Experiences of migrant children in Mainland China participating in a Service-Learning Program: A metaphor analysis.

The pedagogy of service-learning has been widely adopted
in educational settings due to its multidimensional benefits
for different stakeholders. However, existing empirical
studies have primarily focused on the impact of this peda-
gogy on service providers (i.e., students), while the exper-
iences of service recipients (i.e., community members) have
been largely overlooked, despite being a crucial dimension
in evaluating the quality of service-learning programs. This
study aimed to examine the effectiveness of a service-
learning program through the experiences of the service
recipients, specifically a group of rural-to-urban migrant
children in Hangzhou, China. In this program, students
from a university in Hong Kong designed and provided a
five-day summer camp for migrant children in Hangzhou.
During the 2023/24 academic year, 290 participating
migrant children (female = 122, 43.3%; age = 10.73 ± 0.73
years) were invited to respond to an open-ended question at
the completion of the summer camp. This question asked
them to use one metaphor to represent their experiences at
the summer camp and to explain the reasons behind their
choice. The results showed that the participating children
perceived they had positive personal growth in various
areas, as reflected in the metaphors. They also expressed
highly favorable overall perceptions of the program. These
findings provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of
the program regarding its impacts.