Learning Beyond Classrooms: A Model for Guided Internships

In order to generate sufficient amount of human capital, the Pakistani business schools need to use internships as an experiential learning project but internships in Pakistan, in most cases, are not well structured. Therefore, the students, industry and the academia are unable to get maximum benefit out of this experience. Research conducted worldwide and world recognized accreditation companies such as AACSB and HEC Pakistan show that an internship will only be fruitful, if it is well structured and is designed according to the objectives and as an experiential learning activity. Research in this field in Pakistan needs to be conducted in order to assess how the internship programs can be made more productive and generate more human capital. Therefore, to give structure to the current business internship programs, the RFGHCI (Reflective Framework for Generating Human Capital through Internships) model was developed and used in this research. The RFGHCI model is based upon the models of systematic internship cycle, Kolb’s experiential learning cycle and DEAL model for critical reflection. The RFGHCI model explains how systematic internship education encompasses the whole experiential learning process. Furthermore, it acknowledges the development of human capital through internships that are truly experiential in nature. Using this model the students not only constructed their internship goals but also achieve them. The procedure of this case study was in accordance with the procedure laid down by Creswell (2007) and was conducted in two phases, where in Phase I, individual interviews to understand the scope of problem from 10 interns - two from finance, five from management and three from human resource - who had completed their internships were conducted. These interviews gave me an insight into the problems that the interns face during the internships and their perception about the fruitfulness of this pedagogy. The results of these initial interviews were also important because not only did they give me data to make an internship manual but also helped me in chalking out the next phase of my research. Phase 2 began with identifying the cases and getting in touch with them in order to get their consent to participate in the study. I met with the interns individually who consented to be a part of the study to share the internship manual with them. This helped them to understand and recognize the institute’s expectations from the six week long internship. These students were taught how to set internship goals for themselves and how to compose their reflections. Embedded data analysis was conducted using the data analysis framework of triangulation as the purpose was to look for the answers of the research questions. This case study which was conducted the RFGHCI model concluded that internships according to the demands of AACSB are possible. The results of Phase I where the internships were less structured were different from Phase II where the internships were more structured through RFGHCI model. In Phase I, the interns complained that no real work was given to them and that they did not think that their learning at the internship was of much use; whereas, the results of Phase II revealed that the interns were able to recognize not only their learning at the internships but also their strengths and weaknesses. Business institutes in Pakistan need to structure their internships in order to make them more productive and to provide the industry with the much needed human capital. First, the institute needs to train and appoint faculty supervisors who must be responsible to ensure that all internships provided to the interns are well structured. Second, to provide human capital for the industry, business schools must connect with industry through internships and lastly, since reflections are central to any experiential learning project they must be used as an assessment tool by the institute. The challenge for the academic institutions and their faculty is to incorporate experiential learning into the curriculum; without the much needed support from the institution, experiential learning will only exist at educational periphery and its promise of augmented learning will not be realized.