Factors influencing the quality of training of undergraduate interns: A quantitative study

Abstract

Internship trainings are the first-hand experience to undergraduates which expose them to the practical career before they compete in the actual job market. For most students, this internship training program is the first practical experience they have ever had in their lifetime. This research was executed not only to find out the training factors influencing the effectiveness of internship program, but also to measure the performance level trainees. It was formulated with an objective to find out the significantly varying pairs of training factors responded by the interns. A sample size of 50 fresh interns from Faculty of Commerce and Management of Eastern University of Sri Lanka were administered for a structured questionnaire survey. In addition to the descriptive statistics, a non-parametric Mann-Whitney test was used to compare, since analysed factors are unrelated, independent, and non-normally distributed to find out the statistically different pairs of factors. The need of training, quality of resource personnel, commitments towards training, method of training and final appraisal were the found out as five broad categorical factors in this study. Out of ten, there were only three pairs of factors showed significant difference which were bounded by four factors analysed. One factor was not detected as producing significance when compared with the other factors. Despite the training provided, eligibility and preparedness of interns for the internship training was also raised a concern. Not all the expectations as interns are fulfilled during the internship training, therefore highly specific training related to the field is recommended. This research may be useful for host organizations in deciding and orienting to train the interns appropriately with specific objectives to make sure they cater their purpose