Lessons from a Sapling

1
Lessons from a Sapling?

• Review of Research on Short-term Missions, Study
  Abroad and Service-Learning
• Kurt Alan Ver Beek
• kverbeek_at_calvin.edu

2
Questions

• What is the impact of Short-term missions?
• In the lives of the Short-termers?
• In the communities that they visit?
• In the sponsoring organizations?
• Over 4 million people last year/4 billion spent
• Lots of help and opened eyes? or
• Lots of dependency and wasted millions?

3
My STM research

• Impact of STMs on North Americans and Hondurans
• Hurricane Mitch 1998, 5,000 dead, 1.5 million
  homeless/displaced, international sympathy
• Christian International Development Organization
  (CIDO) built over 1,000 homes
• 175 volunteers worked on over 30 homes
• The rest built by local Christian NGOs
• What was the impact on the volunteers, the
  families/communities and the organizations?

4
Impact on Hondurans

• Methodology we visited 6 regions of Honduras and
  interviewed over 80 new home-owners, ½ of their
  homes were built by STM groups and ½ by NGOs
  (control group) as well as over 15 employees of 7
  Christian NGOs
• Impact of STM group No notable difference
  between familiesSTMs recipients and local orgs
• All grateful and lives changed
• No notable difference between groups in
  spiritual lifecloser but not different,
  satisfaction, ownership, volunteerism, repayment,
  others

5
All the Same?

• A LOT of difference between NGOslong-term
  strategy and methodology ARE important
  (spirituality, motivation, repayment...)
• Some communities motivated, repaying,
  empoweredOther communities complaining, no one
  paying, bickering
• STM or Money? Ummmm....it would be better to
  send money so that we can help MORE families, but
  we value the relationship.
• Great need and jobs vs. relationships, change
  participants and bridges

6
Conclusion--Hondurans

• House is very important, not who built it
• Value added by STM in Honduran community is
  minimal
• NGO strategy is very important
• Hondurans value the group but if they could
  choose, they would help more needy people

7
Impact on North Americans

• Surveyed 162 (127 respond78) North Americans
  who built houses in Honduras after Hurricane
  Mitch, plus follow-up phone interviews and CIDO
  records
• We wanted to know if STM led to lasting change
  were STMers praying more, giving more money,
  volunteering more in their churches (11 factors)
• About 16 report a significant positive change,
  45 a slight positive change and 40 same
• Higher in intangible areas and lower in tangible

8
Self-reported Giving after STM
9
Giving Reported by CIDO

• Individuals
• 60 responded that giving to CIDO increased
  significantly or somewhat
• Only 25 gave a direct donation after STM
• From 31 to 33 or from 169 to 179 total
  givingincrease of only 6
• 17 Churches
• Average went up 1, 6 increased y 11 went down
• Raises questions about self-reports in other areas

10
NA Attitudes

• Aware of Poverty
• They are happy despite...
• More conscious of the world...
• Importance of relationships (76 had not stayed
  in contact)

11
Questions and Conclusions

• Why didnt donations go up? Common or fluke?
• Hard to change people? Hondurans and Gringos?
• Hondurans really happy in poverty?

12
Literature Review

• Short-term missions, Study Abroad and
  Service-Learning
• Similarities service, overseas, learning,
  short-term
• Self-reported changeall good
• Externally verifiable measures
• Pre and post-tests (w/ or w/o control)
• Post-test with control group
• Secondary data sourcegiving, career choice

13
Short-term missions

• 11 studies fit criteria
• 8 of the 11 found very little or no significant
  change in participants
• No Change Beers (1999)
• 171 students from Taylor University
• 72 who participated in school-sponsored one-month
  STMs during January Term and 99 who stayed on
  campus at that time
• Both groups were given the Faith Maturity Scale,
  and the Growth in Mature Faith Index.
• No significant differences found

14
STM continued

• No Change Purvis (1993)
• 79 short-term volunteers from the 38 churches
  visiting Kenya over 12 years
• 76 claimed that their missions giving had
  either increased greatly or some
• 11 years of records from these 38 churches
  mission giving had increased by 66.8 from 1981
  until 1992 but STM had no relation to membership
  growth
• Adjusting for inflation, giving increased only 7
  over 11 years or 0.7 a year (paid ½ expenses)

15
Study Abroad and Service-Learning

• 57 studies fit criteria
• 26 found no significant change, 8 mixed and 23
  significant positive change
• No change ( Study Abroad--Hansel, 1985)
• 1,100 exchange students who participated in AFS,
  and a comparison group of 160 adolescents who
  were accepted to participate but withdrew
• This study concludes that the sojourn experience
  showed no relationship to personal growth and
  development (though participants believed it did)

16
Mixed Results8 studies

• Mixed (Study Abroad--Juhasz and Walker,1987)
• 70 undergraduates in study abroad program for a
  semester compared with 19 counterparts at the US
  university.
• Pre- and post-tests were administered to both
  groups.
• As expected, at completion of the time abroad,
  students inc in their perceptions of their
  ability to perform specific behaviors
• But the US-based students had significantly
  greater increases in self-esteem and
  self-efficacy than students who lived abroad.

17
Significant Positive Change

• Significant Positive Change (12 of 26)
• Eyler and Giles (1999)
• pre and post test to 1100 students in
  service-learning and 400 control group
• 20 universities in the US
• found that service-learning had a positive impact
  on student outcomes including personal
  development, social responsibility, interpersonal
  skills, tolerance and stereotyping, learning and
  applications of learning.

18
My program

• 9 years Semester in Hondurasfocused on social
  justice
• 20 years working in Central America for social
  justice
• Compare development, Spanish and interim students
  to Calvin alumni and SJC alumni (in process)
• Compare freshmen/senior surveys of Honduras
  alumni vs. avg alumni (in process)

19
Preliminary Results

20
Preliminary Results
21
Preliminary Reflection

• Clear bias toward social justice
• Much of difference easily explainable by
  pre-existing biases
• Not much difference in other areas (time
  volunteering, giving,)
• Need comparison to general alumni, matched
  control and fresh/senior surveys
• Interesting 14 completely changed friends vs.
  5 and 3

22
Analysis and Future Research

• Why diff between qualitative and quantitative
  studies?
• Real change but difficult to measure
• Perceived change much larger than real
• Why such differences between quantitative
  studies?
• Need to look deeper (Purvis)?
• Quality of studymatched controls, triangulation,
  time-lag?
• Some programs cause more change than others?

23
Tentative Conclusion 1

• Hondurans really happy in poverty?
• NAs should be less materialistic?
• Are Hondurans happy?
• NAs dont need to feel guilty or act?
• Are STMs really seeing lives of the poor?

24
Tentative Conclusion 2

• Change is difficultfor NAs and Honduran
  communities
• Before fragile and impressionable
• Now more like saplings
• We all know that change is difficult, one week
  seldom changes people or communities... (retreat,
  summer camp...)
• I believe key is follow-up accountability and
  encouragement

25
Conclusion

• How can we increase the impact of STMs?
• To change communities long-term work of
  organizations is best strategy, STM can be a
  small part
• If we want to change NAs STM trip alone not
  enough, What we do before and during but
  especially after (monthly meetings, newsletters,
  support and accountability groups)
• If we want to increase support STM trip alone
  not enough, requires follow-up and hard work
• Hope STMs is evidence that NAs want to change
  communities and themselves

26
Lessons from a Sapling?

• Review of Research on Short-term Missions, Study
  Abroad and Service-learning
• Kurt Alan Ver Beek
• kverbeek_at_calvin.edu