Abstract
E-service-learning is a pedagogical methodology that promotes social awareness in higher education classrooms. The main objective of this study is to study undergraduate students’ acquisition, from a real and practical 100% online perspective, of the competencies in different subjects by providing the community with educational reading and writing resources designed by themselves to work literacy. 161 university students (M = 23.02; SD = 4.78) from the Faculty of Education created digital tools that addressed the preschool teachers’ needs of two educational institutions. Forty-nine digital resources for literacy were created by undergraduate students. Results showed satisfaction of all the groups involved in the e-SL project; regarding undergraduate students, the experimentation improved the perception of the connection between the theoretical and practical contents taught, motivation and learning. Extreme e-SL or 100% online is an effective pedagogical methodology that academically develops citizens committed to society without geographical limitations.
University must foster the development of research, innovation and employability of undergraduate students for the improvement of society and human welfare. In this sense, and in line with the current Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda (SDG), higher education needs to be to the service of society by training socially engaged citizens. The Council of the European Union (2013) emphasizes the responsibility of higher education in the social development of university students. To this end, universities must provide meaningful learning to students by creating educational experiences with a social value that addresses the current needs in a real social context (Auerswald, 2009). The most appropriate methodology to achieve this competence by linking universities with the community itself is Service-Learning (SL) methodology (Dienhart et al., 2016) since it fosters educational practices that professionally and personally train university students with commitments aimed at social citizenship (Lee et al., 2017). Several studies (Bringle et al., 2016; Kuh, 2008) point out that SL highly impacts university education to train socially engaged citizens.
SL constitutes an active teaching and learning methodology that responds to a social need through and from academic content development (Capella-Peris et al., 2021). SL is a hands-on or learning-by-doing methodology in which students actively participate in activities planned to meet the real needs of society (Perkins, 1994), which applies to moral and intellectual environments (Santos et al., 2015). Students learn the content through the performance of practical activities that they have to apply to real situations in their social context while developing other skills such as social responsibility, teamwork, etc. Thus, SL combines the theoretical training of a subject and the implementation of the knowledge acquired through service to a community (Pérez-Pérez et al., 2019), and places students at the centre of the educational process (Gil-Gómez et al., 2016). Learning motivates, makes students responsible for the service, gives meaning to the content and promotes solidarity. SL methodology benefits the students themselves (significant applied learning), the university professors (improves the learning quality), the people in society who receive the service (services or products) and the university itself (improves community relationships) (Waldner et al., 2012). According to UNESCO (2016), it is a community-centred methodology that connects real life with student learning. SL is ‘an approach used in higher education that seeks to train excellent professionals and a citizenship committed to the common welfare through teaching, research and knowledge transfer proposals that integrate community service and academic learning in a coherent project that allows, on the one hand, students to be trained by working on the basis of real-life needs and problems of the environment with the aim of improving it, and on the other hand, teachers to carry out innovation, research and transfer of responsible knowledge with social impact’ (APS(U), 2021, p. 1). For McIlrath et al. (2016, p. 5), ‘Service-Learning (sometimes referred to as community-based or community-engaged learning) is an innovative pedagogical approach that integrates meaningful community service or engagement into the curriculum and offers students academic credit for the learning that derives from active engagement within the community and works on a real-world problem. Reflection and experiential learning strategies underpin the process and the service is linked to the academic discipline.’ The theoretical foundation of SL is based on transformative learning, experiential learning and critical theories (Bennett et al., 2016; Taylor, 2017). According to Batlle and Escoda (2019), SL consists of:
The fusion of learning and community service processes in a single project where students learn by working to improve a real social problem.
Students acting as researchers and social activists embodied in the academic field from research action and in the social area from a social justice perspective.
Collaborative ways of optimizing a situation through team learning (through dialogue, reflection and sharing of skills) with a commitment to individual and group change.
Service and learning are intentionally planned to promote their synergy.
Promotion of inclusive learning by providing the team with students’ heterogeneity.
