Evaluation of an Interview-Based Internship Class in the Construction Management Curriculum: A Case Study of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Internships have been shown to be impactful tools to connect students’ learning in academia with real-world industrial needs. To help the students to get more out of their internship experience, some universities provide a summer internship class in which students do class assignments based on their...

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Published inEducation sciences Vol. 10; no. 4; pp. 109 - 124
Main Authors Karji, Ali, Bernstein, Stuart, Tafazzoli, Mohammadsoroush, Taghinezhad, Arash, Mohammadi, Arefeh
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published MDPI AG 01.04.2020
Subjects
Administrator Education
Case studies
class assessment
College Curriculum
College Faculty
College Students
construction education
Construction Management
Curricula
Instructional Effectiveness
internship
Internship Programs
interview-based internship class assignment
job market preparation
Mentors
Student Attitudes
Summer Schools
Teacher Attitudes
United States
Nebraska (Lincoln)
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Summary:Internships have been shown to be impactful tools to connect students’ learning in academia with real-world industrial needs. To help the students to get more out of their internship experience, some universities provide a summer internship class in which students do class assignments based on their experiences during their internship. There have been numerous studies on the benefits of internships. However, the benefits of a potential internship class for students in construction management (CM) programs at universities have not yet been investigated. This paper demonstrates the structure of an interview-based internship class and investigates its effectiveness. We have focused on the CM program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) as a case study. We sent online questionnaires to the intern students who took the class, students’ mentors, and the professors who taught the class. The results indicate that despite some challenges to meet the requirements of the class, the students, their mentors, and the professor found the class beneficial. The results of this paper are expected to help CM programs with the establishment and improvement of internship classes in their curriculum.
ISSN:2227-7102
2227-7102
DOI:10.3390/educsci10040109