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STUDENTS’ AND EMPLOYERS’ SATISFACTION OF
INTERNSHIP IN COMPANIES
Assoc. Prof. Ivaylo Staribratov, PhD
Plovdiv University "Paisii Hilendarski"
Summary: The article examines the factors influencing the high school students’ satisfaction
of the internships, as well as the interrelationship between student satisfaction with the
internship and the employers’ satisfaction of the students' performance. A study of this
satisfaction has been presented on the basis of a conducted survey. Positive interrelations
have been established and the fact that primarily the organizational environment, the IT
teacher's support and contextual factors play a crucial role in the high level of satisfaction with
the production internship in ICT and non-ICT field.
Key words: motivation, internship satisfaction, ICT, organizational environment, school,
employers
The transition from the life and role of a student to the world of labor and a worker is
not always easy and pleasant, it is often accompanied by difficulties and problems in
adaptation. Young people who have just graduated have to enter the labor market by
applying their knowledge and skills learned at school in the context of the work.
However, young graduates can not directly apply their school education knowledge
in the new work environment. This in turn is a prerequisite for experiencing frustration,
demotivation at work, which may lead to increased turnover of young employees in
the organization. This transition can be facilitated and alleviated when schooling and
learning at work go hand in hand and thus enable students to integrate the theory
learned at school into practice by visiting manufacturing /production internship in a
real environment.
This also applies to the internship in ICT business, which is a mandatory subject in all
classes with ICT ("system programming" and "graphic design", "computer networks",
"computer technologies", etc.). Pupils carry out their mandatory internship either in a
company with which the school has a contract or they find a place for their traineeship
independently.
The present study can be of benefit to all school teachers and principals who develop,
integrate in the curriculum and administer internship programs for students for the first
time. Its outcomes aim to undertake more effective and flexible policies for
traineeships. They can also be a reference point for teachers, indicating that pupils
get the maximum benefit from their internship, and this in turn is a feedback to both
school and the company that the relationship between ICT education and ICT
business is stable . The good interrelation between education and business brings
benefits to both the educational institution, which needs to be "up and running" with
all new ICT technologies and for the business itself, which can more easily attract and
hire potential talents, as well as for the students themselves who have the opportunity
to apply the learned lessons in a real environment and thus their transition and
adaptation to business is maximum balanced.
The overall understanding of the process can be seen through the satisfaction of the
internship experience both with students and with employers providing internships.
However, Bulgaria currently lacks any territorial organization of the career guidance
system. There are centers and consultants without clear co-ordination in their work.
In classrooms, only the pedagogical counselor and form teachers work on the career
guidance of students, which can not satisfy the need for quality and purposeful work
with young people [1]. Therefore, any career start in the form of internship allows
students accumulate work experience and habits in the ICT field. Finding work
experience, in turn, satisfactory and meaningful, can help students build a career
throughout their entire work cycle.
In order to gain a clearer idea and conceptualization of the many factors influencing
the satisfaction of the internship in the IT business and non IT business environment,
different perspectives and practices will be presented. First of all, a review of the
concept of "business internship satisfaction" for both learners and employers will be
examined, then the factors influencing the satisfaction of internships in the IT sphere
will be examined and some theoretical models will be presented on this issue .
Definition of "internship"
The internship is a fixed period of time during which a newly recruited worker,
employee or student is trained practically in his/her specialty. Workplace internships
have existed for centuries, and they have first appeared in medical education. Today,
this term applies to many types of work. Trainee practice can be defined in different
ways - in the scientific literature it is defined as "learning by experience", ie learning
by doing "learning for experience", ie practical application of what is learned in theory,
"practice" or experience in a given area, 'service-based learning', ie the accumulation
of service-related experience but not necessarily linked to a career, 'cooperative
education' resulting from learning through service, 'on-the-job', ie work experience
gained outside the classroom [11], "industrial training "[16]" dual training ", ie parallel
courses of theory and practice in companies. From the above definitions, it can be
summarized that internship is a production practice, the learner gains practical
experience in order to master a specialty.
