Book Description

Volunteer engagement is critical to achieving the mission of volunteer organizations (Boone and others, 2002). Fogarty and others (2009) found that 4-H volunteers are a mediating factor in achieving positive youth development outcomes and are responsible for teaching at least 50% of the life skills youth gain from participation in the organization. For 4-H to consistently achieve positive youth development outcomes, volunteers must be prepared for their roles (Arnold, 2009). However, most 4-H volunteer education programs are offered sporadically (Smith and others, 2017) and tend to focus on fundamental skills (Serafino, 2001), rather than more complex skills volunteers need to create supportive environments for positive youth development outcomes to occur (Arnold and others, 2009). Volunteers often state that a lack of learning opportunities is the reason why they do not continue to serve as a volunteer (Fahey and others, 2003). Also, many volunteers face obstacles participating in formal training, particularly when it is only offered face-to-face in a physical location (Ouellette and others, 2014). To address these issues, Spink (2016) recommends integrating more opportunities for self-directed learning and on demand resources. Studies by Homan and others (2020) and White and others (2020) found that 4-H volunteers desired more opportunities for mentoring, networking, and access to communities of practice to build content-specific knowledge and skills. 4-H volunteers also want more opportunities for mentoring and online and virtual learning (Dillard, 2020; Hensley and others 2020; Kok and others, 2020). Intentionally providing opportunities for volunteers to learn through informal learning may be a solution to address issues related to volunteer education. The relationship between work and informal learning is the strongest within the context of volunteering (Livingstone, 1999) but is the least understood (Duguid and others, 2013). While informal learning has been studied in the context of paid work, informal learning that occurs through volunteering is often considered passive (Cox, 2002), and is unplanned, unstructured, and ignored by organizations (Duguid and others, 2013; Livingstone and Guile, 2012). As a result, a systematic framework for organizations to intentionally develop and support pathways for informal learning does not currently exist. The purpose of the current study was to explore how volunteers in the Florida 4-H Positive Youth Development program engage in informal learning to support their volunteer roles. The goal of the study is to develop a list of informal learning activities volunteers participate to design a conceptual framework to guide organizations in the development of informal learning activities for volunteers to select from and explore. Four research questions guided this study: 1. What types of informal learning activities do Florida 4-H volunteers participate in to support their performance as a volunteer? 2. How frequently do volunteers engage in these types of informal learning activities? 3. Which informal learning activities do volunteers identify as most helpful to support their volunteer performance? 4. Why do Florida 4-H volunteers engage in informal learning? This two-part study consisted of an online questionnaire and follow-up interviews with current Florida 4-H volunteers. Respondents to the survey included 237 adult volunteers of which 20 participated in semi-structured interviews. The results from both survey and interview data indicated that volunteers frequently engage in a variety of informal learning activities. The top five activities volunteers did on a weekly basis included: searching the internet, reading newsletters, blogs, curriculum, and other print materials, collaborating with others on a joint task, setting personal goals, and using social media. When 4-H volunteers use informal learning, they want to learn about topics related to positive youth development, educational design and delivery, organization, 4-H program management, and interpersonal relationship skills. These topics are domains of learning Culp and others (2007) found to be essential for volunteers to be successful. Volunteers shared the number one reason why they choose to participate in informal learning is because they want to improve their performance. This supports the motto of the organization, which is "to make the best better." Volunteers also stated that they use informal learning because they have learning needs that are not currently being met by the organization and because it is more convenient and flexible for them than traditional didactic methods. Finally, volunteers said that informal learning aids in not only motivating youth but keeps them excited about the volunteer work they do for the organization. This study resulted in several implications for volunteer organizations, as well as a conceptual framework for organizations to guide intentional informal learning for volunteers.