Since the 1906 introduction of engineering cooperative education by Herman Schneider at the University of Cincinnati, cooperative education has spread throughout the nation dramatically (Godfrey, 1989). Recently, the interest in evaluating the outcomes of cooperative education for students has been increasing (Dawson, 1989, Fletcher, 1991, Williams, 1991, Wilson, 1989). It is a commonly held belief that co-op experience influences students' career outcomes. However, research identifying relevant career variables on the basis of well grounded theoretical literature, and empirically testing their relationship with co-op experience remains scarce (Wilson, 1988). Studies like that of Williams (1991) are still sparse. This study aims to understand the influence of co-op work experience on the career growth of engineering students. An engineering program was chosen because co-op education is considered to be firmly established in Engineering (Auld, 1971).
Among many other goals of a co-op program, Dawson (1973, 1989) believes that one of its primary goals is to help students in their career development. Research on career related issues has proliferated over the years (see Journal of Vocational Behavior for annual reviews). In this very versatile body of literature, Hall's (1976) perspective of career development is one of the most frequently and consistently used perspectives.
According to Hall (1976, p.31), career growth consists of an, "individual's knowledge, ability, or motivation related to his career role," and it involves, "personal development, the actual creation of new aspects of the self in the career area." This definition implies that career growth consists of: ( 1) one's knowledge about one's occupation (i.e., opportunities and requirements of the occupation); (2) an individual's knowledge about self-in-occupation (i.e., understanding of the relationship between career related aspects of one's own-self and the requirements and expectations of the occupation), and (3) the development of abilities and expertise required to succeed in the occupation (Sidhu, 1988). According to Schmidt, Hunter and Outerbridge (1986), specific work experience can play a key role in enhancing one's knowledge and skills related to that work. Fletcher (1990) also suggests that successful mastery experience can enhance a student's sense of competence. Such evidence and reasoning lead one to believe that co-op work experience should be related to the career growth dimensions listed and defined above. Such a relationship, however, can be expected to be affected by a student's level of co-op experience and grade level. Employers are more likely to assign students in higher grade levels with greater co-op experience to jobs related to their chosen occupations. The employers are likely to do so because of these students' greater academic training and greater work experience. The impact of co-op experience on the employers' treatment of students was documented by Siedenberg (1990). Hence, it is being argued in this paper that as the students' co-op experiences and grade levels increase, so will their chances of learning about their occupations, self-in-occupation and gaining occupation related abilities from their co-op jobs.
On the basis of the above mentioned literature and logic, in this study it is hypothesized that:
The sample of the study consists of 303 engineering students who were enrolled in the co-op program of a mid-western University. The data were mainly collected in the classroom immediately after the students' return from the coop work quarter. These were second, third and fourth year students with one, three and five quarters of co-op work experience respectively. The students represented all nine engineering majors offered by the University. See Appendix 1 for greater detail of the sample.
As defined above, career growth was assumed to have three dimensions (increase in knowledge about occupation, self-in-occupation and occupation related abilities). An eighteen item instrument was designed to measure the three dimensions. Factor analyses were used to divide the eighteen items into three scales of career growth. The reliability analyses indicated that the alpha was .74 for the first scale (increase in knowledge about occupation), .88 for the second scale (increase in knowledge about self-in-occupation) and .91 for the third scale (increase in occupation related abilities). Scale items are presented in Appendix 2.
To evaluate the contribution of a co-op job according to the grade level as hypothesized, second, third and fourth year students were approached within a week of their return from their co-op work quarter. They were instructed to think of their co-op jobs during the past quarter while answering questions related to their career growth. Because of the design of the University's co-op program, the second year students in this sample were referring to their first co-op job, third year students were referring to their third co-op job while the fourth year students were referring to their fifth co-op job.
Hypothesis 1: Students in higher grade levels with greater co-op work experience will report learning more about their occupation from their latest co-op job than the students in lower grade levels with lesser co-op work experience.
To test this hypothesis, one way analysis of variance (ANOV A) was used. The results are presented in Table 1.
| Grade Level | Mean1 | N | Std. Dev | F | Sig. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Second Year | 3.38 | 109 | .64 | ||
| Third Year | 3.64 | 90 | .58 | ||
| Fourth Year | 3.72 | 101 | .54 | 10.03 | .0001 |
As hypothesized, the means of three groups were in ascending order. The fourth year students with the most co-op experience reported the contribution of the most recent co-op job to their occupational knowledge to be the highest among the three groups while the second year students with least amount of co-op work experience reported its contribution to their occupational knowledge to be the lowest. The follow-up tests (Least-Significant Difference and Scheffe procedure at .01 level of alpha) indicated that the mean of second year students was significantly lower than the means of third or fourth year students on occupational knowledge. However, there was no statistical difference between the means of the third and the fourth year students. Implications of these results are discussed later in the paper.
Hypothesis 2: Students in higher grade levels with greater co-op work experience will report learning more about their own role in the occupation ( self-in-occupation) from their latest co-op job than the students in the lower grade levels with lesser co-op work experience.
