College/University Coordinators' Perceptions of Quality Indicators for Co-op/Internship Sites ¹

When colleges and universities send students off campus to co-op/internship sites, the students have a right to expect their professional experiences to offer them high-quality learning opportunities. The school, however, faces a dilemma: on one hand, it wants students to receive high-quality learning experiences, while on the other, it exercises little quality control over site activities. This study, as part of a larger research program, offers a partial resolution by establishing nationally-based quality guidelines for co-op/internship sites. Such guidelines should help schools be proactive through communicating quality expectations at the onset of the experience rather than reactively dropping an unsatisfactory site from participation after students report negative experiences.

Quality

The term "quality" is subject to a wide variety of applications. A computerized version of The American Heritage Dictionary generated 660 other definitions containing the term. For purposes of this study, the term "quality" was defined as a level of superiority, or a degree of excellence. Several authors, writing in cooperative education, have advanced a fitness-for-use definition suggesting that quality is relative to the needs of the consumer (Juran, Gryna, & Bingham, 1988; Winter, 1974). In other words, one does not need to build a Rolls-Royce in order to make a quality automobile. This particular orientation to quality is the one advocated in this investigation.

Laycock, Hermon, and Laetz (1992) indicated that much of what we know about developing and maintaining quality cooperative education programs is based on case studies and testimonials from experienced college and university personnel. The co-op literature generally relates quality to that which is satisfactory, excellent, good, or successful while the term itself is rarely used or defined (Davies, 1979; Getty, Abrahamson, Evans, & Wilber, 1976; Laycock et al., 1992; Stern, Stone, Hopkins, McMillion, & Cagampang, 1992). The guidelines we will isolate constitute a preliminary working definition of co-op site quality grounded in the collective experiences of cooperative education professionals.

The purpose of this investigation is expressed in a single research question: What are the indicators of quality at co-op/internship sites?

Advice from the Literature

The co-op/internship literature is replete with lists of benefits and outcomes of successful programs. While none of these studies address learning quality per se, many can be indirectly translated into indicators of site quality. An examination of this literature suggests eight categories of advice: relevance of work, on-site instruction, problem solving, communication, social/personal development, career awareness, professional development, and student involvement. Each of these categories will be discussed below.

The literature suggests that co-op duties ought to be relevant to the student's prior classroom learning, and should constitute an educationally significant experience (Apostolides & Looye, 1997; Cross, 1975; Downs, Harper, & Hunt, 1976). Peart (1974) surveyed co-op students and found they appreciated gaining a better understanding of the relationship between theory and practice. McNutt (1989) focused more on the perceptions of faculty and found that they valued theoretical insights attained from students involved in co-op experiences. Stern et al. (1992) encouraged site personnel to make student work interesting by assigning a variety of challenging duties. In fact, Sharma, Mannell, and Rowe (1995) concluded, "only when students work in jobs related to their career goals are they likely to acquire information or develop skills that will produce career development. "(p. 46)

The literature also tells us that site supervisors, beyond offering their experience and patience, should enrich the learning dimension of the work through on-site instruction (Cross, 1975; Dawson, 1989). Page, Wiseman, and Crary (1981) found that students who received explicit instruction during their co-op experiences tended to experience increased career clarity. More recently, Gibson and Angel (1995) suggested that an additional person other than the site supervisor (for example, a mentor) might accept the responsibility of coaching students, providing them with career information, furnishing them with a vision of the wider organization, and, perhaps, debriefing them regarding "office politics."

Authors have suggested that time be provided to give students opportunities to engage in problemsolving in the contexts of their autonomous work setting or with experienced co-workers (Cross, 1975; Knechtel & Leithwood, 1995; Laycock et al., 1992; Weston, 1983). Van Gyn, Cutt, Loken, and Ricks (1997), in a longitudinal analysis that incorporated pre- and post-test measurements, found a significant difference in co-op problem solving abilities over those of non-co-ops.