Contextualization of learning and its functionality by developing primary and cross-cutting competencies.
Promotion of community development through positive relationships with other people and the environment.
Optimization of professional development by improving cross-cutting competencies for employability and responsible civic citizenship.
Improvement of the students’ community with one purpose: to learn and to serve. Learning is defined as LS, and service needs to involve curricular learning.
University as an agent of social change which improves students’ curricular and civic-ethical learning through real practices outside the classroom and, at the same time, develops the university’s social responsibility shared with other organizations in society.
Through SL, students learn to work on the needs of society and the environment to improve it (Pérez-Pérez et al., 2019) and must be executed in different phases (Puig et al., 2007): (i) analysis of the current situation; (ii) development of a plan of action; (iii) execution of the proposal; and (iv) delivery of evaluable results. Torío and García-Pérez (2015) argued that SL enhances long-term memory for complex concepts and ideas by linking knowledge to experience and real situations. Also, it contributes to the growth of critical thinking and real problem resolution, which infers the development of values and social awareness (Ibarrola & Artuch, 2016), as well as the need for social justice (Rubio et al., 2013).
SL supports learning about the needs of real-life contexts and cooperative learning by reflecting on what is being done, making it bidirectional learning (Tian & Noel, 2020). For García-Gutiérrez et al. (2017), SL develops basic and transversal competencies because it offers concrete situations to learn and exercise learning by confronting students with real scenarios in which they have to apply effective strategies. There is diverse research indicating the benefits of SL used in the educational context, such as improved personal growth, academic performance and social engagement (Miller, 2012), increased teamwork and leadership ability (Shephard, 2008), multicultural competence (Einfeld & Collins, 2008), entrepreneurial learning (Meaney et al., 2016), increased level of self-esteem and empathy (Conway et al., 2009; Lacalle & Pujol, 2019), development of planning skills and meaningful selection of information (Clevenger & Ozbek, 2013) and positive progress in social and civic awareness (Laury, 2020), tolerance towards diversity (Simons & Cleary, 2006), global perspective (Engberg & Fox, 2011) and social justice (Jones & Kiser, 2014).
SL is relevant in teacher education since it allows learning and building one’s own teaching process as a teacher while learning from the experience of service to society (Meaney et al., 2008). For Gerholz et al. (2017), it develops competencies to meet the real needs of the environment and applies what is acquired in the classroom to change the community positively. SL is relevant for future teachers because they reflect on their learning and the service they are performing, that is, on their experience, increase their understanding of what they have learned, and they may generalize it to future training situations (Selmo, 2015).
In a pandemic social context where virtuality and technology were necessary (Ali, 2020), teachers were forced to adapt their subjects to an online environment providing learning experiences with greater flexibility for students (Escofet, 2020). In the effort to provide convenient and meaningful content to students from the subjects, one of the areas to explore was the use of online or virtual SL (e-SL). Albanesi et al. (2020) indicated that ‘e-Service-Learning (electronic Service-Learning – eSL) or Virtual Service-Learning (vSL) is a Service-Learning course mediated by ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) wherein the instructional component, the service component, or both occurs online, often in a hybrid model’ (p. 23). E-SL integrates teaching, research and social knowledge transfer in a digital context; students develop curricular and digital competences solving real-life problems and reflecting on the humanization of the virtual environment; teachers provide real environments to work transferring knowledge with social value in a digital way; and society benefits from digital knowledge responding to the needs of the community. For Malvey et al. (2006), e-SL is an experiential education that enables online learning and collaboration in a service that promotes civic responsibility and meets community needs. For APS(U) (2021, p. 5), e-SL is ‘an innovative modality that contributes to the development of learning by expanding geographically the educational experience of students, expanding their possibilities of service to society and integrating a mediation of technology that safeguards human values throughout the educational process’. García-Gutiérrez et al. (2021) argued that e-SL is a service-learning modality whose project is digitally designed from and for this digital environment, so that learning and service take place online. According to Dailey-Hebert et al. (2008), e-SL constitutes an integrative pedagogy that uses technological synchronous or asynchronous resources to engage students in reflection, social action, service and research. Faulconer (2021) pinpointed several advantages of e-SL, such as its low cost and wide accessibility, and Waldner et al. (2012) highlighted that students felt more engaged in online courses when e-SL was implemented. In this e-SL practice, the teacher created engaging activities for students who actively participated and joined teams to create online resources to be delivered to their ‘clients’ in society (Conrad & Donaldson, 2004). E-SL allows service-learning to be carried out remotely, reaching more open communities and social problems which are not limited to a geographical area (Tian & Noel, 2020).
