The Impact of Service-Learning on Improving Students’ Teacher Training: Testing the Efficiency of a Tutoring Program in Increasing Future Teachers’ Civic Attitudes, Skills and Self-Efficacy

A Service-Learning E-Tutoring Program For Romanian Pre-Service Teachers

“…After the completion of both PedTut S-L sections, we expect that students' attitudes towards diversity will increase, as stated and confirmed by previous findings (Rusu, Copaci & Soos, 2015). Also, the hypotheses that their civic action, interpersonal and problem-solving skills, subjective happiness levels, self-efficacy and performance will increase, easing their transition into the world of teaching practice, need to be further tested after the implementation of the current restructuring and extension proposal.…”

“…This study describes the restructuring and extension proposal for a previously developed Service-Learning (S-L) e-tutoring program for pre-service teachers, i.e. PedTut (Rusu, Copaci & Soos, 2015), following the guidelines of a validated model for including S-L in higher education Project coordinators: one higher education teacher, which is also the, Coordinator of Office for Students with Disabilities and a PhD candidate in Psychology domain (the first author of this study).…”

Trends in Higher Education Service-Learning Courses for Pre-Service Teachers: A Systematic Review

“…In the first planning stage of this paper, an analysis to identify the need of such a review was conducted, followed by the development of a review protocol and outlining of the research questions, as the systemic review process suggests (Judi & Sahari, 2013;Copaci & Rusu, 2015). As stated before, the academic community can benefit from the assistance of existing guidelines, checklists, frameworks or recommended practices in designing a rigorous and methodical S-L program, as well as from the previous recent practice.…”

“….12.1 eISSN: 2357//dx.doi.org/10.15405/epsbs. -1330 Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of the conference 2 structured learning opportunities (Heffernan, 2001), facilitating pre-service teachers' emergence from the theoretical world into professional practice, by engaging community service with academic content through well-defined operational objectives (Rusu, Copaci & Soos, 2015). The S-L philosophy is deeply rooted in the experiential approach on education, as argued by John Dewey, William Killpatrick (Kraft, 1998) and Jean Piaget (Conrad & Hedin, 1991).…”

“…Thus, a recent S-L comprehensive meta-analysis conducted on over sixty studies by Celio, Durlak and Dymnicki (2011), states that in comparison to control, students participating in S-L programs demonstrate significant gains in attitudes towards self, attitudes toward school and learning, level of civic engagement, social skills and academic performance and benefits regarding self-efficacy, self-esteem, more positive attitudes toward school and education, increased community involvement and gains in social skills relating to leadership and empathy. Moreover, research has further indicated that S-L promotes knowledge and understanding of civic and social issues, increases the levels of awareness and acceptance of diversity in general (Astin & Sax, 1998;Billig et al, 2005;Chang, 2002;Cress, Collier, Reitenauer, & Associates, 2005;Hamm & Houck,1998;apud Jenkins & Sheehey, 2011) and the attitudes towards diversity of the service-beneficiaries (Rusu, Copaci & Soos, 2015).…”