Communication occurs when individuals construct meanings about shared messages and accurately interpret others' intentions. Several authors have implied that quality co-op experiences help students learn to communicate effectively on an adult-to-adult level (McNutt, 1989; Weston, 1983). Effective site communication is necessary for the transfer of responsibility of learning to the student (Kaye, 1996; Knecthel & Leithwood, 1995). Knecthel and Leithwood identified such communication and thinking skills as self-monitoring, participation in problem solving, reflection on activities, and applying knowledge to unfamiliar situations. According to Apostolides and Looye (1997), advanced co-op students should be allowed to sit in on meetings, voice their opinions, and exhibit their critical thinking skills. Written communication skills can be enhanced through keeping journals and writing field reports (Alm, 1996; Dawson, 1989; McCormick, 1993).

Numerous claims have been made regarding the benefit of co-op experiences to the social/personal development of students. Peart (197 4), one of the earliest co-op researchers, found improved interpersonal skills resulting from co-op experiences. Subsequently, Wilson, Brown, Bork, and Black (1975) reported that students valued the personal growth they gained from participating in positive co-op experiences. Students grow in maturity, industry, responsibility, understanding, and concern for others. Weston (1983) argued that being held accountable on the job contributed to student development and self-confidence. More specifically, Mueller (1992) provided evidence that cooperative education helps students develop instrumental autonomy (i.e., the ability to use resources to obtain an end). More recently, however, Van Gyn et al. (1997) found a positive relationship between participation in cooperative education and functioning in social institutions, suggesting that student growth may be generalizable beyond the co-op experience.

Enhanced career awareness is a repeated claim in the co-op literature. Peart (197 4) reported that students had a better understanding of the world of work as a result of their co-op experiences. This finding is consistent with Wilson et al.'s (1975) extensive survey of 469 co-op students, who reported that career development was one of the highest ranked co-op outcomes. Further, Cornelius (1978) discovered a significant increase in career awareness by co-ops over non-co-ops. Laycock et al. (1992) asserted that students are attracted to cooperative education, in part, to learn more about their chosen fields, and concluded that the experience helps clarify job expectations. These authors further suggested that students are attracted to co-op because they expect a competitive edge in the job market.

Student professional development has been perceived as a fundamental co-op benefit. Page et al. (1981) suggested that co-op students perform a variety of duties under moderate time constraints in order to parallel the pressures of professional life. Others have reported that cooperative education not only gives students an appreciation for the meaning of work, but helps them realize that some aspects of professional work are often routine and not necessarily glamorous (Coll, Eames, & Halsey, 1997; McNutt , 1989).

Previous literature relates student involvement to site learning, e.g., productivity, initiative, academics, and willingness to learn. Students should be expected to contribute meaningful and productive work for the host organization (Davies, 1979; Laycock et al., 1992). They can demonstrate initiative by seeking out relevant and interesting duties, and indicating a willingness to adjust to and meet site challenges (Alexander, 1995; Dawson, 1989). Students should be encouraged to extract theoretical insights from observing and interviewing site personnel. They need to understand the thought and reasoning processes of persons who, through training and experience, have honed practical principles guiding their career choices (Page, 1982). So, through observing, performing, and asking questions, students can understand applied principles and compare them with those discussed in their classes (Dawson, 1989; McN utt, 1989; Page, 1982). Co-op students need to show a receptivity to suggestions and constructive criticism (Dawson, 1989).

The above literature review provided a key source of many of the items included on the survey questionnaire. Their inclusion is not necessarily an endorsement of the claims; indeed, there are numerous contradictory findings (e.g., Ricks, Cutt, Branton, Loken, & Van Gyn, 1993). Given the diversity and possible equivocation in the various claims, the present research study attempted to find a simpler and more consistent set of recommendations for quality co-op experiences. This was accomplished by first extensively surveying college and university co-op/internship coordinators and then analyzing their comments to determine a smaller and more manageable set of recommendations for quality learning. The data reduction technique employed was exploratory factor analysis.