For García-Gutiérrez et al. (2021), e-SL characteristics are the following:
Humanizing digital mediation: this educational experience provides humanizing intentionality to the technology used to develop educational processes.
Commitment to global citizenship: in line with the SDGs of the 2030 Agenda, the digital environment connects with the needs of any geographical context facilitating the engagement in such realities and developing supportive global citizenship.
Globality: the virtuality that e-SL has eliminates any spatial-temporal and information access frontiers and enables joint networking.
The digital technologies that can be used for an e-SL according to Strait and Nordyke (2015) are:
Curricular tasks: tablets, computers using podcasts, videos, e-books, apps, etc.
Service tasks: tablets, computers for presentations, videos, podcasts, websites, blogs, etc.
Communication tasks: mobiles, tablets, computers using video conferencing, e-mails, etc.
Reflection tasks: mobiles, tablets, computers employing podcasts, videos, blogs, etc.
Project follow-up tasks: mobiles, tablets, computers using virtual forums/chats, online quizzes, etc.
According to Veyvoda and Van Cleave (2020), e-SL could develop the following projects: (i) indirect engaging SL projects which involve the production of a product for an organization of the community; (ii) community-based research that makes use of students’ skills to answer an organization’s research question; (iii) projects which involve the promotion of certain issues or points covered in the course; (iv) projects aimed at educating the community about a particular topic. Developing e-SL projects involves ‘freeing it from geographical constraints’ (Albanesi et al., 2020, p. 24), so this flexibility may be very useful for people living in rural remote areas, suffering from illnesses that demand being at home, which also involves privacy, and the acquisition and development of digital skills (Salam et al., 2019). Moreover, e-SL promotes a sense of community and belonging in an online environment among learners (Early & Lasker, 2018), teachers and stakeholders and enhances self-regulation through reflection during the learning process in the online environment (Broadbent & Poon, 2015).
Waldner et al. (2012) describe four different types of e-SL: (i) the learning is online but the service is face to face; (ii) the learning is face to face and the service is delivered online; (iii) learning and service are partially online and partially face to face; and (iv) extreme e-SL with 100% online learning and service. Similarly, for Yusof et al. (2019), there are three ways to perform an e-SL project: (i) traditional e-SL, in which technology is used in an instrumental way only for consultation to collect information or present a project, but both service and learning are performed face to face; (ii) virtual e-SL, when technology is used with an educational purpose in both service and learning, and both can be done in the face-to-face classroom or virtually; and (iii) extreme e-SL, where there is a technological immersion focusing the whole process on digitalization from the beginning to the end, in both service and learning. This research work is based on extreme e-SL, where learning and service are jointly produced online under pandemic social conditions.
The review of the scientific literature reveals some experiences on e-SL and its advantages on students’ training (ChanLin, 2016; Guthrie & McCracken, 2014), the relationship with the experiential dimension (Stefaniak, 2020), the promotion of professional development (Waldner et al., 2012) and civic and social engagement (Laury, 2020). García-Gutiérrez et al. (2017) designed an e-SL experience in higher education called Español en vivo (Live Spanish), in which they point out the optimization of training and solidarity service performed by online university students by enhancing ethical and civic engagement and developing transversal competencies such as digital and cultural ones, among others. On the other hand, some studies compare traditional SL and e-SL. In one research, McGorry (2012) contrasted traditional SL and e-SL and found no differences between the two groups. More currently, Figuccio (2020) showed that the benefits reported by students did not differ between traditional SL and e-SL. Waldner et al. (2012) found that e-SL involves more participants, and for Guthrie and McCracken (2010), e-SL allows the service to be extended to a broader socio-cultural diversity because it expands the geographical area. In recent years, research in this field has increased due to the relevance of implementing practical and meaningful learning with social utility given the possible social distancing (Tian & Noel, 2020). However, the efficacy of extreme or 100% online e-APS in higher education has not yet been sufficiently explored (Stefaniak, 2020).
