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Top1. Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has considerably accelerated the digital transformation of the education sector. In this respect, the acquisition of knowledge and skills through learning, experience, or being taught differ in terms of onsite versus online mode of teaching. The term “intern” was first applied to medical students in the 1920s where co-op programs began to be offered on college campuses in the 1960s, and it wasn’t until the late 1990s that internships became a norm for the average college student (TaylorResearchGroup, 2014). Internships encompass the integration of professional work experience and related academic, where the student trains within the organization and performs tasks that benefits both the student and the organization (Friesenborg, 2002). In this respect, we need to measure the application of learning at the university, applied in the professional environment during the eight weeks’ internship program of undergraduate computer science students (referred to as ‘interns’ in the rest of the paper) of the university in United Arab Emirates (UAE). This can provide academic policy makers with the relative strength and weaknesses of the learning domains.
Internship course is a requirement for the interns to graduate with the Bachelor of Science (in their specializations) as, it helps to bridge the gap between classroom learning and knowledge application in the real world (Toncar & Cudmore, 2000). Hence, the interns studying the Bachelor of Science in Information Technology programs at the university are required to complete the internship program to successfully graduate. The internship program at the university is designed as an eight-week unpaid full-time course for final year undergraduate students. It provides a great opportunity for students to improve their technical and communication skills by gaining hands-on, practical experience under their major-domain and interacting with other IT professionals at workplace. Hence, empirical research into the lack of hands-on practical experience in an online internship mode can provide valuable insights on the effectiveness of the internship program.
Interns are evaluated and graded on a pass-fail based basis where the students are jointly evaluated by faculty and field supervisors. Therefore, the university ensures that undergraduate students participate in the work-related activities required for their academic unit, resulting in student internships in the context of service-learning that integrates practice with specific expertise (Hynie, Jensen, Johnny, Wedlock, & Phipps, 2011). Although internship have multiple benefits it was noted that students need to deal with a variety of challenges, including stress associated with communication with superiors, workloads, tasks beyond current capacity, limited support from the workplace, unfamiliar workplaces and time management (Chu, Ravana, Mok, & Chan, 2019). In this situation when students are placed in an unfamiliar environment away from the comfort zone of the university, measuring learning with consumptive metrics is important for advancing the internship program.
Previous experiences and our assessment recommend that the interns require basic skills for a successful internship. This includes English and Arabic language proficiency, interpersonal and communication skills, problem-solving skills, course related knowledge, technical IT skills in the field, ability to take responsibility, ability to meet deadlines, ability to work with people from different backgrounds, ability to work individually and in teams. Hence the interns seeking degree in Information Technology need to possess both soft skills (communication, interpersonal skills, management skills, teamwork, presentation skills, skills in dealing with difficult personalities, facilitating skills, and leadership skills) and hard skills (knowledge of standard software applications, programming languages, the ability to design user-friendly graphical interfaces, knowledge of database, networking and computer hardware) (Patacsil & Tablatin, 2017). Hence, a balance of hard and soft skills is an integral requirement for a successful internship program for the interns. However, the application of these skills can vary between an online and an onsite internship program.