**5. Discussion and Conclusions**

Returning to the objectives outlined at the beginning of this paper, the research involved a two-pronged approach:


Taking into consideration the findings of the descending hierarchical analysis, regarding students' reflections on their participation in the project and their daily guided reflection, six distinct themes emerged. Four of these themes were found among the participants of both Group 1 and Group 2. These are: (1) reflections on di fferent social realities; (2) the work carried out in social projects; (3) possible organizational, personal, and social changes that should be undertaken; and (4) the personal meaning of the experience. Two themes were found only among the participants of Group 1. These are: (1) the reflections on the voluntary work carried out; and (2) the lived experience on the border. The reason for this may be because the students of Group 1 visited the border between Morocco and Spain, while those in Group 2 did not. In their reflections, the students asked themselves why the social and economic reality in a place so close to Europe is so di fferent. They wonder about the social, personal, and organizational changes that this type of societies requires. In their reflections, they showed how they had become truly aware of the lack of sustainable development on the ground. If sustainable development has most often been operationalized through a triangular vision of sustainability, which includes ecological, social, or socio-cultural and economic aspects, the socio-cultural and economic elements leave much to be desired, and the ecological element is far from being present. One of the participants pointed out "How is it possible for so much rubbish to be visible on the city streets?" (Participant 1, Group 1), another pointed out " ... the number of unschooled children on the roads." (Participant 13, Group 1), and another was impacted by " ... the number of young people crowded on the border wishing to cross from Morocco to Spain in search of a new horizon of life." (Participant 9, Group 1).

The voluntary extracurricular activity developed in Tangier allowed students to reflect on themes that help educate citizens to be aware of and committed to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals [2]. What elements of the economic, socio-cultural, or ecological dimension come into play when witnessing so much inequality, poverty, and misuse of natural resources? To what extent are these societies compromising the well-being of future generations? Many of these ideas appeared in the reflection guided by the instructor who accompanied the group of students in their experience. This voluntary extracurricular activity gave both groups the opportunity to face situations of uncertainty, which made them aware of the di fferent social realities faced by people with special needs and minors at risk of exclusion on the other side of the European border.

These results are consistent with other research [15], as this experience invites students to reflect on changes they can make to their own attitudes and actions from a perspective of responsibility, which contributes to an e ffective and well-founded grounding in sustainability. Participant 14 of the second group claimed, "I have realized the importance of a society that cares for the elderly and the sick, which requires a degree of social justice awareness that I have not been able to see here.". Other participants stated that the experience they had lived had made them change some beliefs "I have realized that schooling children is much more than preventing them from being idle in the streets and I wonder how much of the situation of this society is connected to the lack of education of children." (Participant 14, Group 2). On the other hand, in line with [22], students, placed in a destabilizing situation [21], were able to examine their self-image. In particular, they were able to examine their beliefs about who they believed they were and how they could undertake or continue to build a reality that increased hope and opportunity for people around the world.

With regard to the second objective, there was a high consensus that the development of reflection was one of the main objectives of the experience. In order to develop their reflective skills, the students highlighted three elements: (1) the importance of participating in social projects (with 42.48% presence in the corpus); (2) the importance of living the experience in a group (with 37.94% presence in the corpus); and (3) the importance of the role of the instructor (with 19.56% in the corpus).

As mentioned in the literature review, several authors [26,32] have indicated that the reflective process can be carried out individually or with external feedback. In this experience, the two groups pointed out the greater importance of reflecting with their peers than with the instructor. Thus, in line with [6], the volunteers stressed that interaction with their peers allowed them to take new approaches and enrich both their reflection and their experience. However, in line with Colomer et al. [10] and Peltier et al. [33], the participants also stressed the importance of the role of the instructor in generating a safe space of support and trust that invited reflection. Thus, in both groups, the fundamental task of the instructor was to guide the reflective process so that students could better understand the situation they were living through, and identify methods to face certain situations.