Within this context, in which universities must develop socially engaged citizens together with the pandemic that has forced online teaching, this research has been developed. The e-SL is a possible teaching alternative in online higher education (Stefaniak, 2020). We aim to answer the following question: in an online social and educational context, is it possible to combine practice and theory through a 100% online community service?
The purpose of this work is to provide undergraduate students of the Faculty of Education with (i) training linked to their reality through the use of online technology and active methodologies, and (ii) multimedia tools designed for early literacy that can be used by preschool teachers.
The specific objectives set out are:
To analyse the effects of the e-SL methodology used on university students at the level of perceived connection, motivation, learning, performance and social entrepreneurship.
To anticipate the needs of preschool teachers in educational centres and try to offer tools to help in early literacy.
The hypothesis put forward is that online university students can be offered a theoretical-practical connection providing positive results (level of perception of connection, motivation, learning, performance and social entrepreneurship) by providing a service to the educational community.
Methodology
This work arises in a pandemic context when university professors were forced to adapt to a virtual environment, trying to standardize training in higher education. In this context and with the aim of providing an educational experience linked to practice, we proposed to implement the e-SL methodology in the Faculty of Education. At the same time, the preschool and primary education teachers of the educational centres had to adapt the classes to a virtual environment which required digital tools and materials to work, among others, on reading and writing, besides the need to communicate with the families to complement at home the early literacy of their children online, respecting the individual learning pace and the technological conditions of each household. However, although this e-SL experience was born due to the pandemic needs, this educational practice is not limited to the context of the pandemic but can also be implemented in whichever e-learning course and draw similar outcomes. The growing online teaching programmes can also benefit from using such initiatives in developing e-SL programmes (Waldner et al., 2012) or serving communities that are not geographically accessible (Shek et al., 2022).
This study used a descriptive, cross-sectional, ex-post facto design with a qualitative and quantitative data collection methodology.
Participants
The project sample consisted of 161 (81% female and 19% male) students of the Faculty of Education of the University of Malaga aged between 18 and 52 years old (M = 23.02; SD = 4.78). The sample selection was non-probabilistic and incidental, and the inclusion criteria were to be enrolled in the subjects and to attend class regularly.
As for the educational centres, the preschool stages of two bilingual charter schools were used: the former belonged to the Madrid Community and comprised 260 preschool students distributed in 11 classes from two to six years of age and 13 teachers; the latter gathered 150 students organized in seven classrooms from two to six years of age and with eight teachers. The selection of these two centres was incidental for convenience and access in pandemic times.
Indirectly, the children’s parents of these two schools who attended the online meeting to put the digital tools into practice were also participants.
Instruments
The instruments used for this work are:
Recording sheets: they were used to: (i) note down the preschool teachers’ needs and reflections on the digital tools; (ii) supervise the work continuously during the two classes; and (iii) note down the parents’ reflections and comments (those who attended the online meeting).
Initial ad hoc questionnaire addressed to undergraduate students: before starting the experimentation, they were administered a brief questionnaire using Google Forms that collected sociodemographic data (age, sex and university course) and three questions related to SL: (i) Do you feel university activities are linked to the reality of your future career?; (ii) Would you be more motivated and engaged if activities were carried out in real classrooms? (iii) Do you feel you learn more when creating activities for real children than when studying? Do they provide you with more experience? The three possible answers to these questions were: yes, no, I don’t know. The validity of the questionnaire was checked since an expertise committee checked its feasibility, reliability, validity, consistency and responsiveness. The reliability of this three-question questionnaire in the sample was .86.