As hypothesized, students in higher grade levels reported learning more about self-in-occupation from their most recent co-op job than did the students in lower grade levels. The results of one-way ANOV A are presented in Table 2.
| Grade Level | Mean1 | N | Std. Dev | F | Sig. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Second Year | 3.15 | 108 | .64 | ||
| Third Year | 3.44 | 89 | .61 | ||
| Fourth Year | 3.61 | 101 | .51 | 16.18 | .0001 |
As indicated by Table 2, the group means are in the hypothesized direction. The second year students reported the lowest level of knowledge about self-inoccupation resulting from their latest co-op job and the fourth year students reported the highest level of knowledge. The follow-up analyses indicated that the self-in-occupation knowledge of the third and the fourth year students was significantly higher than the second year students, but there was no statistical significant difference between the means of the third and the fourth year students. Implications of this finding are discussed later in the paper.
Hypothesis 3: Students in higher grade levels with greater co-op work experience will report acquiring more occupation related abilities as a result of their latest co-op job than the students in the lower grade levels with lesser co-op work experience.
The results of the one-way ANOV A (see Table 3) indicated that the hypothesis was true.
| Grade Level | Mean1 | N | Std. Dev | F | Sig. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Second Year | 3.47 | 109 | .83 | ||
| Third Year | 3.74 | 89 | .72 | ||
| Fourth Year | 3.91 | 102 | .63 | 9.86 | .0001 |
Table 3 indicates that as students' grade levels and the amount of co-op work experience increased, they reported having more occupation related abilities as a result of their last co-op job. The mean of occupational abilities resulting from the co-op job was the highest for the fourth year students who had the highest level of co-op work experience, and the lowest for the second year students who had the least amount of co-op work experience. According to follow up procedures at the .01 alpha level, the average reported ability of fourth year students was significantly higher than the reported ability of second year students. No other statistical differences were found among the means of the other groups at the .01 alpha level, but at the .05 level, third year students reported having higher occupational ability, than did the second year students. The differences between the third and the fourth year students were still not significant.
As hypothesized, students in higher grade levels with greater co-op work experience reported that their latest co-op job provided them with greater knowledge about their occupations, self-in-occupation, and greater occupation related abilities than did the students in lower grade levels with lesser co-op work experience. As discussed previously, knowledge of occupation, self-in-occupation and occupational ability are considered to define career growth. In other words, the students in higher grade levels with more co-op work experience report experiencing more career growth as a result of their latest co-op job than do students in lower grade levels with lesser co-op work experience. Contrary to expectations, however, the differences in the career growth between the third and the fourth year students were statistically insignificant. On the basis of these findings, it appears that the students benefit the most from their first three co-op quarters. While the fourth year students in their fifth co-op work quarter reported learning more from their latest co-op job than did the second or the third year students, the learning is not significantly higher. The impact of the co-op jobs seems to stabilize after the third year or third co-op work quarter.
The findings of the study raise two major questions. First, why does the impact of the co-op job stabilize after the third year; second, what does this mean for the administrators and participants of the co-op programs?
There may be two possible reasons for the lack of significant acceleration in the career growth of fourth year students over the third year students. First, as the basic knowledge level of the students increases, the percentage increases from one level to the next keep getting smaller to a point where there are no statistical differences between the two levels. It is possible that the limited range of the scale contributed to this effect.
A second possible explanation, deals with the nature of the students' co-op work experience. The hypothesis that co-op jobs contribute to student career growth according to the grade level and the amount of co-op experience is based on the assumption that students in higher grades with more work experience obtain jobs more highly related to their occupations, and therefore have more career related work experience. To check the validity of the assumption, students were asked about the career relevance of their work experience. While the third and the fourth year students reported having more career related work experience on the job than the second year students, the career relevance of the fourth year students' work was not significantly higher than the third year students. If the fourth year students did not have any more career related work experience than the third year students, then it is not surprising that the level of their career growth resulting from the coop job was not significantly higher than that of the third year students. The significance of career relevance of work experience for student career growth was highlighted when the researchers correlated career related work experience with the three dimensions of career growth. Career relevant work experience explained 31%, 38% and 53% of the variance in students' knowledge about occupation, selfin-occupation and occupational ability respectively.
The second explanation of the results of this study has many serious implications. First, co-op jobs contribute the most to a student's career growth when they provide career related work experience. Therefore the sheer number of co-op work assignments is of less importance, and the quality of a student's work experience is of much greater significance. Actually, the researchers found that if the effect of work quality (as measured by the career relevance of the actual work experience) is accounted for first, the contribution of the co-op job to a student's career growth at any grade level is almost insignificant. This means that subsequent research needs to focus on variables that influence the quality of a student's work experience. The role of an immediate supervisor or a student's ability to negotiate for relevant work assignments may be worth examining though the practical issues, such as, the confidentiality or security of information involved in a job cannot be ignored either.
The second implication relates to the ideal number of co-op work quarters in a program. The results of this study imply that a co-op program should have at least three work quarters. Students reported learning more from the third coop quarter than they did from the first co-op work quarter but the fifth co-op work quarter did not seem to make significantly more contributions to career growth than the third co-op work quarter. Does this mean that the fifth or subsequent work quarter may not he as critical as the first three'? This study was not specifically designed to address the issue of the ideal number of co-op work quarters. Future studies should explore the relative contribution of each co-op work quarter on a student's career growth and other outcome variables to determine the ideal number of co-op work quarters.
In summary, the major contributions of this study lie in the fact that it empirically documented the significance of career related co-op work experience for student career growth from the students' perspective; and it indicated that the contribution of co-op jobs to student career growth may vary depending upon the career relevance of the job. It also brought to the surface the issues of quality and quantity of work experience, and the ideal number of co-op work quarters. More research is needed to explore the issue of quantity versus quality of co-op work experience and the relative impact of the two on a student's career outcomes.