ABSTRACT

Volunteering benefits those who receive and those who provide help. Yet barriers can inhibit engagement with and motivation for volunteering activities. Online environments on one hand help to lower some of these barriers, but on the other hand they can introduce new obstacles specially when the medium transforms the social interactions important to volunteers. We study the motivational drivers of online volunteering, and how those are affected by design. Specifically, we focus on relatedness as a source of motivation. We describe two studies with volunteers that help medical students to learn and improve their communication skills through mock interviews in an educational program. The volunteers can participate in the program face-to-face or through an online platform. The first study consisted of a survey (n = 66 volunteers), two workshops and one interview (n = 12 volunteers) in which we explored volunteer demographics, motivations, psychological needs, and experiences. Findings suggested relatedness can be an important indicator of volunteer motivations. In the second study, we added a feature to the online platform to display personal gratitude messages from student beneficiaries to the volunteers in order to improve the experience of relatedness between them. In total, n = 30 volunteers completed 196 sessions. We used survey and system data to assess the impact of gratitude on perceived relatedness, motivation, and behavior (immediate, booked, and completed appointments). Results showed that the expression of gratitude by the beneficiary significantly affected the volunteer’s experience of relatedness which then correlated with immediate appointments booking behavior by each volunteer. The implications for design of online volunteering systems are discussed.

摘要

志愿服务使受惠者和提供帮助的人受益。然而，障碍会阻碍志愿活动的参与和动机。在线环境一方面有助于降低其中的一些障碍，但另一方面，当媒体改变了对志愿者重要的社交互动时，它们可以特别引入新的障碍。我们研究了在线志愿服务的动机驱动因素，以及这些动机如何受到设计的影响。具体来说，我们将相关性作为动机。我们介绍了与志愿者的两项研究，这些研究通过医学教育计划中的模拟面试来帮助医学生学习和提高他们的沟通技巧。志愿者可以面对面或通过在线平台参加该计划。第一项研究包括一项调查（n = 66名志愿者），两个研讨会和一个访谈（n = 12名志愿者），在其中我们探讨了志愿者的人口统计学，动机，心理需求和经验。发现暗示的相关性可能是志愿者动机的重要指标。在第二项研究中，我们向在线平台添加了一个功能，以显示学生受益人向志愿者的个人感谢信息，以改善他们之间的亲密关系。总计，n = 30名志愿者完成了196节。我们使用调查和系统数据来评估感恩对感知到的亲戚关系，动机和行为（即刻，已预订和已完成的约会）的影响。结果表明，受益人表达的感激极大地影响了志愿者的亲戚经历，进而与每个志愿者的即时预约行为相关。讨论了在线志愿系统设计的意义。