Misty So-Sum Wai COOK1,*, Peace WONG Yuh Ju2,*, Lydia LAU3, ZHENG Liren2, and Reuben WONG4
1Centre for English Language Communication (CELC)
2Department of Social Work, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS)
3Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (YLLSOM)
4Department of Political Science, FASS
*elcmsw@nus.edu.sg; swkwyj@nus.edu.sg
Wai-Cook, M. S. S., NUSTA Community Engagement Team, Wong, P. Y. J., Lau, L. S. T., Zheng, L., & Wong, R. (2024). Community engagement: Validation of assessment tools (NUSTA C&E Project Team) [Paper presentation]. In Higher Education Conference in Singapore (HECS) 2024, 3 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecs/hecs2024-waicook-et-al/
SUB-THEME
Opportunities from Engaging Communities
KEYWORDS
Assessment tools, assessment tool evaluation and validation, communities and engagement, socio-emotional competencies
CATEGORY
Paper Presentation
EXTENDED ABSTRACT
The Ministry of Education (MOE) Singapore implemented the 21st Century Competencies framework to nurture Singaporeans into citizens capable of living in the 21st Century (MOE, 2023). In this model, socio-emotional competencies such as communication, civic-mindedness, tolerance towards others, relationship management, and social awareness have been identified as essential for a person to be able to live in harmony with the people around them (Graham, 2015; Soffel, 2016). In Singapore, service learning has been identified as the means to achieve and inculcate these essential socio-emotional competencies in students (Shumer et al., 2012).
Service-learning has been described as experiential learning through performing community service and reflecting on the service experience (Anderson, et al., 2001; Daniels et al., 2010). Educational institutes have implemented it to inculcate civic-mindedness and social responsibility in their students (Battistoni, 2002). Literature has shown that the service- learning curriculum has reared positive learning outcomes for building socio-emotional competencies in students. For instance, Hale (2005) found that service-learning motivated students to improve their communication skills to better engage community partners. In Indonesia, the service-learning curriculum has also reared positive results in inculcating positive pro-social characteristics like tolerance for others and caring for the community (Casmana et al., 2023).
In alignment with the NUS Communities and Engagement (CE) pillar, the objectives of this project are to measure the effectiveness of the course by measuring students’ ability to show empathy and communication skills, and exploring ways to assist the tutors on the ground with the best practices in teaching a CE course. We began the project by providing a landscape survey on seven CE courses to understand the challenges faced by the course coordinators and validated our proposed assessment tools with the course coordinators.
In our landscape survey, we aimed to ascertain: (a) the nature of CE courses being offered by different faculties, such as learning objectives, duration of the course, course credits, assessment components, and type of communities being engaged, and (b) the challenges faced by course coordinators and students. Snowball sampling was utilised and a total of 7 faculty members responded. Findings suggested that the nature of CE courses is varied and the challenges faced by course coordinators include:
a. Establishing a partnership to ensure a win-win approach.
b. Managing real-world problems: finding suitable placements for quality projects.
c. Supporting a large number of students in placements.
d. Attitudes towards service learning: ensure students are serious about learning.
e. Faculty development: teaching students how to be reflective and apply knowledge/skills confidently.
The relevant scales that could be used or adapted include (i) Common Outcome Measurement (COM); Service-Learning Outcomes Measurement Scale (S-LOMS); Personal- interpersonal competence assessment (PICA); Community Service Attitude Test, and Civic- minded Graduate Scale (CMGS). Each of the scales was looked at individually and their domains were compared to the learning objectives of NUS CE courses to determine the suitability in measuring the effectiveness of the course. In addition to considering validated tools, other forms of assessment were considered, such as the use of scenario-based questions.
Having done the literature review, the team deliberated on using validated tools to measure the effectiveness of CE courses as compared to developing assessment tools to support course coordinators, as well as evaluate the effectiveness of CE courses. As such, the following assessment tools were developed, namely, (a) reflection paper assessment rubric on empathy for use by course coordinators; (b) assessment rubric on collaboration and communication, and (c) scenario-based situations to assess students’ empathy.
Below are our assessment tools with feedback and recommendations shared by the course coordinators, stakeholders, and students.
Assessment tools and feedback:
- Reflection paper assessment rubric on empathy for use by course coordinators
Feedback: Difficulty in developing empathy for the CE courses as there are various factors which impact their learning - Assessment rubric on collaboration and communication for use by onsite supervisors
Feedback: Onsite supervisors are mainly involved in administrative work, and generally do not have the bandwidth to support students’ learning. Students are sometimes being matched to volunteers who will co-work with them on the programme. It is hard for them to be able to make an assessment of our students’ development of personal and interpersonal skills. - Scenario-based situations to assess students’ empathy
May be helpful to elicit an understanding of students’ level of empathy or development of interpersonal skills.