the community and 48% perceived that it meets real community needs and/or fosters a relationship with the community. It was also revealed that 46% of the students perceived community-based education as tool to increase altruism and caring for others, while 26%
perceived that it improves their personal and social development (Spring, Grimm and Dietz, 2008).
These studies show that, although a few worries were raised, students generally had positive perceptions regarding community-based learning. This positive perception of students may influence how they embrace the approach. Enthusiasm to learning material will enhance their learning process and students may exploit learning opportunities and improve the quality of service provided to the community.
community participation, how to do a rapid appraisal and epidemiological studies, learning contracts as a means of promoting self-directed learning and a visit to the community placement. This orientation is very important to support the students and alleviates any stress and anxiety which may be caused by unfamiliar situations or environments. The orientation also provides clear information in order to avoid confusion and inform students what is expected from them.
A quantitative study conducted by Salmon and Keneni (2004) showed that difficulty in self- expression and domination of peer group leaders were factors that hindered learning, whereas having interest in community-based education fostered learning. Those authors found that willingness of the mentor to answer the questions, praise the students’ answers and facilitate community-based education, and the relevance of learning environment were factors that contributed to learning, whereas mentors who emphasized students’ mistakes or made irregular contact with students were identified as hindering factors.
A study conducted by Pillay and Mtshali (2008) showed that the students need clinical supervision to support them emotionally and academically so that they may grow as competent professionals. These authors found that clinical supervisors were supportive when they assisted the students to solve social and academic issues as empathetic people. This research indicated that the time allocated to clinical supervision was short, where 61% of participants reported that the clinical session was below 15 minutes and 21% indicated that it took between 15-30 minutes. It is shown that supervision is very important in learning environments where the student need someone to talk to when they have problems which supports them towards learning objectives.
The supervisor has the obligation to create opportunities for reflection, and foster critical thinking and lifelong learning (Bos, Löfmark and Törnkvist, 2009). The role of supervisor is
providing support, supervision and assessment of students during their period of clinical learning practice (Bos et al, 2009). According to Betony (2012), the role of supervisor or mentor is to introduce the students into the community and to facilitate contact with other partners to ensure rich learning experiences, but the support students receive depends on the mentor’s enthusiasm, network of contacts, understanding the students’ learning needs and ability to manage the workload. If learning is to occur, the supervisor or mentor or teacher needs to encourage the students to reflect upon their learning experience, otherwise it will be like volunteerism. It is understood that the supervision of students is very supportive and the supervisor should spend regular time with the students in order to facilitate their learning and provide them with assistance, when needed.
A systematic review conducted by Jokelainen, Turenen, Tossavainen, Jamookeeah and Coco (2011) on mentoring in clinical nursing reported that the mentor guides the students, makes resources available, allocates enough time and meets regularly with students in order to ensure attainment of the academic objectives, and supports the students so that they may grow personally and professionally. The mentor encourages critical thinking and problem- solving skills, encourages the students to ask questions and ensures that they get the correct answers to their questions, stimulates co-operation and is there for the students (Jokelainen,et al, 2011). When the mentor is not there for the students, they feel alone and rejected, there is no one to stimulate their thinking and may become confused about what to do and therefore learning does not take place.
The lecturer in clinical placements has various roles including supporting, directing, motivating, facilitating, problem solving, troubleshooting, advocating and monitoring (Price, Hastie, Duffy, Ness and McCallum, 2011). The study conducted by Tang , Chou and Chiang (2005) showed that a good attitude of the teacher and an interpersonal relationship between
the teacher and students was perceived as an important factor in facilitating nursing students’
learning in clinical placement in order to enhance learning. Another study conducted by Peters (2011) showed that lack or inadequate preparation of service-learning that resulted in a lack of logistic were factors that affected students’ service-learning and quality of service provision. Peters (2011) stated that some students are less motivated when the community partners are not cooperative and therefore hinder the students’ learning due to lack of variety of learning experiences and insufficient experience to reflect on.
According to Peters (2011), service-learning requires enough time for its preparation in order to negotiate and ensure adequate service learning experiences that meet the academic requirements as learning objectives. Various studies revealed that lack of time of the teacher negatively affects community based-learning, whereas mentors and advice from colleagues are helpful in service-learning (Abes, Jackson and Jones, 2002; Al Kadri, Al-Moamary, Elzubair, Magzoub, AlMutairi, Roberts and Van der Vleuten , 2011; Rosing, Reed, Ferrari and Bothne, 2010). It is understood that lack of time of the mentors or mentors trying to balance other professional responsibilities cannot help the students reflect on their learning experience and thus inhibit the learning from experience and the quality of service provision.
Furthermore, Abes et al., (2002) found that service learning was hindered by the lack of logistics and funding to prepare and organize service learning, lack of instructions and co- ordination and lack of institutional support. The misunderstanding or resistance of students to the approach may also affect community service-learning. According to Peters (2011), some students get confused about what they have to accomplish, which leads to low motivation and impacts negatively on the learning process, academic outcome and quality of service provision.
The kind of supervision the students get in clinical learning has a large role to play in fostering students’ learning. The study conducted by Al-Kadri (2011) indicated that some teachers act as a role model, and their way of coaching and guiding, and their experience and commitment to clinical teaching were identified as factors enhancing clinical students’
learning. These authors stated that the flexible attitude of teachers in relation to the students, their knowledge and their availability to support and motivate the students were stimulating factors that foster learning in clinical learning environment.
Al Kadri et al., (2011), stated that some teachers do not like to teach and do not devote their time to the students, while others are disorganized which demotivate the students and lessen their interest in learning. The unavailability of the teacher is a source of stress and anxiety for students, which affects their learning in clinical learning setting (Al Kadri, et al., 2011), and Rosing, et al., (2010) revealed some of the factors that hindered students’ community learning, reporting that students complained about learning environments that were not prepared to accommodate them, limited resources, lack of interaction with the community members and lack of communication between the stakeholders, all factors which would have made their learning experience more meaningful.
Some of the studies revealed that lack of communication between the university and the community resulted in site members being unaware of the goals and learning objectives of the students. Lack of communication between the community partners resulted in inappropriate goal-setting, which caused confusion as students were unclear about what was expected of them or their responsibilities in the community. Lack of supervisor skills and competence in supervising and teaching the students were also identified as hindering factors to learning (Peters, 2011; Rosing et al., 2010). Rosing et al., (2011) found that the relevance of the community and the time spent in the community have an impact on the learning. The
more time students are able to spend in a relevant community, the more they get a sense of belonging and feel that they are having a positive impact on the community, the more they learn, and conversely the less time they spend in a community, the less they learn. Several other hindering factors that were identified were the community-based learning schedule conflicting with the time table of other courses, lack of transportation to the community learning sites and safety. It is understood that students benefit from community service learning and appreciate support from institutions and the community, and even from their colleagues, which is very important to achieve the community-based learning objectives. It was found that the time spent in the community varied between 5 to 25% of the clinical placement curricula (Reid and Cakwe, 2011).
A peer review conducted by Reid and Cakwe (2011) indicated that some communities are not involved in community service-learning and that some universities in South Africa have stopped community service-learning in rural settings because of fear for the students’ safety.
The partnership is very important if the learning in community is to occur and both parties are to benefit from the service-learning.