The state of the economy has brought changes in the construction industry creating a more competitive employment environment in the construction industry as well as an increase in project requirements due to complexity, duration of work, fewer employees to do the work, and the type of projects being undertaken.  These changes have created an increased need for managers to possess both technical skills and also emotional competencies.  Employers are now seeking to hire individuals who exhibit emotional competencies and other soft skills, such as empathy, verbal communication and relationship building. Soft skills improve the development and maintenance of relationships among the diverse group of professionals necessary to complete projects.  With the construction industry being nomadic in nature, the ability to develop and maintain relationships can be especially important. Employers are placing more emphasis on these soft skills when evaluating potential hires and starting salaries. With these changes comes the realization that students seeking to gain employment in the industry need to have a competitive edge.  While soft skills are critical for students graduating from construction focused programs, opportunities to learn and enhance these skills are not always available within the curriculum. The majority of students graduating from college programs today are part of a generation referred to as Millennials"a generation differing greatly from those that have come before them. For Millennials to gain a competitive edge and maximize employment opportunities, they must first have an understanding of what the industry perceives students need to be successful in the industry.  Program curriculums must also find a way to produce students that offer more than just technical knowledge to employers.  This is not always possible within existing programs trying to meet the demands of accreditation requirements within the credit hours required.  One option construction focused programs could consider to incorporate opportunities for students to gain a competitive edge would be through the mandatory participation of a structured internship experience. This research sought to address these issues and offer insight into what characteristics industry felt were necessary for student success.  The work also sought to establish whether students had an understanding of these characteristics and whether they felt they were strong or deficient in these areas.  The research also identified the role internships played in current accredited construction focused programs and whether student participation in internships had an impact on their understanding of the characteristics required to be successful in the construction industry. / Ph. D.

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Internships are commonly used by firms for training and recruiting talents. Yet, research overlooks which factors are influential in job acceptance for interns. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship of influencing factors such as task goal clarity, autonomy, mentorship and learning to job acceptance of interns after an internship program. A total of 150 copies of questionnaires were distributed online among university and graduate school students in Taiwan. 120 questionnaires were returned. The statistical methods used in this study were reliability test, descriptive analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis. Based from the results shown, it was found that task goal clarity and mentorships influences the learning of interns. Furthermore, autonomy affects the relationship of task goal clarity and learning. The relationship of task goal clarity and learning is expected to be stronger when autonomy is high and weaker when it is low. Lastly, learning influences the willingness of job acceptance. The recommendations from the conclusions are proposed as references for relevant organizations and future studies Keywords: task goal clarity, mentorship, autonomy, learning, job acceptance, internships / Internships are commonly used by firms for training and recruiting talents. Yet, research overlooks which factors are influential in job acceptance for interns. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship of influencing factors such as task goal clarity, autonomy, mentorship and learning to job acceptance of interns after an internship program. A total of 150 copies of questionnaires were distributed online among university and graduate school students in Taiwan. 120 questionnaires were returned. The statistical methods used in this study were reliability test, descriptive analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis. Based from the results shown, it was found that task goal clarity and mentorships influences the learning of interns. Furthermore, autonomy affects the relationship of task goal clarity and learning. The relationship of task goal clarity and learning is expected to be stronger when autonomy is high and weaker when it is low. Lastly, learning influences the willingness of job acceptance. The recommendations from the conclusions are proposed as references for relevant organizations and future studies Keywords: task goal clarity, mentorship, autonomy, learning, job acceptance, internships

This study examines the role experiential education, in the form of internships, plays in the professional development of Hospitality and Tourism Management students. Through an appraisal of the literature, it outlines the many benefits available to direct and indirect stakeholders through the facilitation of a structured, work based learning experience. In particular, it analyses the internship through an evaluation of job design by applying both Hackman and Oldham’s (1975a) Job Characteristics Model (JCM) and developing a proposed intern’s version of that model. The outcomes demonstrate that dimensions of the work undertaken do contribute significantly to an individual’s satisfaction and intrinsic motivation with the proposed intern’s model offering improved R2 coefficients, over the original JCM, by using different predictive variables. The study further sub-divides the sample by examining the findings by cohort and emphasis area. This affords the opportunity to identify specific recommendations on internship design that provides maximum utility to the student participant and the facilitators of the work experience. To this end, the results offer a series of recommended job dimensions for various service industry destinations including the need for increased task significance and feedback from agents for tourism students, opportunities for an autonomous work environment for event planners, exposure to a variety of skills for lodging professionals and feedback from the job for food and beverage students. By designing internships in this way, opportunities for enriched work are created for students at the case-study university. The study also examines the role classroom education plays in underpinning the internship experience and finds that while this assists students in observing many of the topics and theories discussed in a theoretical setting, the experiential component of the learning enhances their education through the development of new skills and competencies not previously taught. Overall, this study offers a unique contribution to the existing body of knowledge on experiential education and its impact on worker/job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation.

