Capturing the Uniqueness of Student Learning Outcomes in Engineering Internship Courses

Abstract

There is widespread consensus that internship courses provide great opportunities for students to develop diverse knowledge and skills, including different types of generic competencies such as interpersonal communication skills and teamwork skills. Yet, compared to learning in the classroom, learning in the workplace is less predictable as the experience of each student intern may vary significantly across different workplace contexts. This presentation aims to respond to the challenge of identifying students’ learning outcomes from internship experience by presenting findings from in-depth interviews with six engineering students in Hong Kong.