Functional Motive Involvement Of Community Service Volunteers: Unishams Case Study

Abstract

Why are a lot of people involved in volunteer activities without any specified payment or reward? The
motivation behind this human behaviour which involve themselves in volunteer activities is the six personal
and social functions which are stated by the Functional Theory (Snyder, M., 2000). The Community Service
Module which makes undergraduates to perform compulsory community activities is considered
challenging, whether they perform the activity voluntarily or only to complete the required compulsory
course of the university. An overview study was conducted to 85 students enrolled in several field of
education which registered for the Community Service course in order to identify the students’
involvement motive in volunteerism activity. This study also observes the volunteerism motive based on
gender, soft skills after participated in a volunteerism programme as well as identifies the relationship
between volunteerism motive with soft skills. Both descriptive and inference methods (t-test and Pearson
correlation) were used to analyse the obtained data. The results of the study found that Value is the
dominant involvement motive in volunteerism activity and there is no difference in motive based on
gender. This study also found that after students participated in volunteerism activity, the students gain
soft skills application through good relationship and interaction, besides learning to work effectively. Next,
the Pearson correlation analysis show that there is a high relationship (r = .727) between volunteerism
involvement motive with the soft skills gained among the students. In reality, the Community Service
course is required as one of the compulsory modules of the University and placing the graduates
produced by UniSHAMS to be on a different level when they have added value as well as having the
opportunity to assist and contribute on a larger scale at the national and international level.