| Summary: | 博士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 成人教育研究所 === 103 === Overseas Study：A survey of international volunteering service experience and transformative learning
Abstract
This study is to investigate the involvement of international volunteer service and transformational learning experience abroad in order to understand the process of transformative learning. Nine international volunteers who were non-students, non-salary earners, and have participated in volunteer service more than three times were selected for in-depth interviews to investigate their overseas volunteer service experience and transformative learning.
The major results were summarized as follows:
1. Overseas international volunteers have diverse motivation, including the exploration of the new culture, helping others and the influence from environment.
2. From the overseas service experience, international volunteers found the royal model. Inspiring new ideas during the teaching process, the passionate of learning from students and the caring behaviors are the most important service experiences.
3. The style of doing things from leaders, interaction between partners, life adjustment in poor countries, challenges from the service, and communication barriers trigger international volunteers’ transformative learning.
4. The style of doing things from leaders, interaction between partners, life adjustment in poor countries, challenges from the service, and communication barriers make international volunteers reconsider their thinking framework, and reflect on their original values.
5. When international volunteers face difficulties, their coping strategies include: adjusting attitude, letting go of prejudice, facing reality, and changing mind.
6. After experiencing transformative learning overseas, international volunteers changed from egotistical to diverse thinking, and discarded the old framework of learning to resolve conflicts and problems.
7. After returning home, international volunteers practiced the new perspectives from transformative learning in their daily life, work and interpersonal relationship to establish new life attitude.
8. International volunteers participate the overseas service continuously due to the pressure release from work, partnership between volunteers, service concept, and the friendship with local people.
Based on the findings, the study offered suggestions as follows:
1. Recommendations for international volunteers who participate in overseas services
(1) Volunteers should involve in training sessions actively to know more about overseas service and to reduce the impact from overseas environment.
(2) Participants should establish correct voluntary overseas service attitude to avoid consumer behavior and attitude toward the poor.
(3) Before overseas service, volunteers should get along with leaders and co-workers to reduce interpersonal conflict and have good service quality.
(4) During the overseas service, participants should experience at the moment to stimulate individual’s transformative learning opportunities.
2. Recommendation for promoting overseas service organizations
(1) Planning and stimulating overseas service situations can improve volunteers’ abilities to adapt to the environment.
(2) The training workshop should consider the needs of adult volunteers. The class should be hold based on different distracts with the combination of multimedia, so participants can obtain information according to individual’s situation.
(3) Educational courses and screening mechanism should be strengthened to enhance the effectiveness of overseas voluntary service.
(4) Based on the results, transforming learning-related programs should be planned to create more learning opportunities for learners.
(5) Overseas marketing and advocacy service platforms should make good use of the international volunteers’ transformative learning experience, so the public can understand more about the overseas service.
(6) A customized overseas service should be established to attract more diverse groups of adult participation.
3. An important area for future research in the years to come will be in the refinement of approaches to the analysis of research characteristics, including filed, objective, content, and method of research.
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