The purpose of this research is to identify the relationship between Youth Volunteer Activities - an area of social participation in which most youths have actively participated - in order to understand a paradigm that implies growth, participation, a...
The purpose of this research is to identify the relationship between Youth Volunteer Activities - an area of social participation in which most youths have actively participated - in order to understand a paradigm that implies growth, participation, and Leadership Life Skills, which is one of main subjects that must be acquired and developed during the period of youth.
To these ends, this research focused on discovering what if any correlation exists between the sub-factors of Youth Leadership Life Skills, such as communication skills, decision-making skills, skills in getting along with other, learning skills, skills in understanding self, and skills in working with groups, in accordance with time, attitude, motivation, and satisfaction level, which are the variables of Youth Volunteer Activities. Also, I have tried to find which sub-domains of Leadership Life Skills are most closely related to participation in Youth Volunteer Activities.
Furthermore, in this research paper, I have attempted to identify the relationship between participation in Youth Volunteer Activities and Leadership Life Skills according to additional variables, including whether or not it involved fraternal group activity, type of participation, gender, school year (age), and school records, which are all demographic variables.
In order to obtain data for this study, 562 students, boys and girls who attend middle or high school in the vicinity of Seoul, were selected and asked to complete a questionnaire between 27 October and 7 November 2005. The completed surveys were collected and data and information have been analyzed by means of Frequency Analysis, Correlation Analysis, t-test and F-test using the statistics program, SPSS/WIN 13.0 package.
Results from the analyses are as follows :
First, the results indicate that there is a high correlation between the level of participation in Youth Volunteer Activity and development of Leadership Life Skills. In particular, the results revealed that the sub-factors of Leadership Life Skills most closely related to participation in Youth Volunteer Activities are: the skills in getting along with others and the skills in understanding self. In other words, the results show that participation in Youth Volunteer Activities is related to the other sub-factors in the descending order of correlation as follows : skills in getting along with other > skills in understanding self > decision-making skills > learning skills > skills in working with groups.
Second, the results from analyses of the relationship between the variables of Youth Volunteer Activity and the sub-factors of Leadership Life Skills show that youths who have engaged in Youth Volunteer Activities for longer periods of time, who take more positive action, and who exhibit higher motivation and greater satisfaction, conduct greater Leadership Life Skills than youths who did not.
Third, the results from analyses of the relationship between demographic variables and participation in Youth Volunteer Activities reveal that high school students have more improved attitude, motivation and level of satisfaction at the time of participation in the Youth Volunteer Activity than middle school students, likewise, those students who obtain either higher or lower school records. Regarding involvement in fraternal group activities, youths who join fraternal group activities show higher motivation and greater satisfaction when participating in Youth Volunteer Activities than those who do not.
Fourth, the results from analyses of the correlation between Leadership Life Skills and participation in Youth Volunteer Activities dependent on gender, school year, affiliation of school, academic records, fraternal group activity involvement, type of participation among demographic variables indicated that Leadership Life Skills of school girls are higher than boys, high school students' are higher than middle school students', non-technical school students' are higher than vocational high school students'.
Also the results from analyses indicate that students who have achieved higher academic records exhibit higher Leadership Life Skills. However, the students who show the lowest Leadership Life Skills have been identified as the group of students with under average or average records, so that, in fact, it is the high achieving students and low achieving students, rather than those with average or under average records, who exhibit higher Leadership Life Skills. Furthermore, youths who are involved fraternal group activities show higher Leadership Life Skills than those who are not involved.
As to type of participation, youths those who join fraternal circle activities or participate in Youth Volunteer Activities in small groups reveal higher Leadership Life Skills than those youths who participate as part of a large group or on an individual basis. The results from analyses also reveal that Leadership Life Skills are higher at the time of participation in group Youth Volunteer Activities, rather than individual activities.