Satisfaction with the internship
Job/internship satisfaction is defined as a set of psychological attitudes towards the
work done by the worker/trainee. In the process of professional adaptation and self-
identification an important role is played by the labor activity motivation and the labor
satisfaction. Satisfaction with the internship depends on the correspondance of the
outcome of the work with the trainee's internal needs.
There are different views in the scientific literature on the satisfaction of internships
among young and inexperienced people, but most of them unite their views in the
following trends:
- Students who have gained more experience in a work environment are clearly
aware of their advantages and prospects in finding a job and building a career.
They are more likely to remain in the company they have practiced [5].
- In the initial stages of the internship, trainees show a certain level of
dissatisfaction with their assigned tasks, but at the end of the internship they
find that they have understood the reasons for their assignments, which is a
predictor of their ultimate satisfaction with the internship [2].
- Opportunities to start/stay in the company where the internship is held also play
a major role in the satisfaction of learners' internship. Okay and Sahin have
found that job offers are received by trainees who have taken their internship
seriously, have carried out their delegated tasks responsibly and
conscientiously, being disciplined and initiative, and therefore they have been
highly rated by employers [14].
- Satisfied with their internship are trainees who have had constant feedback from
their employers and also had some autonomy about how to perform their
duties. Trainees who have been taken as part-time employees by their
employers have shown low levels of satisfaction [4].
Factors influencing the satisfaction of the internship.
1. Individual factors
Some authors study which of the trainees' characteristics predispose to success in
their practice, which in turn leads to the satisfaction of the internship. They identify
three individual factors which are defined as important prerequisites for an effective
internship program: academic readiness (good theoretical training and practice in the
specialty), positive expectations for practice and prospects of staying in a company
[5,18] and self-initiative(active searching for information, building constructive
relationships with other trainees/employees) [6]. In other studies, as predictors of
satisfaction, qualities such as maturity and responsibility [10] are also distinguished.
2. Support from the educational environment
According to Klee (trainees who receive support and feedback from their lecturers are
much more satisfied with the internship than those who do not receive it.) The reason
for this is that the school supervisors in the practice play the role of consultants and
help trainees in the presence of difficult situations [9]. Frequent teacher visits [11],
constant monitoring and supervision [16] are perceived as useful by learners.
Moghaddam studies the effectiveness of student internship through the prism of the
university administration responsible for this. Students who have been satisfied with
the internship have indicated that the university administration has taken care of the
good organization of their internship, taking into account their university tasks, has
effectively contributed to establishing and maintaining communication between
business mentors and direct mentors at the university [12].
3. Work characteristics
Work characteristic are a set of variables related to employee activities at work.
Lord and others quote studies that found that an important predictor of job or
traineeship satisfaction was the similarity between trainees' skills and the associated
task characteristics [10]. Other factors influencing the satisfaction are: the identity of
the task, the skills, the importance of the task, the autonomy and the feedback. Skills
are related to a range of activities and talent. Identifying the task is the extent to which
the trainee manages to complete the task from start to finish. The importance of a
task affects the extent to which the performance of the task is important to others, the
autonomy is related to the freedom and relative independence the trainee has in
planning and performing the tasks assigned to him, and the feedback - obtaining clear
and direct information from the direct supervisor of how the employee manages the
tasks.
4. Organizational environment
The organizational environment, also known as the work environment, includes all
learning opportunities, career development opportunities, company mentor support,
opportunities to work in a team, co-worker support, and organizational satisfaction.
Tarquin and Truscott found that the connection and relationship between trainees and
their mentor in the organization were very important [17]. Adequate support,
monitoring and assistance from the mentor, as well as from the other company
employees, is a prerequisite for a high level of internship satisfaction [9]. Introducing
in the organizational culture and identifying with the work staff leads to a higher
commitment to the organization, clear perception of the roles in the company, lack of
absences, low levels of stress, and reduced risk of conflict with other trainees [6,7].
Another study, conducted by a team of researchers from Math High School "Acad.
Kiril Popov ", establishes that the students who have done their internship have
remained very satisfied with the work in the company and that is of great benefit to
them - both the gained experience and the useful contacts they have made with the
employers and employees. Employers often provide them professional literature and
students manage to keep close contacts with the employer [1].
