Abstract
This article examines Chinese student teachers’ perceived university support for community service at the start of the semester in relation to three levels of purpose: expectations to feel self-transcendent emotions while doing service work, the strength of their sense of purpose and endorsement of specific purposes focused on social benefits. American questionnaires translated into Chinese were completed online by 284 students in a teachers’ university in northeast China. Compared to student teachers who perceived a lack of university support, those who perceived strong support more weakly expected to feel negative self-transcendent emotions during community work, reported higher searching for purpose level and attached greater importance to both social and creative purposes aimed to help others.
Acknowledgement
This publication was made possible through the support of a subaward to Northeast Normal University (The 111 Project [No. B17010]) from a grant to Clark University, USA, from the John Templeton Foundation, USA. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation. Thank you to Seana Moran for her editorial contributions to this article.