In order for this extracurricular activity to have greater impact, we consider it interesting to have a better balance between women and men participating in the experience as well as a greater variety of student profiles. We considered that the inclusion of engineering or business administration students would be of grea<sup>t</sup> value for the group. Apparently the proposal of this extracurricular activity has more demand from students of education, law, psychology or languages, but we considered that other profiles such as engineering or business would be enriched by the experience, and could bring other perspectives to the group. Another interesting element would be to reinforce the previous preparation to the experience (in depth study of the projects that are going to be visited, deepening in the socioeconomic reality of Tangier, etc.). Finally, the subsequent accompaniment to the experience would also reinforce the change of beliefs detected, and would help to ensure that it does not remain an isolated experience, and that it is part of the process of developing the competencies of university students. The possibility of creating a learning community later on, with a monthly or bimonthly meeting, and continuing to collaborate with other types of extracurricular experiences in the country of residence also seems to us to be of interest. On the other hand, we would like to mention some obstacles that were encountered. First, due to the curricular load of the students, the experience was limited to one week and several students insisted on the appropriateness of lengthening the experience. Second, many of the participating students did not speak French, which prevented direct interaction with the people living in the centers visited. Third, and as we have already mentioned, the experience would have been richer with more varied student profiles (engineering or business students, etc.).

The primary conclusion of this research is that extracurricular activities that expose the student to real experiences of inequality and precariousness are an interesting element to contribute to deep and meaningful learning. In addition, the role of guided reflection in those experiences is very relevant, contributing to the integral human and professional formation of the participants.

In other words, the volunteer experience not only provides practical content that can contribute to the professional development of the individual [64], it also helps to develop values and attitudes that can guide personal development when carrying out sustainable development.

The study did not seek to generalize results, as quantitative studies do, but rather explore the impact that participation in ECA has on the development of reflective abilities. The research provides a detailed vision of the reflections extracted by students from a volunteering experience in Tangier, Morocco, and their perceptions of the importance of this experience to the development of their reflective skills. In addition, it adds new perspectives to an area that is increasingly the subject of investigation.

In the study presented, in-depth interviews were conducted with all of the participants after the experience. We believe that it would have been interesting to ask the same questions before having lived the experience to see how the answers changed before and after the extracurricular activity. On the other hand, we consider that it would be very interesting to interview the students one year after the experience, to see to what extent the impact detected is maintained over time. It would also improve the design of the research if we conducted in-depth interviews with the people in charge of managing the projects in Tangier to find out their perception of the value of this experience. Their opinion about what they see, hear, and observe in the students would be of grea<sup>t</sup> interest for the improvement of the extracurricular program.

Further research might explore the content of the individual reflective diaries written by students each night during the extracurricular experience. However, it is feared that informing students of the subsequent analysis of their diaries could generate bias in their reflections. A possible hypothesis to be contrasted is whether the fact of having previously participated in extracurricular activities has any impact on the participant's assessment of the new experience and of what nature. Likewise, in-depth interviews conducted both before and after the experience could provide interesting data, as would conducting identical interviews with students who have not participated in the experience, to compare their thoughts and perceptions. Finally, the development of a quantitative longitudinal study, based on a set of students who have the opportunity to live this experience each year, would prove very useful.

The findings imply that the supply of quality and structured ECAs [47] in higher education needs to be expanded. This need lies in the importance of ECA in fostering lifelong learning and in promoting reflection that enables students to enhance their skills to become better people and better professionals [65].

With regard to the future implications of this research, we would like to point out how structured and quality ECAs [47] in higher education can be an adequate path for the integral development of students. ECAs contribute to promoting a kind of reflection that helps students become aware of realities and situations that can make them better people and better professionals [65]. Therefore, public institutions must create laws with curriculum guidelines, university managemen<sup>t</sup> teams, and faculty that encourage and support participation in ECA for the development of reflective skills, in order to produce citizens capable of facing the sustainability challenges of the 21st century.

**Author Contributions:** A.E. was the PI for the project and developed the paper's plan. A.E. and A.D.-I. conducted the literature review. A.G.-O. provided methodological support. A.D.-I. conducted the 23 in-depth interviews and A.E., A.D.-I., and A.G.-O. interpreted the outcomes of the in-depth interviews and wrote the paper.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Acknowledgments:** The authors gratefully acknowledge the Department of Solidarity and Extracurricular Activities of the University of Deusto for giving us the opportunity to analyze the impact of their activities.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