Wen conducted a survey of a sample of 113 trainees, and found that the effectiveness
of the attention, control and clarity of the tasks assigned by company mentors were
positively related to the success of the internship [18]. Rothman adds to all this, and
good communication, giving and receiving feedback from the mentor, offering
challenging tasks as good predictors of traineeship efficiency [15].
Gupta and others quote studies that found that feedback, new tasks once the old ones
were completed, clear job results, autonomy, a comfortable work environment, job
prospects, new skills and teamwork are essential factors for trainees' satisfaction [5].
5. Contextual factors
D'Abate and others distinguish several contextual factors that affect the satisfaction
of the internship: salary, working time, travel to the internship place and the location
of the organization in which the traineeship takes place. [3] Nelson also adds
workplace security, peers, colleagues, and mentoring [13].
Paid traineeships or those in which financial compensation is offered lead to
significantly higher levels of satisfaction than unpaid ones [9]. The interesting thing
about Gupta's study is that there is no significant link between the length of the
traineeship, the trainee's working hours during the week and the satisfaction of the
traineeship [5].
The location of the internship also affects the satisfaction of it because internships
with location close to the family environment are perceived more positively [3]
Employers’ satisfaction with internship
Besides learners, employers can also benefit from internship programs. They more
often prefer to hire people with knowledge and work experience and expect young
people to be well-prepared for their needs. Recent studies, however, show that there
is a significant gap between the expectations of companies and students [8]. For
example, learners often expect when they start work to be introduced and well trained
for their job position. Employers, however, expect well-trained staff to avoid additional
training costs. Having in mind the disparity between the knowledge and skills of
students, on the one hand, and the demands of employers, schools must offer
internships to help students in the real world of business.
The purpose of this study is to establish the predictors of high satisfaction with
internships in high school students and the relationship between student internship
satisfaction and the satisfaction of employers with student performance.
167 students are the subject of the survey, students from Math High School "Acad.
Kiril Popov " and Vocational School for Electrotechnics and Electronics VSEE, they
complete their internship both in the field of ICT and in other fields. Of these, 9.8%
are from the 11th grade, 90.2% from the 12th grade. The girls are 21.1% and the boys
- 78.9%. Students from different specialties - "System Programming” - 16%, "Graphic
Design" - 17,9%, "Computer Technics and Technologies" - 21,8%, "Computer
Networks" - 7,1%," Microprocessors" - 18,6% , "Automation of Continuous
Production" - 10.3%, "Electricity production" - 8.3%.
Methods of research. Satisfaction with the internship was measured by a battery of
D'Abate [3], Klee [9], Marlborough [11], Moghaddam [12], and Wen [18]
methodologies. It contains 44 statements, divided into six scales, measuring the
satisfaction factors of the internship in a 7-meter scale of the Likert type:
The first scale of "Individualistic Factors" includes 7 items. It is highly reliable on the
Kronbach criteria (α = 0.901). It contains statements, related to the personal qualities
of the trainees, predisposing for a better internship, eg. "I was actively looking for
feedback from my company mentor during the internship," "I volunteered to do my
job."
The second scale is "IT Teacher Support". It contains 9 items and the reliability of the
scale is also high - α = 0.966. Sample statements from this scale are: "The IT Teacher
provided me with direct and immediate feedback about how I was doing." "The school
administration cared for the normal running of the organizational traineeship."
The third scale is "Performance Characteristics" consisting of 6 items (α = 0.957). It
contains statements like that "The actual work in the company has given me an idea
of what my knowledge of ICT is and how well I am doing my internship."
The fourth scale is "Organizational Environment". It contains 10 statements and also
has high reliability (0.958). For example, "During the internship I learned a lot of things
I would never learn in the classroom," "My mentor in the company shared personal
experience to give me an alternative view of the problems I had during the project
implementation"
The fifth scale is “Contextual Factors”, consisting of 6 items (α = 0.880): e.g. "I had
flexible working hours at the traineeship," "The people who worked where I was
practicing were good-natured, and they helped me when it was necessary."
