Opportunities in a Crisis: Boundary Objects for Undergraduate Internship Learning

Abstract

Internship is a high-impact form of experiential learning. Learners gain valuable applied experience and connections in professional fields through work-based exposure to broad range of operations within an organisation. Positioning workplace activities as internship learning experiences, the focus of this chapter is to examine the boundary objects that assisted and hindered interns’ boundary-crossing ability at their internship workplace. Taking a phenomenological approach in this study, our findings from analysis of interviews of undergraduate interns (N = 38) explicate how digital technologies as boundary objects (i) structure work processes of interns (ii) situate internship workplace practices within organisation’s business functions (iii) integrate interns into a community of practice. Hence, there are learning opportunities for undergraduate interns when they are active co-participants in work processes, bounded with technologies and supported by colleagues within the communities in which they perform their internship work duties. The innovation in this chapter is the novel use of boundary objects to examine internship learning during the pandemic period and to offer practical strategies for enhancing internship learning at the workplace for the post-pandemic era.