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Hora, M., Lee, C. (2023). 
Cultural Scripts for Teaching Transferable Skills: Exploring the Role of Industry Experience and Pedagogical Situations on Skills-Focused Instruction in College Classrooms. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions. University of Wisconsin–Madison, Division of Continuing Studies.
Abstract: Why do postsecondary faculty teach the way they do, and what predicts their use of particular teaching methods and student engagement strategies in the classroom? Based on research over the last 40 years in both K-12 and postsecondary settings, consensus exists that no single predictor of instructional practice exists, but that a myriad of forces (e.g., individual, socio-cultural, and contextual) interact to shape how an instructor plans and teaches their classes (Shavelson & Stern, 1981; Lattuca & Stark, 2011; Posselt et al., 2020).
In this paper, we address this question by examining the potential role of a specific type of instructor attribute – that of prior experience in non-academic workplaces (hereafter called industry experience) – that is theorized to be associated with students’ acquisition of skills known variously as “soft,” “non-cognitive” or “transferable” (Deming, 2017; Pellegrino & Hilton, 2002). We address how culture is conceptualized in higher education in general, and in studies of faculty teaching in particular, especially the unit of analysis wherein cultural elements reside and then change (or not) over time (Välimaa, 1998). Following a brief exposition of the theoretical and empirical foundations of this approach, we then report findings from an exploratory mixed-methods study where these ideas were explored in the context of teaching in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medical (STEMM) fields. We conclude the paper with an analysis of the implications of these data for faculty development, but also concerns that cultural scripts can encode ideologies and norms antithetical to a liberal, democratic, and equity-oriented education (Cronon, 1988; Harris & Patton, 2019; Urciuoli, 2008).
Hora M.T., Thompson M., Jang-Tucci K., Pasqualone A., Akram-Turenne T., Wolfgram M., Lee C. (2023). What are the longitudinal impacts of a college internship (during a pandemic)? Findings from the College Internship Study on program participation, quality, equitable access, and student outcomes. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions. University of Wisconsin–Madison, Division of Continuing Studies.
Abstract: The College Internship Study wrapped up its third and final wave of data collection in the Spring of 2022. This report provides a summary of key findings from the longitudinal analyses across eight institutions that participated in the third and final wave of data collection. As an excerpt of the extensive dataset, this summary addresses the most pressing issues in college internship research and practice, as suggested in the Internship Scorecard (Hora et al., 2020). Developed for assessing the purpose, quality, and equity of internship programs, the Internship Scorecard provides a framework for this report to address three main issues of college internships: (a) access and barriers to internships, (b) internship program features and quality, and (c) effects of internships on post-graduate outcomes. Each of these issues are examined in this report, with special considerations for how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted student experiences in college, life, and work.
Hora, M., Chen, Z., Wolfgram, M., Zhang, J., & John Fischer, J. (2022). 
Designing effective internships: A mixed-methods exploration of the sociocultural aspects of intern satisfaction and development. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Summary: Internships are widely promoted high-impact practices that can have positive impacts on students’ academic and post-graduate success, yet how specific features facilitate these outcomes is understudied. Instead, internships are often studied in terms of mere participation, without recognizing that these experiences are
complex pedagogic spaces shaped by professional cultures and decisions about instructional design. In this sequential mixed-methods study we use sociocultural learning theory to interpret data from online surveys (n=435) and focus groups (n=52) with students at five institutions. Stepwise linear regression analyses of demographic and programmatic variables associated with intern satisfaction, developmental value, and career adaptability indicated that first-generation status, gender, race and income level, and supervisor behaviors were significantly associated with satisfaction and development. Analyses of qualitative data revealed that features of positive (clear communication, availability, feedback) and negative (unavailability, inattention to learning) supervision impacted student experiences. These findings reveal that internships should be designed with careful attention to task scaffolding, student autonomy and supervisor assistance, depending on the professional context and situation. These results highlight the need for colleges and employers to design internships as mentored and culturally shaped learning spaces, provide supervisor training, and consider the cultural backgrounds of students when matching them to internships.
