Internships and the Assessment of Student Learning

ABSTRACTThe use of internships is a powerful learning tool that allow business students to make connections between their classroom experience and the world of work. If designed appropriately and positioned correctly in the curriculum, they can also be an ideal opportunity to conduct assurance of learning activities related to business school accreditation. This study reports on survey results relating to business schools ' use of internships in their assurance of learning efforts and describes one school's successful attempt to use internships as the key platform for its well-developed assurance of learning program.JEL: M10KEYWORDS: assessment, internships, student learning, experiential learning, business educationINTRODUCTIONA significant body of literature suggests that people leam most effectively through active learning, when they do something with their knowledge [e.g. Bonwell & Eison, 1991]. Observers both outside and inside the academy have criticized business schools' for providing so few active, practical learning experiences. For example, the Accounting Education Change Commission [1990], and Pearce [1999], both criticize the lack of relevance in business education, especially the lack of practical experiences such as those provided by internships. As we discuss in a later section, internships are an effective, active learning tool in the business disciplines. In addition to the practical experience, internships provide an opportunity to incorporate academic assignments in which students connect their internships to their classroom business curriculum. This linking of theory and work experience can enhance the total business education for students helping to ensure that students see the relevance of thenclassroom learning. Despite the criticism offered by outsiders and the apparent benefits of internships as an educational tool, research suggests that very few business schools require all students to complete internships [Updyke & Sander, 2005].In addition to being a relevant and effective educational practice, internships and their attendant academic assignments provide an effective platform on which to conduct assessment activities (called "assurance of learning" or "AOL" in business schools). Revisions to the Accreditation Standards for Business Accreditation from the AACSB International (AACSB) have generated unprecedented interest in AOL activities and nearly all business schools are seeking better methods for demonstrating that their students are, indeed, learning what they intend for them to learn. Students successfully drawing on concepts and skills learned in previous academic experiences and applying them to an actual work situation are more powerful indications of learning than AOL attached to the classroom course in which students first learn those concepts and skills. As outlined in the 1992 American Association for Higher Education Assessment Forum's Nine Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning [American Association for Higher Education, 1992], schools need to assess not only what students learn at a particular time in a particular course, but also what they can do with what they know through later performance. In other words, AOL should involve evaluating the effects of an entire program on student learning and students' ability to integrate and apply what they have learned. A well-developed AOL program entails a much broader view than evaluating what students learn in a particular course and assessment connected to internships are an ideal element ofthat sort of AOL program.Since the mid-1980s, the Butler University College of Business (COB) has required all students to complete two internships. The faculty has always been adamant that a substantial proportion of the course grade must be based on academic papers and presentations, both of which reflect students' connection of business concepts to their work experiences. The grading structure remains relatively unchanged since the program began, and calls for 30 percent of course grades to be based on supervisors' evaluations, with 70 percent based on instructors' evaluation of written and oral assignments. …