A Qualitative Study Of The Student Internship Experience

Students studying engineering in universities are often offered a departmentally facilitated internship at some point in their program. In the UK this activity is referred to as placement and Engineering departments encourage and positively promote the placement process to students. Typically in the UK the placement lasts for 12 months, is taken between the 2 nd and 3 rd year of study with students placed in junior level engineering posts in a wide variety of working environments, mostly within England but with a significant number working in other countries. In program documentation, the advantages of placement are celebrated and attempts to quantify the learning outcomes achieved have been made. However, because of the wide variety of geographical and cultural locations, work environments and the faculty lack of day to day control once a student has been placed, it is difficult to write these learning outcomes from an evidence base. In this paper a qualitative approach has been used to illuminate the academic, personal and professional development of students resulting from the placement experience, based on the analysis of semi-structured student interview data. This paper reports upon the themes identified in the analysis and compares the results with those expected from the existing learning outcome statements. Introduction One model of undergraduate engineering education exemplified by practice in the United Kingdom is for students’ programs of study to include significant elements of learning in the work place, supported by faculty oversight. The time students spend in the work place internship, which is usually in commercial companies, normally takes the form of paid employment with the student undertaking typical junior engineering/technician roles within the organization. To acknowledge the successful completion of the internship at the end of the program, students are awarded what are termed sandwich degrees to differentiate them from the alternate full-time program of study. The amount of academic credit offered for the successful completion of the placement varies between institutions 1 but the title of the degree the student achieves reflects the successful completion of the sandwich element. P ge 992.1 Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society for Engineering Education Degree programs that include an internship element have a long history, and are claimed to have numerous advantages over full time programs. As a result, universities have encouraged students to undertake internships and in the UK, this has led to a significant growth in sandwich education, both in absolute numbers and as a proportion of those studying at university – particularly in vocationally related subject areas. This growth has not been accompanied by significant research into the issues that this form of education raises, particularly concerning the student learning outcomes achieved in the wide variety of internships, and the equally wide variety of work place settings. Within the degree program documentation the educational and personal benefits students are expected to achieve are written in terms of learning outcomes. Faculty has written these learning outcomes from a basis of practice and tacit understanding of the types of training and roles that undergraduate students on placement will participate. However, it is difficult for these outcomes to reflect the achievement of students on placement and at best can only ever reflect a partial view of placement outcomes.