Hora, M. T., Wolfgram, M., Huerta, A. H., Lee, C., & Gopal, A. (2022). A multilevel, agent-centered analysis of intersectionality in a Hispanic-Serving Institution: The case of college internship access for Latinx students. AERA Open, 8, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1177/233285842211021
Hora, M., Jang-Tucci, K., & Zhang, J. (2022). Gatekeeping at work: A multi-dimensional analysis of student, institutional, and employer characteristics associated with unpaid internships. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Summary: While internships are recognized as a high-impact practice, concerns persist about their legality and exclusionary nature. Prior research indicates that participation varies by key variables (e.g., gender, major), but empirical work is limited. We draw on multi-actor models of personnel transfer and intersectionality to analyze survey (n=1,153) data from 13 institutions, nine of which are MSIs. A linear probability model reveals that major, MSI status, and employer characteristics predict participation in unpaid internships, with pairwise comparisons indicating differences based on racial groups within MSIs.We conclude with a strategy for eliminating unpaid internships as part of transformative social justice work.
Internship Recruitment & Selection at Minority Serving Institutions: A Thematic Analysis of Employer Perspectives
Michael A.R. Sanchez, MS & Mindi N. Thompson, PhD
HBCU Students Career Adaptability & Self-Efficacy Beliefs in the Academic Context: the Moderative Effects of Subjective Social Status
Kevon Williams, B.A., Pilar Gauthier, M.S. & Mindi Thompson, Ph.D., H.S.P.
Turenne-Akram, T., Wolfgram, M., Collet-Klingenberg, L., & Yu, H. (2022). What can we learn from research about internships for students with disabilities? Preliminary results from the survey of the College Internship Study. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions (Research Brief #19). University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Abstract: Internships in higher education provide academic and career development opportunities during college and post-graduation. There have been many studies that focus on the benefits of participating in an internship. However, there are significant barriers to accessing internships that can arise as a result of the students’ socio-economic status, their limited time, family obligations, academic commitments (Hora, et al., 2019), as well as raced, classed, gendered and other intersectional identity-factors (Wolfgram et al., 2021). This brief uses the findings of the College Internship Study to understand internship participation for students with disabilities and discusses the lack of research on how disability-stigma impacts students’ access to internships.
Wolfgram, M. & Ahrens, V. (2022). One internship, two internships, three internships … more!’: Exploring the culture of the multiple internship economy, Journal of Education and Work, https://doi.org/10.1080/13639080.2022.2036713
Hora, M.T. (2022). Unpaid internships and inequality: A review of the data and recommendations for research, policy, and practice. Policy Brief #2. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Abstract: Internships can be “door openers” to opportunity and social mobility for college students, but unpaid internships pose considerable legal, ethical, and practical challenges. In particular, low-income and first-generation students may be unable to pursue unpaid positions, thereby acting as a discriminatory gatekeeping function that exacerbates inequality. In this policy brief, Associate Professor of Adult & Higher Education Matthew Hora first reviews the evidence regarding the prevalence of unpaid internships and the demographics of students pursuing them, followed by existing policy solutions and recommendations for future research, policy, and educational practice.
Wolfgram, M., Chen, Z., Rodríguez S., J., Ahrens, V., & Hora, M. (2022). Results from the one-year longitudinal follow-up analysis for the College Internship Study at Great Lakes Technical College. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Summary: This report includes findings from the second round of data collection (Spring 2021, T2) at Great Lakes Technical College (GLTC). The data collected at T2 of the study include an online survey of 205 students and 18 students’ follow-up interviews who participated in the first round of data collection (Spring 2020 or T1). These data are analyzed to provide faculty, staff, and leadership at GLTC with evidence based insights about the impacts of internship participation on students’ lives and careers.
Hora, M.T., Colston, J., Chen, Z., & Pasqualone, A. (2021). National Survey of College Internships (NSCI) 2021 Report: Insights into the prevalence, quality, and equitable access to internships in higher education. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Summary: This report includes findings from the 17-campus pilot phase of the National Survey of College Internships (NSCI) project, which included survey responses from 12, 130 college students. Data include new insights on the prevalence of internship participation in these institutions (just 21.5%), intern demographics, the average distance traveled to an internship (315 miles), the quality of intern supervision, and the nature of obstacles preventing 67.3% of survey respondents from pursuing an internship.
