The Study of Internship Performances: Comparison of Information Technology Interns towards Students’ Types and Background Profiles

Authors: Shutchapol Chopvitayakun

Abstract:

Internship program is a compulsory course of many undergraduate programs in Thailand. It gives opportunities to a lot of senior students as interns to practice their working skills in the real organizations and also gives chances for interns to face real-world working problems. Interns also learn how to solve those problems by direct and indirect experiences. This program in many schools is a well-structured course with a contract or agreement made with real business organizations. Moreover, this program also offers opportunities for interns to get jobs after completing it from where the internship program takes place. Interns also learn how to work as a team and how to associate with other colleagues, trainers, and superiors of each organization in term of social hierarchy, self-responsibility, and self-disciplinary. This research focuses on senior students of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, Thailand whose studying major is information technology program. They practiced their working skills or took internship programs in the real business sector or real operating organizations in 2015-2016. Interns are categorized in to two types: normal program and special program. For special program, students study in weekday evening from Monday to Friday or Weekend and most of them work full-time or part-time job. For normal program, students study in weekday working hours and most of them do not work. The differences of these characters and the outcomes of internship performance were studied and analyzed in this research. This work applied some statistical analytics to find out whether the internship performance of each intern type has different performances statistically or not.

Keywords: Internship, intern, senior student, information technology program.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1126043

References:

[1] A. J. Tobias. “Internships, coop experience provide an edge”. Electronic Engineering Times, vol. 921, 1996, pp. c4-c6.
[2] J. Barling and K. Kelloway. Introduction. In J. Barling, and K. Kelloway (Eds.), Young workers: Varieties of experience. pp. 3–15. Washington: American Psychological Association. 1999.
[3] C. Loughlin and J. Barling. “Teenagers' part-time employment and their work-related attitude and aspirations”. Journal of Organizational Behaviour, vol. 19, 1998, pp. 197–207.
[4] J. Mortimer. Working and growing up in America. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 2003.
[5] J. R. Stone and B. Josiam. “The impact of school supervision of work and job quality on adolescent work attitudes and job behaviors”. Journal of Vocational Education Research, vol. 25, 2000. pp. 532–574.
[6] P. E. Tesluk and R. Jacobs. “Toward an integrated model of work experience”. Personnel Psychology, vol. 51, 1998, pp. 321–354.
[7] L. Davies. Experience-based Learning within the Curriculum: A Synthesis Study. CNAA, Sheffield. 1990.
[8] T. Fox. “A sense of place”. Caterer and Hotelkeeper, vol. 189, 2001, pp. 4160.
[9] E. F. Pauze, W. A. Johnson, J. L. Miller. “Internship strategy for hospitality management programmes”. Hospitality Education and Research Journal, vol. 13(3), 1989, pp. 301–307.
[10] U. McMahon and U. Quinn. “Maximizing the hospitality management student work placement experience: a case study”. Education and Training, vol. 37(4), 1995, pp. 13–17.
[11] G. Shortt. “Education and training for the Indonesian tourism industry”. Hospitality & Tourism Educator, vol. 5(1), 1992, pp. 79.
[12] M. Fugate, A. J. Kinicki and B. E. Ashforth. “Employability: A psycho-social construct, its dimensions, and applications”. Journal of Vocational Behavior, vol. 65(1), 2004, pp. 14−38.
[13] S. Haag, E. Guilbeau and W. Goble. “Assessing Engineering Internship Efficacy: Industry's Perception of Student Performance”. International Journal of Engineering Education, vol. 22(2), 2006, pp. 257- 263.
[14] A.B. Collins. “Gateway to the real world: industrial training; dilemmas and problems”. Tourism Management, vol. 23(1), 2002, pp. 93–96.
[15] H. Neuman. “Internships”. Career World, vol. 27(6), 1999, pp. 16.
[16] L. Cates-McIver. “Internships and co-op programmes, a valuable combination for collegians”. Black Collegian, vol. 30, 1999, pp. 84.
[17] B. King, B. McKercher and R. Waryszak. “A comparative study of hospitality and tourism graduates in Australia and Hong Kong”. The International Journal of Tourism Research, vol. 5, 2003, pp. 409–420.
[18] G. Busby, P. Brunt and S. Baber. “Tourism sandwich placements: an appraisal”. Tourism Management, vol. 18(2), 1997, pp. 105–110.
[19] J. Watson. “Developing tourism managers”. Insights, 1992, pp. D5–D8.
[20] P. Barron and G. Maxwell. Students’ perceptions of the hospitality industry—reality or chimera? Proceedings of the Second Annual CHME Research Conference, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, April. 1993.
[21] D.K. Patterson and C. George. “Securing graduate commitment: an exploration of the comparative expectations of placement students, graduate recruits and human resource managers within the hospitality, leisure and tourism industries”. International Journal of Hospitality Management, vol. 20(4), 2001, pp. 311–323.
[22] A.K. Jenkins.” Making a career of in? Hospitality students’ future perspectives: An Anglo-Dutch study”. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 12(1), 2001, pp. 13–20.
[23] D. Leslie. “Hospitality industry industrial placement and personnel management”. The Service Industries Journal, vol. 11(1), 1991, pp. 63-73.
[24] S. Chopvitayakun. “Android Application to Enhance Performance of Internship Program Implementing Cloud Computing Platform and Infrastructure”. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol. 197, 2015, pp. 2530 – 2538.