Method

Based on the above literature review, along with input from four focus groups consisting of 24 co-op professionals at a cooperative education workshop, a 60-item questionnaire was constructed. The questionnaire was subsequently critiqued by three faculty coordinators, three site supervisors, and three past co-op/intern students who were asked to examine the face-validity of each item and evaluate the overall readability of the questionnaire. It was revised according to their suggestions. As can be seen in Table I, the 60 items dealt with specific aspects of the co-op/internship experience, for example, "site personnel should provide students with career information and advice" or "co-op students/interns should ask informed questions." To facilitate completion of the 60 items, the items on the questionnaire were clustered into three parts: what students should do while on site, what site personnel should do, and what students should do. It was felt that clustering these items would help focus the items as well as increase the ease by which the questionnaire would be completed. By clustering the items into three parts, we ran the risk of a potential response bias (e.g., the attention of the respondent would be focused on specific aspects of the internship). However, given that there were 60 items and a mail survey method was being used, it was felt that minimizing any potential fatigue effects and increasing the response rate to the questionnaire were more important. The respondents were asked to rate the items by generalizing across their professional co-op/internship experiences. To evaluate the items, each was assigned a seven-point scale ranging from "somewhat important" to "extremely important."

A total of 1,080 survey questionnaires were mailed to school co-op/internship coordinators. The survey sample was based on membership lists of two cooperative education associations with members from the United States, Canada, and the Territory of Guam. A total of 383 completed and returned the survey generating a return rate of 35.4%. Nearly three-fourths (74.7%) of the participants had four or more years of experience in their respective co-op/internship programs. In addition to evaluating the importance of each item for generating site quality, the respondents were invited to supply written comments.

Results

Descriptive Statistics

Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics (i.e., means and standard deviations) for the 60 items. The five items obtaining the greatest levels of agreement were: students should be diligent and dependable (mean = 6.77), students should demonstrate an ability to learn and perform abilities (6.57), students should be receptive to constructive criticism from site personnel (6.56), students should be given challenging duties/assignments (6.37), and students should actively seek opportunities to contribute (6.35). The five items receiving the least agreement were: students should be provided a personalized work space (4.17), students should conduct outside research on site-related problems (4.39), students should be exposed to "office politics" (4.79). students should identify themselves as co-ops/interns in dealings with others (4.81), and site personnel should provide instructional sessions for co-op/intern students (4.92).

Dimensions of Quality Site Learning Experiences

The 60 items were factor analyzed using principal axis factoring. Cattell's (1966) Scree Test and factor interpretability were used as criteria for determining the number of factors to be extracted. A total of five factors were indicated based on these criteria. The five factors accounted for 46.3% of the total variance in the items. The five factors were then rotated using an Oblimin rotation with Kaiser normalization. The five-factor solution is presented in Table 2. The inter-correlations among the factors were all positive and in the .20 - .35 range.

The first factor accounted for 31.3% of the total variance in the sixty items. As indicated in Table 2, a total of nine items had significant (i.e., > .40) loadings on this factor. The five highest of these significant-loading items were: site personnel should help students network within the industry (factor loading = .57), site personnel should help students establish their professional identities (.55), co-op students should conduct outside research on site-related problems (.50), site personnel should provide instruction sessions for co-op students (.46), and site personnel should help students to identify and define problems (.45). The common thread running through the items for Factor 1 involves the development of student professionalism and professional connections. For this reason, this factor was labeled student professional development. An inter-item reliabilities analysis was computed on the nine items and the results suggested high reliability (alpha= .88).

The second factor accounted for 5.0% of the total variance in the 60 items. Eight items had significant loadings on this factor. The five items having the highest loadings were: co-op students should actively seek opportunities to contribute (factor loading = .71), co-op students should demonstrate an ability to learn and perform duties (.63). co-op students should be receptive to constructive criticism from site personnel (.63), co-op students should demonstrate measurable progress (.62), and co-op students should be diligent and dependable (.61). The items for Factor 2 refer to student ability to learn and to express professional conduct; thus, this factor was labeled student professionalism on site. An inter-item reliabilities analysis indicated a high degree of reliability for the eight items loading significantly on this factor (alpha= .88).

