Supervisor Relationships, Types of Tasks, and Types of Work: Considerations for Developing Knowledge on Internships
3:40 PM – 4:00 PM • 20 Minute Runtime • Room 220
Knowledge about internships continues to expand on topics such as quality supervision (O’Neill, 2010), how students search for them (Hora et al., 2021; Odio, 2017), managing student expectations (Perreto Stratta, 2004), and their impact on career outcomes (Rothman & Sisman, 2016). However, as Hora et al., (2024) acknowledges, the internship experience remains somewhat of a “black box” where many elements and processes that lead to these outcomes are hidden from the view of educators, researchers, and other outside observers. When insight is shared from within the black box, it often reveals a less flattering picture from the perspective of the intern (e.g., Wiest & King-White, 2013) thus underlying the importance of learning more about what happens during internships. Doing so requires including the perspective of supervisors and peers in addition to the interns themselves (Holyoak, 2013; Plakhotnik et al., 2023), and adopting or creating new ideas and frameworks for describing the internship experience.
In this session Michael will argue that the supervisor arrangement, types of tasks, and types of work, both separately or in concert do not represent theoretical contributions within themselves but may be key methodological considerations and framing devices to help examine and advance important research on internships. These aspects could be helpful in advancing knowledge related to certain work-related concepts and processes including the intern and supervisor relationships, the socialization and adjustment of interns into a workplace, the forming and maintenance of psychological contracts, task significance, job crafting, role conflict, satisfaction, and retention. These different aspects could also serve on the academic front as they may relate to the functioning of learning theories commonly applied to internships (e.g., community of practice, cognitive apprenticeship), or as frameworks for internship supervisors to communicate the nature of internships to prospective interns.
Micheal Odio
Associate Professor • University of Cincinnati