Student internship experiences: areas for improvement and student choices of internship practices

Abstract

This paper investigates areas for improvement in internship practices from the perspectives of key stakeholders, such as university department leaders, host company leaders, lecturers, work supervisors, graduates, and final year students. Student choices of internship practices are also reported. An exploratory sequential mixed methods approach was implementing that included three focus groups, 15 individual in-depth interviews, and 461 responses to a student survey. In the qualitative phase, deductive thematic analysis was employed to explore areas for improvement in internship practices. In the quantitative phase, descriptive statistical analysis, and two non-parametric tests were used: the Mann–Whitney tests and Kruskal–Wallis tests, followed by pairwise comparisons to identify student choices of internship practices. The corroboration and triangulation of the qualitative and quantitative data sets revealed three distinct areas for improvement in internship practices in Vietnamese universities. These are internship learning outcomes, internship support, and internship assessment. Findings highlighted the crucial role of industry stakeholders, including work supervisors in the entire process of the internship, as well as the key responsibility of universities in improving student internship experiences. Areas for improvement and student choices of internship practices in Vietnamese universities have not been discussed previously. Findings carry practical, policy and theoretical implications for higher education in Vietnam and other countries striving to enhance student internship experiences. Hence, this study contributes to the Vietnamese and international WIL literature with its findings emerging from a complex mixed-methods design. This methodological approach offers enhanced reliability and validity of findings compared to previous research in the field that relied on a single data set.