Final grade of the undergraduates’ assignments: the university faculty graded the assignments as long as they had the required sections (objectives, contents, target audience, development of the activity, technical/functional aspects and advantages/disadvantages) on a scale of 0–10 points (5–6.99, C; 7–8.99, B; and 9–10, A).
Social Entrepreneurship Questionnaire (Capella et al., 2016): once the assignment was completed, a brief anonymous questionnaire was administered to university students. On the one hand, it aimed to collect information about the perception of the subject competencies acquired both at the learning level and at the personal level, and on the other, to gather their perception about the acquisition of transversal competencies thanks to the SL project, such as knowledge of digital tools, teamwork, etc. It consisted of 30 items that were answered on a Likert scale (1–5). The items were organized into three categories: personal and social traits (items 1, 2, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 24, 25, 29, 30); innovative traits (13, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28); and performance traits (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). The three initial questions on SL were also added to this questionnaire but treated the issue differently. This questionnaire presented a Cronbach’s reliability of .809, and for the sample of this study of .627.
Procedure
Firstly, the appropriate permissions were requested from the educational centres and the collaboration of the university teaching staff of three subjects in the degrees of pedagogy and primary education and the master’s degree in teaching (specializing in educational guidance), during the practice hours of the subjects taught in the 2020–21 academic year, whose classes had to be adapted to the online modality. The practice classes were selected to enable students to design tools in practical contexts that would meet the real needs of educational centres through utilizing different interactive applications. The undergraduate students were told about the study and provided their informed consent to carry out the research and how their assignments could contribute to the educational centres. The study followed the Helsinki guidelines and had the approval of the ethics committee of the Educar para el Desarrollo Humano Association.
The study was developed for two months, and its phases were as follows:
Initial contacts: On the one hand, contacts were established with the university teaching staff of the subjects in which the SL was carried out, and on the other hand, with the educational institutions which received the work of the university students. The principals and coordinators of the schools were contacted to discuss the possibility of participation; the SL methodology and the way of working were explained to them. In a subsequent meeting, preschool teachers whose students received the early literacy tools were told what an SL project consists of. They were asked about their students’ real needs, especially considering the pandemic. The response was unanimous. All of them insisted on the fact that both teachers and parents needed to use online early literacy tools to reinforce literacy learning; also, they conveyed how these tools should be from a pedagogical and/or technical point of view.
Assignments in university subjects: An online meeting was held with the university professors involved to establish the assignment guidelines. One week later, professors in their virtual classroom conducted a three-hour training session on SL and explained the assignments, requesting passive informed consent from each undergraduate student. Meanwhile, each professor posted the link for an initial Google Forms questionnaire for the students to fill out. In class, each professor contacted by video call using Google Meet a preschool teacher from the collaborating schools. The preschool teachers shared their needs with the undergraduates and explained to them how technological tools needed to be to work on literacy with children in preschool classrooms (taking into account their students’ characteristics and necessities).
Organization of the digital tools: Each teacher made virtual groups of 3–4 students to design the initial digital literacy material. Four online practical sessions were used in each subject. In them, university professors constantly supervised the work and solved questions. For this purpose, guidelines were established, such as distributing roles and tasks within each group, searching for information on literacy basics to support their digital tools and completing certain sections of the work (objectives, content, target audience, development of the activity, technical/functional aspects and advantages and disadvantages). All the groups had the necessary technical material, such as computers and access to the platform, to hold their online group meetings and carry out their work. All the projects were performed online with a total of 49 papers.
Presentation of the works: since the current situation did not allow the entry of external people to the educational centre, several video calls were held through Google Meet between the university students together with their teachers and the preschool teachers of the educational centres to expose the digital tools of early literacy; in some video calls the tools were tested online so that the undergraduates had immediate feedback on their work.
