The moderation effect of social support at volunteering sites on the relation between participation in and attitudes toward volunteering work

Abstract

<p>This study examined the relation between students’ participation in and attitudes toward volunteering work, and tested whether the relationship was moderated by different social support, (i.e., emotional, informational and appraisal) that participants perceived from their volunteer sites.<br>After the regression analysis on the responses from 185 university students, the results indicate that only when students perceived high emotional social support at their volunteer sites, was the relation between volunteering participation level and attitude positive, meaning a positive relationship was not significant when students perceived low emotional support. Meanwhile, students who perceived high appraisal social support at their volunteer sites always had more positive attitudes toward their volunteering experiences compared to those who perceived low appraisal support. The informational support, however, was not significant in influencing on students’ positive attitudes toward volunteering work.<br>This illustrates how social support from the people they meet while practicing volunteerism can affect the relation between students’ participation in and attitudes toward volunteerism. Furthermore, the finding from this study that there is different moderation effects according to the specific types of social support provides implications that can be reflected in volunteer sites for meaningful, beneficial and long lasting volunteering work. The results align well with symbolic interactionism. In addition to the implications for future practice, discussion points and some limitations of this study were presented along with suggestions for further studies.<br></p>