In search of meaning : novice teachers’ perceptions on a service-learning subject through narrative inquiry

Abstract

In a recent decade, there is a bloom of service-learning courses in the universities in Hong Kong. Although studies about students’ benefits from service-learning is plentiful, there is scarce research investigating the university teachers’ perception upon servicelearning in the course of teaching, especially novice faculty members. Many university teachers are invited to teach service-learning yet their voice and views on the gains, benefits or difficulties are sparingly addressed. The narrative inquiry approach is adopted in the present study to investigate the unique views of the novice faculty members teaching service-learning. Novice teachers from a service-learning subject implemented in The Hong Kong Polytechnic University are invited for the present study. In-depth interviews have been conducted to gauge teachers’ perceptions upon the experiences of teaching this service-learning subject. Results showed that the novice teachers (1) have seized the “calling” of teaching service-learning; (2) perceived teaching service-learning as a reaction to institutional privatization and (3) urged eagerly for the mentorship.