The problem of this study was to determine the difference in attitude and anxieties toward the teaching profession of beginning teachers entering public education in Texas who have been through a semester-long intern program as opposed to those who have gone through a traditional eight-week student teaching program. Purposes of the study were to provide assessment data for planning and delivering preservice training experiences to prospective teachers, to compare similarities and differences in the attitudes of prospective teachers who have been through the intern program with those who have been in traditional student teaching, and to provide useful information to colleges and universities concerning the effectiveness of their teacher education programs. The targeted study groups were 22 fall semester interns and a comparison group of 27 fall semester traditional student teachers. All participants were seeking secondary certification. The study was conducted in the fall of 1994. The groups were matched according to gender, chronological age, race designation, grade-point-average, and level of family income. In summary, the findings of this study indicate that only two of the six research questions proved to be statistically significant. It is interesting to note, however, that individually a significant percentage of both of the groups showed a reduction in anxiety and a significant percentage of both groups showed a reduced positive attitude toward teaching as a profession. It is only for the student teachers, however, that the results were statistically significant for both tests.

This research study assessed Korean students' perceptions and overall satisfaction levels regarding the effectiveness of their hospitality internship experiences. Relationships with demographic characteristics were identified. The sample was comprised of 74 senior-level university students enrolled in hospitality and/or tourism management programs who were completing an internship in Korea. Generally, students exhibited low agreement levels on the internship program aspects being investigated. Previous work experience was the most common factor influencing students' perceptions of their internship experiences. Agreement levels increased with length of prior work experience. Type of internship workplace, expectation of an employment offer, age and gender were found to influence students' perceptions of the internship experiences.

As externships evolved from their vocational education roots into the university setting, both the course purposes and the expectations of student changed toward deeper learning. While the students’ responsibility for gaining knowledge has increased, teaching methods designed by educators to prepare students for more critically evaluated outcomes has not evolved at the same pace. Educators still grapple over how educational design can combine the structured teacher-centered learning strategy used in university classrooms with the learner-centered approach students typically utilize in for-profit culinary workplaces. This dissertation is about culinary externships in the urban environment. The study examined the roles, reasoning, and behavior of culinary externship stakeholders: student externs, externship sites via their externship supervisors, and educators who facilitate externships under the academic rules and guidelines of both culinary bachelor programs and the rigor demanded by higher education. Further, the study explored what factors encouraged and empowered students to acquire durable knowledge from their externship experiences and the forms of social capital they use to invest in their experience, as well as the conditions that failed to secure durable knowledge from the externship. The findings indicate that each stakeholder approaches an externship from their own working perspectives. Further, the ability of students to socialize, utilize agency to achieve their personal ends, bear the sole weight of evaluation, and acquire practical work experience prior to the externship yielded the best outcomes. Additional questions are posed and answered within the study.

