Internship of Tertiary Students: Exploring Their Employability and Self-Efficacy

Min-Hsun Su, Pey-Chewn Duo and Yung-Feng Hsu
Pey-Chewn Duo/Ming-Chuan University, Taiwan

Abstract

Nowadays internship has become one crucial part in higher education institutions (HEIs) in the world. In Taiwan, almost all vocational high education institutions regard internship as one major component of their curriculum; some even take internship or practicum as one compulsory course (Wan, Yang, Cheng & Su, 2013). Internship offers students a great chance to link what they learn in school with real life job practice, and it helps students effectively and efficiently adapt to their future job (Lee, Chen, Hung & Chen, 2011). For general universities in Taiwan, they are aware of this internship trend, and are eager to adjust their current curriculum structure and make room and time for internship courses. Students, during the time they study in universities, are encouraged to take internship (or practicum) courses. Internship courses are offered with flexibility: 2 credits, 3 credits, 6 credits, or 9 credits. To have internship courses function well, Ministry of Education in Taiwan (MOE) has set up regulations, trying to distinguish internship from students’ part-time jobs, and further help students to actually learn well during their internship. Although many internship studies have been done, very few studies can be found focusing on the employability and self-efficacy of internship students in universities. This study is aimed at tertiary internship students’ employability, self-efficacy, and their correlation. The results suggest a high level of employability and a medium level of self-efficacy of the internship students. Among the employability factors, students showed a relatively low in professional knowledge, and a high in dedication and cooperation. In the self-efficacy factors, students showed a lower self-efficacy in the social self-efficacy factor. A positive and significant correlation was found between employability and self-efficacy of those internship students. Suggestions related to the design, practice and improvement for internship programs are provided for policy makers, educators and curriculum designers in HEIs at the end of this study.


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