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Hora, M. T., Chen, Z., Wolfgram, M., Chen, Z., & Rogers, S. (2020). Results from the College Internship Study at Tennessee State University. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions.
Summary: This report includes findings from the first round of data collection (Spring 2020) at Tennessee State University (TSU) 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 interdisciplinary sample of students who took an online survey (n = 252), interviews with students who have and who have not had an internship experience (n = 9), and interviews with career advisors, faculty, and employers (n = 7). We would like to thank TSU 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. As our research moves into its second year, we will focus on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the students, faculty and staff at TSU and employer partners with respect to internships and students’ overall experiences with the pandemic and its impacts on their studies and career goals.
Four research questions guide our study: (1) How many students are participating in internship programs, and does participation vary by student demographics, academic status, or life/employment situation? (2) What barriers exist for students to participate in internship programs? (3) What is the structure and format of internship programs? And, (4) How, if at all, is program structure and format associated with student satisfaction with their internships and their estimation of the value of the internship for their career development? In addition, given the timing of our interviews (Spring 2020), we also were interested in understanding TSU students’ experiences related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hora, M., Forbes, J., & Preston, D. (2020). What do we know about internships at HBCUs? A review of the literature and agenda for future research. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions (Research Brief #13). University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin Center for Education Research.
Abstract: Internships and other high-impact practices (HIPs) that feature experiential learning are being increasingly promoted at Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) as a way to support students’ career and academic success. In this paper we review the literature on what is known about HIPs and internships at HBCUs and how students’ racial identities have influenced interns’ experiences and outcomes. Our analysis finds little empirical research on internships at HBCUs and a general lack of in-depth and critical analysis on the ways that racial identity and the unique institutional cultures of HBCUs impact internships and Black student experiences. We then review contextual forces salient to Black interns’ experiences such as pervasive workplace discrimination, and theoretical frameworks that could inform future research on the ways that race, culture, institutional features and local “field effects” interact to shape student experiences and professional development. We conclude by outlining a research agenda for studying internships that foregrounds issues of racial justice, adopts elements of Bourdieu’s relational sociology, and investigates how the unique cultures of HBCUs influence how internships are designed, implemented and experienced.
Hora, M.T., Wolfgram, M., Brown, R., Colston, J., Zhang, J., Chen, Z., & Chen, Z. (2020). The Internship Scorecard: A new framework for evaluating college internships on the basis of purpose, quality and equitable access. Research Brief #11. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Executive Summary: While internships are widely praised and promoted as a “door opener” to opportunity, the impact of these work-based learning programs on students is complicated by the variability in how they are designed, implemented and experienced. Consequently, instead of assuming that participation unequivocally results in positive academic and labor market outcomes, the field needs conceptual tools to distinguish internship programs from one another and to evaluate their efficacy, quality and commitment to equity. In this report we first review various frameworks that distinguish different types of work-based learning and internship programs, and then describe a new framework for distinguishing internships on the basis of purpose, quality and equity – The Internship Scorecard.
This new framework is based on theory and evidence from cultural anthropology, the learning sciences and work-based learning, and is designed for higher education professionals, funders, policymakers and employers so that they can – with more nuance and precision than is currently available – make distinctions between program types and begin to “score” programs at the individual-level or in the aggregate for entire institutions. An example of how the Internship Scorecard can be used in practice is provided, along with next steps for the analysis and improvement of college internship programs.
Note: We are very interested to hear any feedback that you might have about The Internship Scorecard. We are especially interested in hearing your thoughts, critiques and suggestions for how the Scorecard can be used in practice to study and/or evaluate internships.
Chen, Z., Hora, M.T., Wu, Z., Ahrens, V., Rogers, S., & Wolfgram, M. (2020). Results from the College Internship Study at Benedict College. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions. UW-Madison.
Abstract: This report includes preliminary findings from the first round of data collection for The College Internship Study, which is a mixed-methods longitudinal study of internship programs at Benedict College.
The study includes an online survey of students in the second half of their academic programs (n=114), focus groups with students who have and who have not had an internship experience (n=14), and interviews with career advisors and faculty (n=7). The research questions guiding this study focus on how stakeholders conceptualize and define the idea of internships, institutional capacity for administering internship programs, participation rates by certain student characteristics, and the relationship between internship program structure and student outcomes.
This report concludes with recommendations for specific steps that students, faculty and staff at Benedict College, and employers who supervise interns can take to increase participation rates, access, and program quality for internship programs.