A Passion for Service? Motivations for Volunteerism Among First-Year College Students
This study addressed the links between first-year college students' motivations to volunteer, gender, and past volunteering practices. We surveyed 149 first-year students using items from the Volunteer Functions Inventory (Clary et al., 1998). The results of a series of one-way ANOVAs
determined significant differences in motivations when comparing gender and prior volunteering experiences. This difference was maximized through a direct discriminant analysis by the desire to volunteer based on humanitarian or altruistic beliefs. These results indicate that female first-year
students regardless of their previous service participation and males with prior volunteering experiences showed significantly stronger altruism than did males with limited past volunteering experience. The findings suggest that community service providers and organizers should further differentiate
volunteering opportunities by students' prior volunteering experiences rather than their gender to attract a wider population of first-year college students into volunteering commitments.
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 March 2015
- The Journal of The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition is a semiannual refereed journal providing current research on the first college year and other significant student transitions. The primary purpose of the Journal is to disseminate empirical research findings on student transition issues that inform practice in all sectors of postsecondary education, such as explorations into the academic, personal, and social experiences (including outcomes related to success, learning, and development) of students at a range of transition points throughout the college years; transition issues unique to specific populations (e.g., non-traditional, traditional, historically underrepresented students, transfer students, commuters, part-time students); and explorations of faculty development, curriculum, and pedagogical innovations connected to college transitions.
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