Quantifying impacts of internships in an international agriculture degree program.

Abstract

The completion of a meaningful, hands-on international experience is a critical and required component of the Master of International Agricultural degree Program (MIAP) at Oklahoma State University. Understanding the impacts of the international experience/internship is important in designing a curriculum that well-prepares students for their personal, social, academic, and future professional life. Hence, the objective of this study is to evaluate the MIAP students’ international experiences and to determine the factors that impact international experience outcomes. The benefits of international experiences are divided into five outcome areas that include personal, interpersonal, academic, employment, and civic impacts. The data is collected through an online survey of MIAP students. The variance based partial least squares structural equation modeling is used to develop three separate models with the goal of statistically measuring academic, employment, and civic impacts. The results of this study show that interns believe that international experience had enhanced each of their abilities. The findings of all three models show that the Humphreys travel grant has a statistically significant effect on interpersonal impacts. Additionally, the length of internship has a statistically significant association with personal impact in all three models, while it has a statistically positive indirect impact on academic, employment, and civic impact models, which indicates the full mediation effect. In addition, the number of hours worked weekly during the internship is found to have a significant positive relationship with employment impacts.