Service-Learning pedagogy: Student experiences at a university of technology.

Abstract

The changing educational landscape in the 21^st century has seen higher education institutions (HEIs) focus more on innovation, flexibility, and adaptability. Despite these advances, there is still a need for innovative pedagogies like service learning (SL) to encourage students to critically examine their own contexts, beliefs, values, knowledge, and attitudes whilst empowering students to engage in self-reflection, appreciation of diversity, and critical thinking. However, to date, limited studies have sought to elicit the experiences of students within construction-related programmes in South African Universities of Technology alongside their lecturers concerning the utility of this pedagogy. As a contribution towards filling this gap, this paper used a quantitative research design to elicit the experiences of second year learners from the Built Environment Department at a University of Technology as it relates to the utility of the pedagogy. Integrated capstone projects were used in capturing the experiences in the form of engaged teaching. Data was collected using a survey administered to students to dig deeper into the experiences shared. Students were asked about their expectations and perceptions from the integrated projects in relation to using SL pedagogy to drive the development of competences among learners such as problem-solving and analytical thinking, respectively. The findings revealed that students were exposed to transformative learning through having to understand the socio-affective factors relating to their projects will facilitate the development of skills for lifelong learning, social inclusion and effective teaching and appropriate instructional resource use. The academic significance of this study lies in its contribution to understanding the impact of service-learning pedagogy on the development of critical competences such as problem-solving and analytical thinking among second-year Built Environment students at a South African University of Technology, thereby addressing the gap in research on student and lecturer experiences in construction-related programs.