End of the assignments: The university students finished their digital tools and they were sent to the preschool teachers via e-mail. In a video call session using Google Meet, the university students presented the digital literacy tools and explained them to the schoolteachers. Subsequently, the teachers at the schools put them into practice and sent videos while the children in the class were using them. In turn, the schools agreed with the preschool teachers to hold a short online session in which the university students explained the tools to the parents (those who attended) and their use at home. Finally, the university teachers administered the social entrepreneurship questionnaire virtually.
Table 1 shows the timeline followed during the phases of the project distributed in times.
Timeline of e-SL phases.
Data analysis
The data analysis was done quantitatively using IBM SPSS version 26.0. Descriptive statistics such as percentages of frequency measures for nominal variables and measures of central tendency and dispersion as mean and standard deviation for quantitative variables were used. For the inferential analysis, Chi-square was used to analyse significant differences between the questions in the initial questionnaire before and after using e-SL, specifically between the theory–practice relationship, the degree of motivation and effort and the level of experience and learning acquired.
Results
The results are presented according to the objectives established in the study. The first objective was to analyse the effects of the e-SL methodology used on university students in terms of perceived connection, motivation, learning, performance and social entrepreneurship.
Regarding the questions of the initial questionnaire on the perception of the connection between theory and practice, motivation and learning, university students indicated that 13% of the activities carried out in their degree or masterclasses were not linked to practical reality, 64% were linked, and 23% were perceived to be in an intermediate position. 89.4% of university students stated they would try harder if activities were used by real children in real school contexts. 97.5% point out that they could learn more by doing the activities than by studying the subject content.
In the three final questions on perception of connection, motivation and learning, the university students indicated that 99.2% would like the classes to be more practical and closer to reality, 91.3% that this type of activity satisfied and motivated them and 98.4% that they learned and provided them with skills and experience for their professional career.
Figure 1 shows the comparative percentages of the perception of connection, motivation and learning before and after the e-SL experience.
Before and after comparison of the e-SL project.
To analyse whether there were significant differences between the answers on the perception of connection, motivation and learning before and after the e-SL practice, chi-square (X2) was used with a significance level of 5% (p < .05). In the question about the practical connection of university classes, there were no significant differences between before and after e-SL (X2 = 4.10; p > .05), in the degree of motivation there were no significant differences between before and after e-SL (X2 = .228; p > .05), and in the learning of skills there were no significant differences between before and after e-SL (X2 = 1.36; p > .05).
As for academic performance, in the grading of the assignments, a final average grade of 8.92 (SD = .50) was obtained, corresponding a practically outstanding level, and which can be interpreted as an indicator of what has been learned. As for the digital early literacy (reading and writing) materials, they were based on grapheme-phoneme and phoneme-grapheme correspondence activities, knowledge of the alphabet, phonological awareness and reading of syllables and words.
Regarding the degree of social entrepreneurship competence assessed by the Social Entrepreneurship Questionnaire, the results show that university students positively valued the social entrepreneurship, personal, social, innovative and executive traits. Specifically, the average rating of students in the three categories on a scale of 1–5: 4.1 for personal-social and executive traits and 3.5 for innovative traits. The items most valued by the students were 3, 10, 15, 16, 17 and 18, which referred to: ‘I am a person determined to achieve my goals’; ‘I assume the consequences of what I have said or done’; ‘I like to help my friends in class/work’; ‘People who help others are an example to follow’; ‘I usually do my part very well in any project in which I am involved’; ‘Problems of coexistence are solved through dialogue’. These items are all from category 1 of personal and social traits except item 3, which belongs to category 3 of performance traits. The items reflected responsible, socially aware, cooperative, coherent and committed individuals with achievement motivation and respect for public welfare. As for the items least valued by the students, items 2 and 23 refer to personal and social traits and innovative traits, indicating leadership and initiative, with mean scores below 3.