Table 1
Descriptive Statistics for Questionnaire Items

The third factor accounted for 3.8% of the total variance in the 60 items and had six items load significantly on it. These six items were: co-op students should be helped to develop their oral communication skills (factor loading= .77), co-op students should be helped with their written communication skills (.71), co-op students should be helped to develop their social interaction skills (.68), co-op students should be exposed to the expectations of business ethics (.52), co-op students should be given help regarding their career directions (.52), and co-op students should be exposed to practical problem solving methods (.46). The prominent theme in these items concerns student abilities to think, communicate and deal with others. Thus, this factor was labeled student thinking and communication skills. The inter-item reliability analysis on the six items composing this factor was satisfactory (alpha= .74).

The fourth factor accounted for 3.2% of the total variance in the 60 items and had nine items that loaded significantly on it. The four highest loading items were: site personnel should show thoughtfulness regarding co-op/intern involvement (factor loading = .60), co-op students should apply their classroom learning to their work assignments (.55), site personnel should serve as role models of professional behavior (.50), and co-op students should be assigned duties directly related to their fields of study (.49). Since the items for Factor 4 suggest involving the application or modeling of principles discussed in the classroom or desired in co-op students, it was decided to label this factor, challenging learning experiences. The inter-item reliability analysis of the nine items composing this factor was high (alpha = .83).

Table 2
Factor Pattern Matrix with Factor Loadings for Questionnaire Items

The fifth and final factor accounted for 3.0% of the total variance in the 60 items. The six items that had significant loadings on this factor were: students should learn and maintain appropriate grooming/attire (factor loading= .53), students should identify themselves as co-ops/interns in dealing with others (.48), students should express appreciation for their co-op/internship experiences (.47), students should be given the perception of gaining an edge in the job market (.43), students should view themselves as ambassadors for their schools (.43), and students should be shown that not all aspects of work are glamorous (.40). These items seem to refer to student deportment, dress, and roles at the work site. Thus, the factor was labeled student demeanor of pride and competence. The inter-item reliability for these four items was high (alpha= .78).

Discussion

The present research was motivated by a need to clarify and simplify the recommendations for attaining quality learning experiences resulting from student site participation in cooperative education. Given the extant literature's rather diverse and equivocal recommendations, this study systematically analyzed 60 posited ingredients for quality co-op sites. The responses of 383 co-op/ internship coordinators were factor analyzed to find a simpler representation of the diverse advice offered. The five factors found provide the bases for five guidelines for persons desiring to generate, maintain, or improve quality site experiences. Each of these guidelines will be discussed in terms of its implications for site learning and how it might be implemented. Further, behaviors that may detract from site quality will be mentioned.

Quality site experiences should promote the professional development of students. The first factor discerned - student professional development - covers a host of concerns. Site supervisors (and other site personnel) should isolate aspects of their professional identities that they perceive to be important and explicitly share them with their co-op/intern students. When the site supervisor's credibility is high, students are inclined to model positive behaviors. Professional development of students is further enhanced through exposure to workplace problem identification and analysis (Coll et al., 1997). A sense of professional responsibility is encouraged when site personnel expect students to reflect on their experiences while not on duty. Finally, a sense of professionalism is enhanced when students are encouraged to establish a network of professional acquaintances within the work unit, throughout the larger organization, and with persons in the organization's external environment. To keep from impeding professional development, students ought not be treated as entry-level (or junior) employees relegated to a single duty with minimal training and supervision.

Quality site experiences should encourage students to be professional toward their co-op/internship efforts. The second factor concerned student professionalism on site. Students need to enter the co-op experiences with an internalized sense of dependability and diligence. When they are punctual and show a genuine interest, their credibility is enhanced. Students are encouraged to demonstrate a strong desire to learn, effectively perform their agreed upon duties, and demonstrate recognizable progress. They should actively seek opportunities to contribute. Through a professional approach to the co-op work experience, students will acquire an enhanced sense of responsibility, increased self-confidence, and articulated organizational skills (Jessup, 1994). Students should not view co-op/internship experiences as ones in which they are low-level employees who need to be constantly told what to do. They should never view the experiences as just a "job."

