Reciprocity of service learning among students and paired residents in long-term care facilities

Many intergenerational service learning projects have been designed for service providers and recipients, few studies have analyzed the providers and recipients of such projects in terms of caring behavior. In accordance with the Taiwan Ministry of Education initiative to develop curricular service learning, a service learning project was initiated during a nursing school course before the students performed their clinical practicum. The aim of this mixed method design was to report the development of an intergenerational service learning project and to test its effects both on nursing students paired with residents and residents of facilities. A pre-and post-test with non-randomized control group design was used to evaluate the effects of the project on caring perceived by the residents, and a one-group pre- and post-test design was used to test its effects among nursing students. The analysis included valid questionnaires received from 59 eligible residents and 210 nursing stu`dents. The 20-hour project included pre-service training, service, and an end-of-project presentation. At post-test, the residents showed that perceived caring significantly differed between the intervention group and the control group (F=8.99; p=.004). Paired t test analysis of nursing students also showed significant increases in both caring and attitude scores after the project (t=8.56; p=.000; t=6.35; p=.000). The project significantly affected the caring perceived by the residents and the achievements of the junior nursing students. This experimental study provides information of interest to nursing educators, long-term care administrators, and researchers in elderly care.