As the demand for citizenship education in higher education increases, this study aims to propose a ‘Co-Living Lab’ educational model that prioritizes ‘relationship-building’ with community members and to analyze its educational effectiveness. To this end, a mixed-methods approach was employed, utilizing course evaluations, team reports, text mining of reflection papers, and in-depth interviews with 120 students who attended the ‘Social Innovation Living Lab’ course at K University over four semesters. The research findings are as follows: First, the Co-Living Lab model, designed through the stages of ‘joint problem finding’, ‘horizontal cooperation’, and ‘sharing and diffusion of results’, led to high student satisfaction. Second, the results of text mining and correlation analysis showed that students focused more on the ‘process’ than the ‘result’ of the project. Through relationships with ‘people’ encountered during this process, they tended to ‘think (reflect)’ deeply about ‘society’. Third, in-depth interview analysis confirmed that students redefined community members from mere service providers to cooperative partners, fostering empathy for others and a sense of community solidarity. In conclusion, this study suggests that for Living Lab activities to function as genuine citizenship education beyond instrumental technical problem-solving, ‘relationship-building’ with the community must come first. Furthermore, it presents the potential of the ‘Co-Living Lab’ as a practical educational model for the mutual growth of universities and local communities.
Daesik Woo (Sat,) studied this question.