Assessment on Communication Students’ Internship Performances from the Employers’ Perspective

Internship is a supervised and structured learning
experience related to one’s field of study or career goal. Internship
allows students to obtain work experience and the opportunity to
apply skills learned during university. Internship is a valuable
learning experience for students; however, literature on employer
assessment is scarce on Malaysian student’s internship experience.
This study focuses on employer’s perspective on student’s
performances during their three months of internship. The results are
based on the descriptive analysis of 45 sets of question gathered from
the on-site supervisors of the interns. The survey of 45 on-site
supervisor’s feedback was collected through postal mail. It was found
that, interns have not met their on-site supervisor’s expectations in
many areas. The significance of this study is employer’s assessment
on the internship shall be used as feedback to improve on ways how
to prepare students for their internship and employments in future.

• Yesuselvi Manickam
• Tan Soon Chin

• Employers perspective
• internship
• structured learning
• student’s performances.

[1] Driscoll, J. (2006). A century of internship: A quick history of internship
and coops in the business world. Retrieved July 16, 2007, from
http://news.pghtech.org/teq/teqstory.cfm?id =1573.
[2] Renganathan, S., Karim, Z., & Li, C.S. (2011). Students’ perception of
industrial internship programme. Emerald Group Publishing Limited,
54(2/3), 180-191.
[3] Allen, S., Mims, C., Roberts, S., Kim, B., & Ryu, J. (2011). Internship
experience: Engaging in the big discourse. TechTrends, 48, 44-48.
[4] Simons, L., Fehr, L., Blank, N., Connell, H., Georgans, D., & Peterson,
V. (2012). Lesson learned from experiential learning: What do students
learn from a practicum/internship? International Journal of Teaching &
Learning in Higher Education, 24(3), 325-334.
[5] Gavigan, L. (2010). Connecting the classroom with real-world
experiences through summer internship. Peer Review, 12(4), 15-19.
[6] Gordon, D. (2002). Tracking internship outcomes through comparative
quantitative assessment. Journal of Career Planning and Employment.
62, 28-32.
[7] Bradys, A. (2007). What we teach and what they use: Teaching and
learning scientific and technical communication program and beyond.
Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 21, 37-67.
[8] Auburn, T., & Ley, A. (1993). Psychology undergraduates’ experiences
of placement: A role-transition perspective. Studies in Higher Education.
18(3), 265-285.
[9] Binks, M. (1996). Enterprise in higher education and the graduate labour
market. Education and Training. 38(2), 9-26.
[10] Mason, G., Williams, G. & Cranmer, S. (2006). Employability skills
initiatives in higher education: What effects do they have on graduate
labour market outcomes? National Institute of Economic and Social
Research, London.
[11] Rehling, L. (2001). Doing good while doing well: Service learning
internships. Business Communication Quarterly, 63(1), 77-89.
[12] Sapp, D.A, and Zhang, Q. (2009). Trends in industry supervisors’
feedback on business communication internships. Business
Communication Quarterly. doi: 10.1177/1080569909336450.
[13] Bailey, T., Hughes, K., and Barr, T. (2000). Achieving scale and quality
in school-to-work internship: Findings from two employer studies.
Educational Evaluation and Policy. Analysis, 22, 41-64.
[14] Gloria, A.M., Castillo, L.G., Choi-Pearson, C.P., and Rangel, D.K.
(1997). Competitive internship candidates: A national survey of
internship training directors. The Counselling Psychologist, 25, 453-472.
[15] Department of Communication and Liberal Arts Internship General
Guideline, 2015.