of the required amount of time spent in the local community (“At the beginning of the course I expected us to achieve more concrete results with our clients, but that is, unfortunately, not possible in just two encounters”).

service-learning ; students ; entrepreneurial skills ; communication skills

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