The last scale is "Overall Satisfaction with the Internship", it contains 5 items (α =
0.948) as "I really like the company I practiced", "One day I would be happy to start
my career at the company I completed my internship."
The satisfaction of the pupils' performance was measured by an author's method,
consisting of 24 items in a 7-meter Likert type scale. Statements: "Students show
good problem solving skills", "Demonstrate self-efficacy and independence in their
internship".
Results. In order to identify the factors influencing the overall satisfaction of the
internships, a multiple regression analysis of all students was performed. In figure 1
below the β-coefficients show which predictors of satisfaction have the greatest
influence:
фиг.1. Fig. Impact of the predictors on the overall satisfaction of internships
R2 in the present study shows the degree or percentage of how independent variables
can explain the variance in the dependent variable (total internship satisfaction). R²
for this model is 0.759. This means that independent variables (individualistic factors,
teacher support, performance characteristics, organizational environment and
contextual factors) can account for 75.9% of the variance of the dependent variable.
However, this means that 24.1% of the variance remains unexplained, which implies
the presence and existence of other additional variables that have a significant
function in interpreting the concept of internship satisfaction that is not the subject of
this study.
The results of the regression analysis show that the organizational environment (β =
0.586; p <0.001) has the greatest influence on the overall satisfaction with the
internships. The perceived organizational support is positively related to the level of
employee satisfaction. Organizational commitment and the presence of a manager
who serves as a role model for trainees with whom to share their experiences is a
significant factor in their positive perceptions of internship. During the internship,
pupils acquire new habits and skills that they have not developed so far in their
classrooms at school. Organizational support, as well as school support, are vital for
the internship during the course of the school year. The organization is a place where
students create their professional role models and enter the corporate world.
Employers are also expected to practice such culture of sharing and providing
valuable information and experience with their trainees, giving them an adequate
insight into the organization's work processes. This in turn leads to a sense of
belonging to trainees, as well as improved and meaningful understanding of the
β=0,057
β=0,216
β= - 0,013
β=0,586
β=0,147
Индивидуални
фактори
Подкрепа от
учителя по ИТ
Характеристики на
работата
Организационна
среда
Контекстуални
фактори
Обща удовлетвореност
от стажа
R2=0,759
profession or business they practice. This also gives students a clear view of future
career choices, and this in turn enables employers to retain the best talent for
themselves. The accessibility of the learning material studied in the organization, the
possibilities for acquiring different techniques and skills, the prestige of the
organization influence the overall satisfaction with the internship. In addition, the
ability to work smoothly and qualitatively in the future, the prospects of remaining in
the firms where the internship takes place also have an impact on the overall
satisfaction.
Also, the relationship between the teacher/school administration's support for the
practice and the overall satisfaction with the internship (b = 0.216; p = 0.002) is also
significant. Teachers and school have always been a great factor in the development
of students' professional identity. Career guidance is very specific and involves many
and diverse activities - diagnosis of specific talents in children; counseling parents
and students after entering a high school; labor market survey; working with
companies and making a connection with the business [1]. There is a general trend
that the support of the teachers and school administration is very important for the
students before joining internships. Students are actively seeking more information
from their teacher, as most often this is their first manufacturing experience. When
the knowledge, technology and skills acquired at school are in dissonance with
business requirements, students rely on their school mentors for consultation, advice,
and recommendations on how to address a particular problem they face in the
internship. It is crucial to disseminate constantly important, clear and timely
information regarding the organization of the internship, as well as the easy contact
with the teacher in the presence of emergencies for consultations. For students, the
available appropriate orientation before the internship and the follow-up by the school,
as well as the influence of the teachers exercising control, accessible counseling and
personal support during the internship and subsequent evaluation and recognition of
the pupils’ work, have an impact on the overall satisfaction of the pupils during their
entire internship in the designated organization. Here is also included the mandatory
documentary part of the traineeship, ie the timely signing of contracts between the
school and the organization, planning and recording the documentation for the
internship in the form of diaries, reporting forms etc.