Analysing the differences by categories according to the Likert scale, 71% of the university students agreed with the personal and social traits of the social entrepreneur, such as leadership capacity, responsibility, social awareness, cooperation, creativity, coherence, commitment, tolerance to failure and ability to learn and evolve. 46% of undergraduates agreed with the innovative traits of the social entrepreneur, such as initiative, ability to identify opportunities and ability to change. 96% of them agreed with the execution traits of the social entrepreneur, such as confidence, achievement motivation and ability to take risks.
As for the university faculty, in the online meeting after the end of the SL activity, they determined the positive assessment of the experience, evaluating the grades of the works (8.91) and the high motivation of the students during the execution of the tasks that can be contrasted with the average of 91% of the final questionnaire.
Regarding the second objective related to the needs of the teachers of educational centres, the university students provided two schools with 49 works of tools to help them with early literacy.
100% of the school faculty staff, at the online meeting, indicated that the early literacy needs they had at this time of the pandemic were met. In addition, all (100%) appreciated the usefulness of the online literacy materials and the positive experience. The faculty indicated satisfaction with the transference of theoretical knowledge to real-life classroom practice and their future university students’ careers.
To conclude, 100% of the parents who attended the online meeting were grateful for the help with simple and technological literacy materials that can be used at home.
Conclusions
E-SL is a way of working that allows online learning and collaboration in a service that promotes a commitment that comes from the need for reflection on the work to be done due to its link with the practical reality of what is being worked on (Malvey et al., 2006). Working from this perspective implies assuming values of involvement and connection between academic, professional and civic elements, because of their intimate relationship with the society in which we live. The purpose of this work is to provide students of the pedagogy and education degrees and master’s in teaching (future teachers) with training linked to their reality through the use of e-SL by designing multimedia tools for initial literacy that can be used by preschool teachers at educational institutions. The data indicate the satisfaction of all the groups involved in this e-SL, especially the academic and social improvement of the university students participating in the activity, in agreement with the existing literature on this subject (Capella-Peris et al., 2021; Conway et al., 2009). In this sense, the hypothesis put forward in the study is confirmed. Before starting the e-SL experience, university students already stated that with this methodology, they would learn more information about reading and writing and could be more motivated, making a higher effort in the work to be done. At the end of the e-SL programme, the data confirmed this idea, although the differences were not significant, evidencing the improvement in the level of perception of connection, motivation, learning and experience in their professional future in the same direction as other research (ChanLin, 2016; Guthrie & McCracken, 2014). A possible explanation for the non-significance may be the students’ social desirability and the motivating welcome provided by the faculty before the educational experience took place. They could have made the initial expectations of the students higher.
To analyse the effects of the e-SL methodology on university students, the data from the initial questionnaire, the academic grades of the work presented and the results of the Social Entrepreneurship Questionnaire were used. Initially, university students reported that this e-SL experience would improve their motivation, knowledge and skills and that they could learn more. The academic grades were practically at an outstanding level, indicating the good level of the created works (digital literacy tools). In the Social Entrepreneurship Questionnaire, categories 1 and 3 of the personal and social and execution traits had the most outstanding scores, indicating that the university students developed more deep learning related to the personal and social and execution side of the experience. These results were in the same direction as those found by other studies in SL (Capella-Peris et al., 2021; Conway et al., 2009; Hébert & Hauf, 2015; Miller, 2012). However, category 2 of the innovative traits was slightly above average. The indicators with the highest scores were responsibility, social awareness, cooperation and helpfulness, consistency and commitment, achievement motivation and respect for public welfare. This was complemented by the data from question two of the initial questionnaire and the one integrated into the Social Entrepreneurship Questionnaire, which indicated the effort and motivation of university students in this type of e-SL activity. The improvement went from 89.4% to 91.3%. These results were in line with other research (ChanLin, 2016; Hébert & Hauf, 2015; Laury, 2020; Stefaniak, 2020) on SL that evidenced improvements in social awareness, social, academic and civic engagement, social, civic and personal responsibility and the improvement of participatory citizenship. The indicators of leadership and initiative had the lowest scores below the Likert scale mean, in the same direction as other studies (Capella-Peris et al., 2021).
