Student Volunteering Among Children And Young People With Special Educational Needs

Volunteering is a freewill activity of individuals aimed at welfare of a community. By volunteering, students, future education workers, provide additional help to children with special educational needs, and students themselves acquire experience and knowledge for future professional work. Involvement of students in volunteering activities requiring professional knowledge represents a significant contribution to the society. The aim of the research was to examine experiences, the satisfaction level as well as the reasons and the obstacles related to volunteering. A volunteer satisfaction questionnaire was administrated among 64 students of the Faculty of Teacher Education in Rijeka. The research resulted in a Volunteer satisfaction scale with a two-factor structure: a factor of satisfaction due to personal gain and a factor of satisfaction related to organisation of volunteering. There is a positive correlation between the satisfaction due to personal gain and the one related to organisation. Students are very satisfied by the feeling of personal gain experienced during volunteering and they are generally satisfied by the organisation of volunteering. Obtaining experience/knowledge and altruism are the main reasons inciting them to volunteer, and the most cited obstacle among students is the lack of time. The results indicate the need of systematic development of volunteering activities, especially among teacher education students, future nursery school and primary school teachers, that would enable them to gain competence for working in inclusive environments by helping children and young people with special educational needs. Also, including students in volunteering activities within higher-education courses promotes their civic involvement in the community and develops the civic mission of universities, the area which is relatively undeveloped in Croatia. Adapted from the source document.