Increasing students' perceived sociopolitical empowerment through online and face‐to‐face community psychology seminars

Abstract

AbstractCommunity psychology theorists underline the importance of promoting sociopolitical empowerment, but few studies have been conducted on the evaluation of the efficacy of empowering programs among university students. The authors report two studies: the first, with 216 psychology majors, compared the efficacy of face‐to‐face and online community psychology seminars in promoting perceived sociopolitical empowerment and self efficacy. The second, with 170 psychology majors, explored if differences in teachers experiences affected students sociopolitical empowerment. Results of ANOVA, on measures of empowerment and self‐efficacy, indicate that learning community psychology principles and a community analysis skill did increase sociopolitical empowerment and efficacies in all studies, both in online and face‐to‐face settings, regardless of teachers' experience. Implications for promoting active citizenship and attracting more students to community psychology programs are discussed. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.