Grasping Learning During Internships: The Case of Engineering Education

Workplace learning through internships has since long been seen as a valuable element in the curriculum of engineering education programmes. The present study investigates how job characteristics of the workplace (such as job demands, job control and social support) are related to individual differences in the process of the learning in the workplace during internships and how these contribute to the perceived competences reported by the students themselves. A total of 48 third year engineering students of a university college in Germany who all just recently spent an internship of at least 16 weeks participated in this study by completing a questionnaire. The results of the correlational analyses indicate that feedback of supervisors or co-workers seems to be associated with how students regulate and process learning at the workplace. Job control and job demands are positively related to self-perceived competence, but neither of both seem to be correlated with different ways of active regulation and knowledge construction. Explanations and implications are discussed in this chapter.

[1]  J. Johnson,et al.  Job strain, work place social support, and cardiovascular disease: a cross-sectional study of a random sample of the Swedish working population. , 1988, American journal of public health.

[2]  Robert Karasek,et al.  Healthy Work : Stress, Productivity, and the Reconstruction of Working Life , 1990 .

[3]  Lisa A. Steelman,et al.  The Feedback Environment Scale: Construct Definition, Measurement, and Validation , 2004 .

[4]  David Gijbels,et al.  Changing World: Changing Pedagogy , 2012 .

[5]  Gloria Dall'Alba,et al.  Learning to be professionals , 2009 .

[6]  Päivi Tynjälä,et al.  Toward a 3-P Model of Workplace Learning: a Literature Review , 2013 .

[7]  Wmg Wim Jochems,et al.  The Development of Engineering Students Professional Identity During Workplace Learning in Industry: A study in Dutch Bachelor Education , 2013 .

[8]  Peter Van Petegem,et al.  Assessing preservice teachers' orientations to learning to teach and preferences for learning environments , 2005 .

[9]  M. Kompier,et al.  Learning new behaviour patterns: A longitudinal test of Karasek's active learning hypothesis among Dutch teachers , 2003 .

[10]  D. Gijbels,et al.  Understanding work‐related learning: the case of ICT workers , 2012 .

[11]  Mien Segers,et al.  Contextual Antecedents of Informal Feedback in the Workplace. , 2012 .

[12]  David Gijbels,et al.  Understanding work-related learning: The role of job characteristics and the use of different sources of learning , 2014 .

[13]  Frans J. Oort,et al.  How to Improve Teaching Practices , 2011 .

[14]  Robert Karasek,et al.  Job decision latitude and mental strain: Implications for job redesign , 1979 .

[15]  Sheri Sheppard,et al.  Educating Engineers: Designing for the Future of the Field. Book Highlights. , 2008 .

[16]  Jan D. Vermunt,et al.  Individual differences in learning to teach : Relating cognition, regulation and affect , 2001 .

[17]  de J Jan Jonge,et al.  Psychosociale theorieën over werkstress , 2003 .

[18]  Li-fang Zhang,et al.  The nature of intellectual styles , 2006 .

[19]  P. Tynjälä.  Perspectives into learning at the workplace , 2008 .

[20]  Jan D Vermunt,et al.  Assessing orientations to learning to teach. , 2002, The British journal of educational psychology.

[21]  Sven De Maeyer,et al.  The Impact of Personality, Goal Orientation and Self-Efficacy on Participation of High School Teachers in Learning Activities in the Workplace , 2014 .

[22]  Christian Harteis.  When workplace learning fails: individual and organisational limitations – exemplarily demonstrated by the issue of responsibility in work life , 2012 .