Goal Setting and Self-regulated Experiential Learning in a Paired Internship Program

Abstract

Experiential learning is an effective educational approach to improve students' meta-cognitive abilities, enhance their ability to apply information to actual situations, and give them the ability to become self-directed learners. Drawing from the principles of goal-setting and motivation theories, a paired internship program was introduced at a large Asian university for business analytics and information systems undergraduate students in 2015. The scope, goals, and learning objectives of each internship were co-defined by the students, host supervisor, and faculty supervisor. The program was designed to be a paired, structured internship where students select their own partner and work full time for 24 weeks. Pair work promotes collaborative peer-learning and allows students to acquire complementary skills. In order to reap maximum benefits from their internship experience, students need to engage in self-regulated learning by taking control of their own learning through planning, monitoring, and deciding how to spend time on the most important learning activities. Throughout their internship, students submit regular learning logs capturing their reflections of the internship experience. At the end of their internship, they also submit a learning journal by reflecting upon the connection between work and academic experiences, professional skills they have developed, and how theory is translated into practice. These written reflections form the core academic assignments used to enhance the educational value of the internship. Reflective journaling is especially relevant to internships because reflective skills, particularly in work-integrated learning, are critical for fostering students' lifelong learning and professional practice. This research examines the role of goal setting and investigates the effectiveness of the various pedagogical mechanisms used to facilitate self-regulated experiential learning. We performed qualitative content analysis on the document submissions of 74 students to identify evidence of transformative learning in which students show that they can reconcile concrete experiences within a field of theoretical concepts to identify, change, connect, and act differently. We coded the written reflections as either concrete experience (CE), reflective observation (RO), abstract conceptualization (AC), or active experimentation (AE). Besides the qualitative data, we also collected data through two surveys at the start and end of the internship to assess the students' experiential learning styles, motivations, goal-setting behaviors, and goal attainment orientations. We performed quantitative analysis on these measures to uncover further insights. Overall, the findings indicated positive experience-based learning outcomes from the internship suggesting that designing internship programs based on experiential learning principles can effectively equip students with both technical skills and essential soft skills. Recommendations for incorporating internships in computing curriculum to serve as a form of practice-oriented pedagogy to complement and supplement classroom pedagogy are provided.