Regarding providing a practical and meaningful online learning experience through an online service to the community, 64% of university students initially stated that the activities in the subjects were linked to practice. However, after the e-SL experience, this perception improved since 99.2% indicated the practical connection of the task. In this line, higher education promotes the social dimension (Council of the European Union, 2013). In terms of learning ability, students improved their perception of learning more through the e-SL activity from an initial 97.5% to 98.4%. These findings are in line with meta-analyses on SL that indicate the benefit in the progress of various competencies (Celio et al., 2011; Dienhart et al., 2016).
Regarding the second specific objective, we detected the needs of preschool teachers in two educational centres when working on early literacy online. In addition, we provided them with 49 digital tools to work on literacy online. The data indicate the overall satisfaction and appreciation of the teachers of the schools and parents, indicating the enrichment of the e-SL experience.
The SL methodology in the university environment brings added value due to the need to promote and enhance the civic and professional values in the academic contents of the subjects of the degrees, providing them with the need for an act of reflection and activism to provoke social change (Meidl & Sulentic, 2018). In the university environment, this extra value of adding learning plus service generates that motivation and interest level in the student, perceiving and providing value to their work beyond the university classroom itself, seeing how their work produces value in another environment such as in an early childhood education classroom. In this work, an additional ingredient is provided, such as the combination of service learning in a digital environment in the pandemic situation experienced by COVID-19. In the present work, the relationship between the development of the students’ work and their service-learning is of an extreme (or 100% online) digital nature (Yusof et al., 2019). This digitization implies no geographical limitation, so it can be considered that e-learning will have a fundamental role in future education (Allen & Seaman, 2009). As observed in this work, through the design of activities for the learning of reading-writing for preschool children, it has been observed how digital work becomes useful for the development of work and the use of it in the same way by the preschool teachers who implemented it. In addition, this work can be replicated in any discipline and socio-cultural context by providing practical learning in times of pandemic or health emergency involving situations of social distancing or just simply in whichever online course. On the other hand, and adding value to the inclusion of the digital domain, authors such as Gómez et al. (2008) defend the importance of incorporating technology into teacher training curricula so that future education professionals are more digitally literate and can better connect theory with practice. It also provides better access to and a greater variety of resources and contexts.
In short, this paper aims to show the application of an active methodology in a pandemic situation, such as e-SL, that provides online learning and service to the community, in this particular case, the design of activities for the development of literacy in early childhood education. This option of developing e-SL programmes was effective and reflected the possibility of doing them in higher education (Bharath, 2020) since students felt valuable by helping others. The results are in the same direction as the scientific literature on using e-SL, which intends to train citizens committed to society (Bringle et al., 2016). This type of online practice in higher education is increasing due to its importance in the current social context (Tian & Noel, 2020), although, in the extreme mode or 100% online, there is more to investigate (Stefaniak, 2020).
The educational implications of this work are aimed at the development of this type of e-SL methodology applicable to other areas of university learning. On the one hand, for university students, benefits are obtained at the academic level because academic and digital competencies are acquired and reinforced; at the personal level, because of students’ satisfaction, responsibility and critical reflection; and at the social level, because of their commitment to collaborate with the environment and improve society. On the other hand, for educational centres, because they reinforce early literacy with new resources, tools and strategies for teachers, students and parents, and finally, for the university because it optimizes the link between theory and practice by providing a service to the community, in line with the SDG of the 2030 Agenda and with UNESCO (2016) in its education for global citizenship.
Among the possible limitations encountered in the present study, we can highlight some difficulties that occurred with the use of technology at the time of using some of the works sent since some of the resources were difficult to use due to some problems encountered in the early education classrooms or incompatibility with the interactive whiteboards. On the other hand, the lack of face-to-face interaction influences the development of transferring or transmitting some essential literacy learning and writing skills, such as the need for closer accompaniment. As a future line of work, it could be extended to other subjects/areas and reach more vulnerable groups.