The Importance of Academics: Feedback from Students of Service-Learning Curriculum

Abstract

This article asserts that academics should constitute the majority of the teaching team of university service-learning curriculum. Using appraisals for service-learning courses for eight recent years at Shantou University, we apply the methods of one-way variance analysis and correlation analysis to analyze the data. The results show that academics teaching courses closely related to their specialties are the most popular with the students, that the self-appraisal scores of students taking the courses taught by those academics are the highest in learning outcomes, and that the correlation between the scores of the students’ appraisals of these teachers and the learning outcomes received by students is the highest. The current study collects and analyzes data on some results of appraisals for service-learning courses during 2011–2018 at Shantou University. Two kinds of appraisal results are included: students’ self-appraisals of their learning outcomes and the students’ appraisals of teachers. In the students’ appraisals of teachers, three kinds of teachers are appraised: academics teaching courses closely related to their specialties, academics teaching courses not related to their specialties, and non-academics (teachers selected from the university’s student counselors, administrative staff, and teaching assistants). The results show that (a) in the students’ appraisals of teachers, academics leading courses closely related to their specialties received the highest appraising scores; (b) in students’ self-appraisals of their learning outcomes, the scores of students taking courses led by academics teaching topics closely related to their specialties are highest, showing significant statistical difference from those of students taking courses led by academics teaching topics not related to their specialties or non-aca-demics. Our analysis also indicates that, for the courses led by academics acting as specialists, the correlation between the score of students’ appraisals of teachers and the score of students’ learning outcomes is the highest. Therefore, we argue that service-learning courses taught by academics acting as specialists are the most success-ful and that they should constitute the majority of service-learning courses offered by universities. results suggest that the type then non-academics, academics acting non-specialists, respectively corresponding the results for course types.