The development of social and civic skills in college through Service-Learning: A quantitative and qualitative study in the field of Physical Education

Abstract

The paper examines the development of social and civic skills after the application of a Service-Learning program in the subject "Anatomical and Physiological Bases of Movement" within the curriculum of the students that train to be teachers at the University Jaume I. The research combines quantitative and qualitative methodology. For the quantitative approach we chose a quasi-experimental design, called Design of two groups with Non-Equivalent Control Group, with Pretest and Posttest measures. Regarding the qualitative methodology, we carried out a descriptive study. The quantitative results show some trends in the development of the social capital in some of the dimensions that we studied. Moreover, the qualitative approach provides results in four categories from the inductive process we carried out in the analysis. The results partially agree with other similar studies, although these studies have been carried out in a different social context. To conclude, our results show that Service-Learning methodology facilitated the development of social and civic skills in the experimental group.