TRU Student Motivations to Volunteer

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to try to determine what main factors motivate a university student to engage in volunteer activities and with what frequency they will volunteer. University campuses have always been a good place to find volunteers; however, it is commonly known that students have little extra time for extracurricular activities, and must also juggle with work, family, studying and assignments, among many other variables. This study has been done to gain a better insight into why students are so willing to volunteer their time. This study looks into 8 different motivation factors based on a sample size of 88 university student volunteers. An analysis has also been done against certain demographic features of the respondents such as gender, year of study, academic program, and residential status (international or domestic student status). By discovering the characteristics of the student volunteers we may be able to support them and encourage more students to participate in volunteerism. If we discover that volunteering is based on a certain motivation, we may be able to reduce barriers and support the volunteers, thereby sustaining them and encouraging them to continue to provide assistance as volunteers. This study found that second -year students are more predisposed to volunteering based on overall samples, international samples, domestic samples and female samples. International students increase their volunteer frequency during the second and fourth years of study. The motivation factor âValueâ scored high for the overall sample and male sample categories, and the motivation factor âCareerâ scored high for females. These results should be considered when volunteer activities are being created to increase the likelihood of volunteer frequency.