Significant predictors of overall internship satisfaction are contextual factors (β =
0.147, p = 0.021). Although the internship is of a temporary nature, contextual factors
have a significant impact on overall satisfaction with it. Although students focus on
teacher/school support and the organizational environment as leading, the working
time and location of the company where the internship takes place have a significant
effect on the satisfaction. If the traineeships are not located near the place students
live, the transport is a problem or if the time frame itself is inadequate to the students'
time, this can lead to low levels of satisfaction. In the present study, however, there
is a positive factor, which means that the two school administrations have helped the
students to practice in a comfortable manner, taking into account their curriculum and
also the time for transportation to the place of internship.
The predictor of "individual factors" (β = 0.057, p = 0.319) is negligible. It can be
assumed that the positive attitude and activity of trainees don’t play a key role in the
high satisfaction with the internship, as Huang and Jia (2010) suggest. Getting
acquainted with other company employees, the initiative to search for information or
feedback, and other proactive actions are not so crucial to the learners’satisfaction.
This is probably because of the students' perception of the internship as a temporary
phenomenon and an obligation in their educational process, and this leads to less
proactive actions and initiatives on their own compared to other employees. A large
number of pupils who have decided to apply for a job in another professional field or
study abroad after finishing the secondary school do not perceive the accumulation
of knowledge, skills and abilities in the organization as significant for their overall
satisfaction with the internship as they do not see a perspective to remain in the
company where their practice takes place. There is a tendency for a strong external
motivation and a weak internal one in the course of the students' internship.
Nearly no impact has the predictor of "work characteristics" (β = - 0.013; p = 0.904).
The diversity of skills and habits, the identity of the tasks, the personal significance of
the assigned tasks, the autonomy in performance and the feedback are not relevant
to the overall satisfaction. It can be assumed that the mentors in the organization
where the internship is held do not entrust the students with complex or very specific
tasks that have a direct impact on the overall business process within the company/
enterprise. As a result, students do not perceive the tasks assigned to them as
personally significant. It is possible that tasks or responsibilities concerning the
general work process are not assigned to the students and therefore they do not take
the job characteristics as a factor determining their overall or final satisfaction with the
internship. Here the autonomy in performing tasks is not decisive too. A large number
of managers responsible for designating the tasks of their trainees do not impose
much control over them as they have to fulfill other duties related to their job position.
This implies freedom and autonomy in fulfilling the assignment tasks by the pupils,
but this is not perceived as an advantage by the students. Mentor’s feedback is also
not considered to be crucial to overall satisfaction because, although they have a final
assessment of the internship given by the mentor, this assessment is usually formal
and does not directly indicate the skills and habits of the students acquired in the
companies where they work. Many employers try to benefit from student internships
by looking at their trainees as "temporary tenants" and thus saving the need and time
of recruiting and selecting cadres needed for certain projects, they often succeed in
discovering "the best potential" for their needs but they do not have the necessary
time resources to provide the maximum levels for training young people or cannot
keep them for their needs because of the students' desire to continue their education
elsewhere or students’ high requirements to start a career.
In order to establish the correlation between the student satisfaction and the
employers’ satisfaction with the students’ performance in ICT sector, a correlation
analysis was made. Pearson's coefficient was low and negligible (R2=0,263;
р=0,126). It cannot be said that the satisfaction of the trainees is directly dependent
on that of the employers. Perhaps the reasons for this are complex: the quality of the
feedback given by the employer, the identity of the tasks assigned to them, the quality
of project implementation, etc. So a conclusion could be drawn that the relationship
between education and business is positive, but further efforts are needed in this
direction to be improved.
Conclusion
The present study found the influence of certain factors on the high school
students’satisfaction with the production internship. A multiple regression analysis
was used that determines the predictors that have the greatest impact on satisfaction.
These are: organizational environment, teacher/school support and contextual
factors. To a lesser extent, it concerns individual factors and work characteristics. The
correlation analysis showed that there is a very low and insignificant but positive
correlation between student satisfaction with internship and employers' satisfaction
with student performance. But if employers and school administrators take into
account that focusing on the organizational environment, IT teacher support, and
contextual factors have a strong impact on overall student satisfaction, they could
further strengthen their cooperation in these areas and in this way to build an even
stronger link between education and business, proof of which will be the strong
satisfaction with the students' internship.
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