A Study on the Impact of Major-Related Service Learning on the Self-Efficacy of College Students Majoring in Social Welfare

In line with the recent developments in the social welfare practical field, there has been increasing interest in teaching methods and their contributive effects to expertise in the rapidly growing social welfare education field.There is also an emerging need for social welfare practitioners to integrate their professional skills with community development goals.This one-group pre-post study thus aimed to empirically investigate how major-related service-learning courses affect the selfefficacy of social welfare majors.The final goals were providing reference data for the development of a major-related service-learning curriculum that meets the expectations and needs of college students, universities, and communities; delivering a theoretical basis for policy support regarding curriculum development; presenting the implications of integrated social welfare education.This study conducted pre-post t-tests on two subfactors of self-efficacy, namely general self-efficacy and social selfefficacy.The results showed significant effects at post-test (vs.pre-test) for all participants on the three subfactors of general self-efficacy, namely confidence (.002), responsibility (.014), and tolerance (.012) at post-test (vs.pre-test); and on the three subfactors of social self-efficacy, namely empathy (.026), self-expression (.016), and relationship building (.035).The findings suggest that the higher the between general self-efficacy and social self-efficacy, the more the participants considered possibilities and the more they were interested in social welfare practice.This is consistent with the evidence in past research, which showed that major-related service-learning leads to high self-efficacy among social welfare professionals, and then may make them more likely to pursue appropriate social welfare practice behaviors.These findings highlight the importance of major-related service-learning in enhancing self-efficacy, which may contribute to more effective social welfare practice and stronger community engagement.