| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 社會教育學系在職進修碩士班 === 96 === This study aims at exploring the learning process of the elderly through investigating the motivations of the elderly participants in voluntary service. It also focuses on the factors of their continuous participation, the essence of their voluntary service learning, and their personal growth brought up by their voluntary services.
This study adopts the qualitative approach, conducting a series of in-depth interviews and participatory observations. Among the many elderly voluntary participants, the researcher selected five cases whose voluntary services range from 10 to 20 years. Interviews with their family and partners, and relevant information about their voluntary work serve as supplementary materials.
Conclusions derived from the research findings are: Elder volunteers participate in voluntary service with various motives for diverse purposes. Religious belief is their spiritual support for their continuous engagement in the voluntary services. Compared to the young volunteers, the elder ones are more devoted to voluntary services with highly self-guided learning. Through formal training, on-job training, experience accumulation, interactive learning with the other volunteer members, and “learning by doing”, they practice volunteer services with the spirit of “Being mindful in learning”. While practicing “learning by doing” and “Being mindful in learning”, their learning is greatly enriched. They not only learn to devote themselves to the services with an unselfish heart, but also motivate and inspire their close others to
join volunteer services. Most significantly, their learning experiences have created unexpected results, creating much peripheral effects. They become the role models in their communities.
According to the above conclusions, the researcher would propose several suggestions for the elder volunteers, voluntary service organizations, and future studies. (1) For elder volunteers, each learning opportunity should be fully utilized to enhance personal growth. Constant introspection is essential to the elder volunteers to achieve self-fulfillment and broaden life visions for youngsters. (2) For the voluntary service organizations, it is necessary to adopt soft management, encourage member participation in decision-making, create a good training system, and form strategic alliances with other organizations. (3) For the future studies: Differences in learning among the elder volunteers of different genders should be further investigated. The sampling age groups can be further divided and explored in various stages.
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