An evaluative case study for undergraduate community service-learning in physiotherapy
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Date
2020-09
Authors
Saaiman, Christolene Mary Berenice
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of the Free State
Abstract
Social and educational transformation was needed in post-Apartheid South Africa (SA) to address numerous social problems that the country was experiencing. Higher educational institutions were identified as vehicles to bring about transformational change to addressing inequalities in the South African society. As such, Education White Paper 3 laid the foundation for making community service, community engagement and service-learning integral to higher education. Building on national directives, the University of the Free State (UFS) established community engagement and community service-learning (CSL) to bring about transformational change. The Department of Physiotherapy at the UFS adheres to the Higher Education Quality Committee directive that CSL in South African educational programmes is used to enhance social transformation. Physiotherapy departments need to ensure that their CSL offerings remain relevant to educational directives and changes in the profession, the higher education environment as well as communities by way of continuous evaluation. The aim of this evaluative case study was to evaluate the undergraduate Physiotherapy CSL module at the UFS. This evaluation involved engaging with relevant literature, including national and institutional policies and guidelines as well as with all stakeholders involved in the named UFS CSL module. The key concepts identified by the different authors in the literature review closely corresponded with the Good Practice Guide for managing the quality of CSL. Key concepts included partnerships, planning, teamwork/collaboration, management of the CSL process (including orientation, assessment and sustainability), recognition and celebration, evaluation of the impact and/or monitoring as well as expansion and/or termination and teamwork/collaboration. The Good Practice Guide was identified as a tool to evaluate the undergraduate physiotherapy CSL module as it encapsulates all the important aspects of CSL. The researcher used three different data collection methods, namely focus groups with UFS CSL experts and physiotherapy academics, semi-structured interviews with service providers and questionnaires with community members and physiotherapy students. The limited quantitative data collected through a questionnaire survey was mainly analyzed as descriptive statistics to describe the profile of the study participants. For the qualitative data analysis, the researcher used thematic analysis by identifying and summarizing data from the transcripts and questionnaires. A wide variety of themes were extracted from the data such as communication, collaboration, equality, social responsibility, graduate attributes, assessment strategies, sustainability, as well as the quality and impact of the module. In building sustainable partnerships, acknowledgement of community elders at first contact is cardinal. The importance of student and community preparation before commencing a community project also arose as critical in this study. The community voice that plays an integral role, even in the planning of a CSL module, was emphasized. Another important aspect was to monitor the impact of a CSL project on the different stakeholders. It also came to light that CSL programmes should continuously be evaluated against abovementioned concepts, policy directives and stakeholders’ expectations for adherence. In terms of the undergraduate physiotherapy CSL module at the UFS, recommendations included that informal connections and relationships be formalized, interaction be effective and a reciprocal participatory approach to development initiatives be followed that engages community members/leaders in fostering equality in the triad partnership. Celebration with all partners is recommended as this helps acknowledge and appreciate all partners playing a part in the CSL module and serves as motivation for future partnerships. In addition, constructive alignment and scaffolding of information must be applied consistently to outcomes and assessment strategies in the CSL module. The study’s value lies in that it provides comprehensive (i.e. multi-stakeholder) insight into the current CSL undergraduate physiotherapy module at the UFS and may influence changes to the module in terms of teaching and learning, and equal and inclusive partnerships. Inter-professional collaboration to expand and incorporate more stakeholders was suggested to improve the impact of CSL and possibly reduce the fragmentation of CSL. This study also serves to encourage more and extensive research in the field of CSL in physiotherapy education on a national level. This could be facilitated by the Good Practice Guide and Self - evaluation Instruments for Managing Quality of SL as it proved to be a very valuable tool in creating a comparable space for CSL offerings in HEIs and, more specifically, physiotherapy.
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Keywords
Dissertation (M.HPE. (Health Professions Education))--University of the Free State, 2020, Community Service-Learning, Good Practice Guide, Physiotherapy