Types of Assessment Methods

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Internship

What is an Internship Programme?
Internships are work-related professional learning programmes that offer students a temporary exposure in a career field with emphasis on job training at a company or an organization for a period of time. Students can gain real-world experiences and practical skills through their internship placements before graduation. The internship experiences can enhance the students� ability to integrate academic knowledge with practical applications, improve career prospects upon graduation, develop social and human relation skills in the workplace, and to provide opportunities for students to put their generic skills into practice.

Academic and internship supervisors play important roles in internship programme. They have to collaborate with each other for planning the internship programme. Furthermore, they have to develop an effective assessment approach to evaluate students� performance in the internship programme. Employers are also responsible for providing orientation and training for familiarizing students with the working environment.

Structure of Internship Assessment

The structure of internship assessment depends very much on the discipline in which the assessment takes place. Different assessment approaches are often used across different disciplines.

Internship assessment consists of academic elements and worksite elements. Academic elements can be regarded as the application of academic knowledge and educational development. Worksite elements may refer to the willingness to learn, teamwork and cooperation, initiative, analytical thinking, computer literacy, concern for order, quality and accuracy, and written communication skills.

Academic and internship supervisors often require students to provide a portfolio in an internship programme. The portfolio is a collection of student assessments in various aspects, and shows how much the students achieved the learning objectives and practical skills through the internship programme. The portfolio usually constitutes a number of assessment methods, such as multiple choice tests, final paper, project, open-ended questions, weekly e-mails and e-journals, e-forums and discussions, self-evaluation and questionnaire. For example, when students have finished their internship programme, they may be asked to write an essay describing what they have learned from the programme; students are required to regularly submit emails or e-journals to report to their academic and employer supervisors regarding their progress and experiences throughout the internship programme.


  Declarative
Y Functioning
Y Take Time to Set
Y Take Time to Answer
  Take Time to Correct
Y Take Time to provide Feedback
  Suitable for Large Class
  Can substitute with Computers
  Passive
Y Active
Y Process Oriented Method
Y Product Oriented Method

Advantages of Internship Assessment
  • Provides a way for employers to evaluate the competence of a potential employee before committing to hire
  • Allows the students to have an adequate understanding of the industry before taking it as their career by exposing them to industry experiences
  • Provides students with opportunities to develop their generic skills, such as time management, responsibility, communication skills, self-discipline, heightened initiative and to develop their overall self-concept
  • Enhances professional development among students with the provision of business contacts, as well as knowledge of the job market
  • Helping students to set up a realistic career expectation, and understand their strengths and shortcomings through the internship programme
Disadvantages of Internship Assessment
  • Students are often disconnected from the academic resources and people they rely on to bridge academic knowledge with real-world applications
  • For the assessment tools, it may be difficult to determine the quality required to achieve a satisfactory grade; for example, what are the requirements for getting a distinction?
  • There may be a �mismatch� in the concept of what the academics and employers believe to be �good performance� of students, when assessing their performance throughout the internship programme
  • Employers may treat students differently during an internship programme, and sometimes students may gain bad experiences. This may lead to bad career choices later.
How to design a good Internship Assessment?
  1. To set up a series of goals based upon the mission statement of the internship company or organization, and the learning objectives of the university
  2. To provide clear guidelines for students, academics and employers to understand their role and responsibility in an internship programme
  3. Academics and employers have to determine the appropriate instruments to effectively measure the achievements of students
  4. Academics and employers also have to negotiate with each other to decide the grading criteria on the students; such as the way to determine each instrument is analyzed, the way to interpret the different assessment instruments, and the way to improve the internship programme. This can ensure the academics and employers have a clear agreement on what they want to assess
  5. A good communication channel is required between the academics, employers and students
Marking Rubrics

MARKING RUBRICS Excellent Proficient Average Poor
Application of academic knowledge: Competently applied the academic knowledge in completing the tasks (e.g. perfectly performed every procedure for the tasks; effectively looked for and suggested solutions by applying academic knowledge) Satisfactorily applied the academic knowledge in finishing the task, but assistance was needed Attempted to apply the academic knowledge in each task but committed some mistakes and help was needed Failed to apply any academic knowledge in most of the tasks
Generic skills: Able to manage the time to finish every task; being initiative to communicate and listen to opinions of others; demonstrated excellent logical and critical thinking skills in problem solving; can work independently all the time; showed an really enthusiastic working attitude; being punctual to work Able to manage the time to finish most of the tasks; willing to communicate and listen to the opinions from other colleagues, but being passive sometime; showed a good logical and critical thinking skills in problem solving; can work independently most of the time, but sometimes needed assistance; showed a good working attitude; being punctual to work Able to finish tasks on time but occasionally with some delay; being passive to communicate and listen to opinions of others, sometimes may not pay attentions to other�s ideas; lacked good logical and critical thinking skills; with some difficulty to work independently; showed an average attitude to work; being punctual most of the time Failed to finish most of the tasks on time; resistant to communicate with other colleagues; no logical and critical thinking skills were observed; cannot work without relying on other colleagues; showed a poor working attitude; often being late
Reflection: Being initiative to contact their teachers and internship supervisors throughout the programme; being insightful on all aspects of what they have learnt; reflected deeply about how their learning has created positive and significant changes to them Willing to contact their teachers and internship supervisors most of the time; being insightful on most aspects of what they have learnt; sufficiently reflected about how their learning has created positive and significant changes to them Contacted teachers and internship supervisors occasionally; being insightful on a few aspects of what they have learnt; showed little change to their learning attitude Being very passive to contact teachers and internship supervisors unless requested; rarely expressed any reflection or insight regarding the learning experience

Web Reference and Resources
  • Alpert, F., Heaney, J.-G., & Kuhn, K.-A. L. (2009). Internships in marketing: Goals, structures and assessment � student, company and academic perspectives. Australasian Marketing Journal, 17, 36-45.
  • Beard, D. F. (2007). Assessment of internship experiences and accounting core competencies. Accounting Education, 16, 207-220.
  • Verney, T. P., Holoviak, S. J., & Winter, A. S. Enhancing the reliability of internship evaluations. Journal of Applied Business and Economics.
    http://www.na-businesspress.com/JABE/Verney1Web.pdf
  • Wasserman, B. D. (2008). Measuring construction internships. International Proceedings of the 44th Annual Conference, April 2008.
  • Wilkinson, K. (2008). Using breeze for communication and assessment of internships: An exploratory study. Journal of Educators Online, 5.
  • Whitfield, D., Bailie, F. K., & Abunawass, A. M. (2007). Assessment and its role in accreditation. International Conference on Frontiers in Education of Computer Science and Engineering, July 2007.
  • Zegwaard, Z., Coll, R. K., & Hodges, D. (2003). Assessment of workplace learning: A framework. Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education, 4, 10-18.
To Reference these pages

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Chan C.(2009) Assessment: Internship, Assessment Resources@HKU, University of Hong Kong [http://ar.cetl.hku.hk]: Available: Accessed: DATE