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Wolfgram, M., Rodriguez S, J., Chen, Z., Ahrens, V., & Hora, M. (2021). Results from the College Internship Study at Great Lakes Technical College. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions.
Summary: This report includes findings from the first round of data collection (Spring 2020) at Great Lakes Technical College (GLTC) for The College Internship Study, which is a national mixed-methods longitudinal study of internship programs conducted by the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions (CCWT) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison). The findings are based on an campus-wide sample of students who took an online survey (n = 431), phone interviews with students who have and who have not had an internship experience (n = 22) and with career advisors, faculty, and employers (n = 6). We would like to thank GLTC for allowing our research team to conduct this study with your students, faculty and community members, and hope that our findings are useful as you work towards improving internships and work-based learning for your students
Hora, M.T., Huerta, A., Gopal, A., & Wolfgram, M. (2021). A review of the literature on internships for Latinx students at Hispanic-Serving Institutions: Toward a Latinx-serving internship experience. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions (Research Brief #16). University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin Center for Education Research.
Abstract: Internships are a widely promoted “high-impact practice” (HIP) across the postsecondary landscape, particularly among minority-serving institutions (MSIs) where they are seen as potentially transformative vehicles for students’ career success and social mobility. However, little research exists on if and how the design, implementation, and ultimate effects of college internships may (or should) vary according to the unique institutional contexts of MSIs such as Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) and students’ racial identities and cultural backgrounds. This idea is based on research demonstrating that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to classroom teaching, student advising, and broader approaches to student engagement ignores both historic and structural inequalities while also overlooking the unique needs, circumstances and potentials of a diverse student body. Consequently, our main goal in this paper is to review the literature on internships in HSIs and with Latinx college students to determine if internship program design, implementation and student experience varies based on the unique institutional contexts of HSIs and/or the racial and cultural attributes of Latinx college students.
To address this issue we conducted an integrative review of the literature on HIPs in general and internships in particular as they relate to Latinx students and HSIs. Our results indicate a small but growing body of empirical research on these topics, some that highlight how specific features of HSIs (e.g., institutional missions, “servingness”) and Latinx students (e.g., family capital, cultural perspectives on work) influence how HIPs and internships are designed and experienced. These insights underscore the importance of accounting for cultural, structural and historic factors when studying and designing internship programs. We conclude the paper with a review of existing theoretical frameworks for studying HSIs and a proposal for a new research agenda that pays close attention to the role of culture at individual, group, institutional and societal levels. Ultimately, we contend that while certain universal principles of internship design and implementation are likely to be applicable for HSIs and Latinx students, there are critical differences and opportunities for internships in these institutions and for these students that should be acknowledged and incorporated into HIPs-related policymaking and practice.
Hora, M.T., Lee, C., Chen, Z., & Hernandez, A. (2021). Exploring online internships amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020: Results from a mixed-methods study. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions.
Abstract: In this multi-site case study we collected survey and interview data from college students during this period, and our findings focus on three distinct cases: (1) two independent websites that provide online internship networking platforms (OINP) for students seeking online internships and employers seeking student interns (n=183 surveys, n=45 interviews), (2) 11 colleges and universities (n=9,964 surveys), and (3) a single employer-hosted online internship program at TreeHouse Foods, a multi-national firm engaged in manufacturing and distributing private label food and beverage products. In analyzing and interpreting our data, we used CCWT’s Internship Scorecard (Hora et al., 2020a) framework that provides a structured approach to studying internships, as well as insights from research on remote work and digital learning.
One of our primary conclusions is that while considerable variation exists within the world of internships writ large, an added layer of complexity exists for online positions with respect to IT, internet access, work-life boundaries, and challenges associated with online or remote work that many occupations have experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic. We argue that these additional concerns and factors make online internships—which are unlikely to disappear post-pandemic—a top priority for improvement, equitable access, and quality control in the field of higher education.
Zhang, J. & Hora, M.T. (2021). Who are the unpaid interns? Preliminary findings from 13 institutions in the College Internship Study. Data Snapshot #1. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Internships are currently one of the most “high-impact” practice in higher education, largely because
the research literature has shown that they are positively associated with personal, academic and career outcomes (Garcia et al., 2016; Ocampo et al., 2020; Pan et al., 2018; Routon & Walker, 2019). Given the significance of internships in helping college students “open the doors” to their first post-graduate job, over time there have been increasing numbers of students who participate in a college internship, even if they have to work for free (Gardner, 2010; Rogers et al., 2019).
While unpaid internships may provide students opportunities to explore the world of work and may bring them some form of social and cultural capital (Leonard et al., 2016), they have been widely critiqued with respect to their legality, general equality, economically discrimination, and racism (Gardner, 2010; Holford, 2017). For example, lawsuits against the film industry charged that they used unpaid interns to do the work of full-time employees (Gardner, 2016), a scenario that confirmed the fear of some observers that an unpaid internship could represent an exploitative labor situation (Curiale, 2009). Continue reading.