Engineering Students' Industrial Internship Experience Perception and Satisfaction: Work Experience Scale Validation

Autor/inn/en	Nogueira, Teresa; Magano, José; Fontão, Eunice; Sousa, Marina; Leite, Angela
Titel	Engineering Students' Industrial Internship Experience Perception and Satisfaction: Work Experience Scale Validation
Quelle	In: Education Sciences, 11 (2021), Artikel 671 (12 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Nogueira, Teresa) ORCID (Magano, José) ORCID (Fontão, Eunice) ORCID (Sousa, Marina) ORCID (Leite, Angela)
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	2227-7102
Schlagwörter	Engineering Education; College Students; Student Satisfaction; Internship Programs; Work Experience; Questionnaires; Test Validity; Test Reliability; Competence; Problem Solving; Skill Development; Gender Differences; Compensation (Remuneration); Organization Size (Groups); Correlation; Public Colleges; Foreign Countries; Portugal + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ingenieurausbildung; Collegestudent; Berufspraktische Ausbildung; Employment experience; Job experience; Occupational experience; Berufserfahrung; Fragebogen; Testvalidität; Testreliabilität; Kompetenz; Problemlösen; Kompetenzentwicklung; Qualifikationsentwicklung; Geschlechterkonflikt; Abfindung; Kompensation; Lohnausgleich; Organization size; Unternehmensgröße; Korrelation; Ausland
Abstract	An essential aspect of higher education institutions' academic curricula for engineering courses is the students' industrial internship programs. In the literature, it is well accepted that such programs provide valuable learning outcomes and increase the graduates' employment prospects. Thus, it is paramount to evaluate the internship programs' quality to identify opportunities to improve their design and implementation. However, that evaluation typically depends on self-designed academic assessment surveys of questionable validity. The purpose of this paper is to assess engineering students' perceptions of their internship experiences. For that purpose, the validation of a recently adapted version of the Work Experience Questionnaire (WEQ) was carried out on a sample of 447 engineering students that participated in industrial internship programs offered by Portuguese public universities and polytechnic schools. A confirmatory factor analysis was performed to confirm the suitability of the model proposed by the WEQ's authors on this study's sample. The psychometric qualities were evaluated through convergent and discriminant validity. The results showed that the model fit the sample well, and convergent and discriminant validity was established. The general competencies subscale was the most important for the participants--specifically, the competency of solving problems. Differences concerning the WEQ and gender, company size, and compensation were found and discussed. This study provides researchers in the field with a new tool validated explicitly for engineering students. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01