What can we learn from longitudinal studies on the impacts of college internships?
Fangjing Tu
Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions (CCWT)
University of Wisconsin Madison
Literature Review #5
Internships have been widely considered as co-curricular opportunities that benefit students with hands-on work experience, smooth transitions to the labor market, and potentially better compensation. Current studies on the impacts of internship participation are mostly cross-sectional. Only a few studies in the research literature employ longitudinal research methodologies. Longitudinal research can be used to measure and understand the long-term effects of internship participation for students. It also provides more robust evidence for causal interpretations of internship effects. This literature review summarizes the main findings and insights from 11 longitudinal studies on the impact of internship participation, aiming to contribute to the knowledge about the long-term benefits and causal processes of college internships.
Schalewski, L. (2021). The Role of Socioeconomic Status and Internships on Early Career Earnings: Evidence for Widening and Rerouting Pathways to Social Mobility. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions (Research Brief #18). University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin Center for Education Research.
Abstract: The research brief first summarizes findings on internships, a university structure, pulled from a study that more broadly examined how student engagement and high-impact practices relate to post-graduation outcomes among students from different SES backgrounds (Schalewski, 2020). First, results suggest internships have a mediating role between a student’s (SES) and early career earnings. Next, results show students from middle-SES backgrounds or those within quartiles two and three experience a significant effect from internship participation on early career earnings with non-significant findings for the lowest and highest quartiles. The brief concludes with implications for practice that aim to widen and reroute pathways to internships for lower- SES students to increase opportunities that lead to higher early career salaries and set trajectories for social mobility.
Bañuelos, N. (2021). Community Cultural Wealth Goes to College: A Review of the Literature for Career Services Professionals and Researchers. Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions (Research Brief #17). University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wisconsin Center for Education Research.
Abstract: Created by LatCrit scholars in the mid-2000s, Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) is an anti-deficit framework for understanding educational inequality. Since its publication, Yosso’s (2005) seminal paper on the topic has been cited thousands of times by scholars in fields as distinct as engineering, K12 education, and public health. This report reviews the recent scholarship on college students’ experiences and outcomes that uses CCW as a guiding framework. Although the intended audience for this review is career services professionals in colleges and universities, my hope is it can also be helpful for scholars of career development who want to brush up on the CCW literature and consider future research questions the framework presents. The existing literature offers insights on the college-to-career transition: it reveals the centrality of familial capital in shaping students’ career pathways, the function of resistant capital in forming students’ career interests, the utility of students’ existing social capital in the job search process, and the role of counterspaces in activating CCW for career success. However, CCW scholarship typically focuses on college students’ matriculation, persistence, sources of support, and well-being, not on their career development—including the psychological, spiritual, sociocultural, political and economic factors influencing students’ career interests and the knowledge, relationships, and environmental contexts shaping their career choices (Duffy & Dik, 2009). This gap presents opportunities for researchers and career services professionals to partner in creating and evaluating programming with CCW in mind. There are also opportunities to increase the methodological diversity of CCW scholarship, to consider the ways in which students mix CCW with “dominant” forms of capital for career success, to collect data from employers, faculty, and other gatekeepers, and to account for the role of institutional context.
Wolfgram, M., Vivona, B., Akram, T., Rodríguez S., J., Chen, Z., & Hora, M. T. (2021). Results from the 1-year longitudinal follow-up analysis for the College Internship Study at Northeastern Illinois University. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions.
Summary: The College Internship Study examines the long-term impacts of internships on students’ lives and careers. Here, we highlight the findings from 177 survey responses and twelve interviews with students at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU). They were conducted in the Fall of 2020 (Time 2 or T2), one year after the first round of data collection in 2019 (Time 1 or T1). This second round of the College Internship Study is guided by the following research question: What are the changes concerning students’ internship experiences and outcomes comparing longitudinal data at two points in time?