Quality site experiences should help students develop their professionally related thinking and communication skills. The fourth factor extracted from the input from co-op/internship coordinators focuses on student thinking and communication skills. From their classroom experiences, students are expected to bring basic thinking and communication skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, presenting and report writing. Site personnel, through instruction and modeling, should help students adapt those skills to the practical expectations of professional work. The opposites of the above behaviors should be avoided, such as using specious reasoning, verbally undermining colleagues, and other unprofessional communication acts. Also limiting students to observation of the communication activities of others ought to be avoided, as observing alone does not allow students to become effective workplace thinkers and communicators.

Quality site experiences should provide students with challenging learning experiences. Challenging learning experiences - the fourth factor - can result from careful planning and thoughtfulness on the part of site personnel. Student duties should be, directly or indirectly, related to their major fields of study, but it is important to realize that formal education extends beyond the student's major. Relevance can usually be found within this broader concern. Situations in which all or most duties are highly unrelated to the student's career direction would contribute to low quality experiences. It has been reported that a marketing student in a paid internship was allowed to participate in marketing functions only after other job duties (e.g., secretarial and shop labor) were met (Cheslik, 1989). Coll et al. (1997), in a survey of co-op experiences in New Zealand, reported the most common negative finding was that work was often too repetitive and not sufficiently challenging. Sharma et al. (1995) asserted that students working in unsatisfactory jobs are not likely to be motivated to acquire the skills or knowledge necessary for growth. In brief, site personnel should avoid the temptation to capitalize on free or cheap labor through exploiting students eager to learn and become members of a profession.

Quality site experiences should encourage students to conduct themselves in ways that justify a demeanor of pride and competence. The last factor focused on the student's demeanor of pride and competence at the co-op/internship site. As ambassadors of their colleges and universities, students need to maintain attire and grooming habits that meet the expectations of the work site. Students should view work sites as extensions of the classroom where learning is a priority and respected. In addition, they should approach their site duties as willing participants while realizing that some aspects of professional life may be routine and unglamorous. Throughout the experience, students should express appreciation to site personnel for the help they receive. This should occur overtly and be reinforced through fine work. Throughout the entire site experience. students should pay careful attention to the ways in which they present themselves to leave a positive lasting impression.

Conclusion and Directions for Future Research

This study is both comprehensive and systematic. It is comprehensive in its application across disciplines, types of co-op/internship sites, and geographical settings. It is systematic in that it analyzes the assessments of a large sample of co-op/internship professionals regarding the nature of site quality. This study generated five dimensions of co-op/internship site quality that are grounded in the experiences of cooperative education professionals. These dimensions yielded five guidelines for developing quality learning experiences at sites.

These dimensions of learning quality need to be communicated to site personnel. Fortunately, a number of site directors subscribe to this journal. For others, the school coordinators can share them with site personnel directly. Further, school coordinators may opt to include these findings in a site evaluation form to be shared with site personnel and completed by the student at the end of the co-op experience. Hopefully, sharing of this information will provide the impetus for site personnel to review their efforts from the perspective of quality learning for students.

Several questions regarding co-op/internship quality still remain. Since this study is based on perceptions of school co-op/internship directors and coordinators, one might ask about the perceptions of persons at the sites - site supervisors and students. Research should ascertain a more comprehensive set of quality guidelines in the future. Until such guidelines are established, it is advisable for school coordinators to support and encourage those presented in this study. These guidelines will help ensure off-campus learners an increased probability of receiving high quality co-op/internship site learning experiences. Other questions invite additional research: How might the college or university use quality guidelines most effectively to ensure quality site experiences for students, and how might the university assure site quality without offending or attempting to control site personnel?