Submitted by Maicon Juliano Schmidt (maicons) on 2015-04-24T18:53:27Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Inajara Vargas Ramos.pdf: 5366887 bytes, checksum: cfc38e4b2997e2644414750976b37d6e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-24T18:53:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Inajara Vargas Ramos.pdf: 5366887 bytes, checksum: cfc38e4b2997e2644414750976b37d6e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-12-02 / Nenhuma / Esta tese, ao dar voz a estudantes estagiários dos cursos de Direito e Enfermagem de uma universidade comunitária do Rio Grande do Sul, procurou desvelar o significado que os estágios curriculares, obrigatórios e não obrigatórios, assumem na formação acadêmica e profissional desses estudantes e nas estruturas curriculares dos seus cursos de graduação. Para tanto, foram ouvidos duzentos e setenta e dois estudantes e as coordenações de ambos os cursos, por meio de entrevistas estruturadas e semiestruturadas em profundidade, seguindo a abordagem quali/quanti. A etapa qualitativa de inspiração etnográfica valeu-se da análise de conteúdo para o tratamento dos dados, e a etapa quantitativa, caracterizada como pesquisa conclusiva descritiva, do tipo levantamento de campo, foi analisada estatisticamente; como procedimento de pesquisa, utilizou-se, também, a análise documental. A discussão das dimensões experiência, profissionalização, relação teoria/prática, formação, campo e habitus, referenciadas em expoentes como Larrosa, Dewey, Dubar, Vázquez, Charlot e Bourdieu, dentre outros, contribuiu sobremaneira para unir os fios que foram sendo propositalmente "esquecidos" pelas análises, tecendo as redes que levaram a pesquisa à sua culminância. Assim, justificando a tese, o estudo aponta que os currículos dos cursos de graduação têm muito a ganhar explorando as consequências e os resultados dos estágios curriculares, principalmente se as coordenações perceberem que as experiências vivenciadas pelos estagiários promovem a autonomia e o protagonismo discente. A universidade procura permanentemente consolidar a interdisciplinaridade, a indissociabilidade ensino-pesquisa-extensão e o desenvolvimento da autonomia intelectual do estudante e não reconhece, nos estágios curriculares, qualquer que seja a modalidade, oportunidades reais e incontestáveis para atingir os objetivos que ratificam a razão do seu fazer. / This thesis by giving voice to student trainees from law and nursing courses of a community college in Rio Grande do Sul sought to unveil to meaning that the curricular internships, mandatory or not mandatory, assume in the academic and professional formation of these students and in the curriculum structure of their undergraduate courses. For that, two hundred and seventy two students and the coordination of both courses were heard, through in-depth structured and semi-structured interviews, following a qualitative/quantitative approach. The qualitative stage of ethnographic inspiration used the content analysis for the data treatment and the quantitative stage, characterized as descriptive conclusive research, field survey type, was analyzed statistically; as a research procedure, documental analysis was used too. The discussion of the dimensions experience, professionalization, theory/practice relation, formation, field and habitus, referenced in exponents such as Larrosa, Dewey, Dubar, Vázquez, Charlot and Bourdieu, amongst others, contributed greatly to unite the strings purposely forgotten by the analysis, threading the nets that brought the research to its acme. Thus, justifying the thesis, the study points that the curriculum of the undergraduate courses has much to gain by exploring the consequences and results of the curricular internships, mainly if the coordinations realize that the experiences lived by the trainees promote the student’s autonomy and independence. The university searches permanently to consolidate the interdisciplinary, the teaching-research-extension inseparability and the development of the student’s intellectual independency and doesn’t recognize the curricular internship, in its both modalities, as real and undisputed opportunities to achieve the objectives that justify the reason of its doing.

The purpose of this study was to measure the learning of the specific skills and knowledge as identified by the National Policy Board for Educational Administration during internships of students from universities participating in the Alliance for the Preparation of Educational Leadership. Former interns from Brigham Young University, East Tennessee State University, Florida State University, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, responded to a survey designed to measure the skills and knowledge as defined by the National Policy Board for Educational Administration. Indicators of the domains identified by the National Policy Board for Educational Administration allowed former interns to reflect and identify those areas that were best learned during the administrative internship. The target population included students who recently graduated from the participating universities. Reviewing the literature exposed the need for an inductive knowledge base. The amount of research was abundant in the area of effectiveness, the internship, and principal preparation. There was little research in the area of the development of specific skills as defined by the National Policy Board for Educational Administration using the internship as a method of delivery. The majority of the former interns were white females slightly over forty years old. The majority held a masters degree with 21% holding a degree higher than a masters. Few were serving as principals. Findings indicated that internships were highly valued, innovative, provided experiences for the domains of competency, and focused primarily on the functional theme. Recommendations included that internships ignore age, gender, and race; be designed by the university personnel; be one of a variety of field experiences; be innovative; and exist primarily in the operational dimension.

Internships are increasingly popular in higher education (Coco, 2000; Divine et al., 2007). One reason for the increase is the benefits, both perceived and documented, associated with them (Divine et al., 2007). In addition to offering internships as electives, some programs have even begun requiring them of all students (Klein & Weiss, 2011). The policy change from elective to required internships has been evaluated very little, if at all, even though mandatory internships result in a substantial increase in cost and commitment for the departments that implement them (Divine et al., 2007). This study analyzed survey and interview data from students (past and present) who participated in a required internship through an Equine Science and Management degree program at a major land grant institution that adopted a mandatory internship requirement in 2007. The intent of the study was to deepen the understanding of the effects of a mandatory internship policy in higher education from the students’ perspective. Specifically of interest were the benefits students gain from participating in mandatory internships, their perception of the mandatory internship policy, and whether the primary reason students participated in an internship influenced the experience. A mixed-methods approach was used to identify statistically significant results and provide an in-depth understanding of the results. This study revealed that the vast majority of students who participated in a mandatory internship recognized a variety of benefits from it, viewed the experience as beneficial, and supported the policy of requiring internships. It was demonstrated that mandatory internships can empower students and aid in their professionalization. Participants also credited their internship more than their overall undergraduate experience for better preparing them at several important career skills including problem solving, job interviewing, networking, resume writing, oral presentation, interpersonal communication, and written communication. Furthermore, this study identified several statistically significant relationships between the primary reason students participated in an internship and how beneficially they view it, how much they believe it contributed to their current job, and how well it prepared them at specific career skills. The results of this study provide insight into the benefits of a mandatory internship policy from the students’ perspective.