This dissertation is a qualitative IRB approved research project that explores students' writing practices while students are enrolled in upper-level writing courses and a writing internship for the Editing, Writing, and Media undergraduate degree program. This project explores the phenomenon of transfer, or how learners utilize prior knowledge to…

Internships are an impactful form of workplace learning that helps undergraduate engineering students acquire and enhance competencies to improve their employability. However, the nuances about what makes an internship successful are not well understood. Furthermore, learning during engineering internships has not been thoroughly researched.…

Internships as a form of experiential learning have been consistently considered a "high impact educational experience" because of the value that it provides students during their college careers (O'Neill, 2010, p. 7). Administrators and faculty professionals in colleges and universities are in positions to encourage student engagement…

Workplace expectations for engineers have changed in the 21st century due to rapid technology advances, globalization, customer centricity, and team-based design practices, which require engineering graduates to have well-developed emotional intelligence (EI) to perform at high levels in the engineering profession. To fill the gap between…

Experiential learning requirements, such as internships and practicum, are common requirements in undergraduate sports management programs. These courses typically require the sports management student to complete a set number of hours while being guided by both their internship site supervisor and their faculty advisor. Although these internships…

The level of supervision an intern receives during an internship has been shown to impact the quality of the student learning experience. However, there is evidence that unpaid undergraduate interns receive less supervision due to a variety of factors. The purpose of this mixed-methods study is to understand the relationship that university funds…

Literature and research span a multitude of ways to define critical thinking. It is used frequently and interchangeably within academia and the workforce based on the context and experiences of the individual. Amidst the ambiguity and complexity in a composite definition of critical thinking, over the past years, it continues to rank in the top…

There is a teacher shortage in South Georgia school districts inhibiting the hiring of teachers for many subject areas. School districts are partnering with universities to identify teacher candidates who can serve as the teacher of record in their districts during their final semester or year of teacher preparation through the "intern as…

Internships are considered "high-impact practices" offering students transformative opportunities to develop new skills and professional identities while immersed in workplace culture. They have also been pinpointed as key to improving student success and employment within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.…

Internships are by design experiential, high impact learning opportunities, and many institutions of higher education include the completion of internship requirements prior to graduation. Business students completing internships generally do so at corporate offices, accounting firms, and other traditional for-profit business entities. The purpose…

Since March 2020, traditional in-person internship programs in the United States have been turned upside down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Colleges and universities were forced and later saw the need to provide students with options outside of the traditional internship format such as virtual internships. The purpose of this exploratory…

In this dissertation, I present readers with three studies about the ways in which science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research experiences impact undergraduate learning, perspectives, and academic/career activities. In the first two studies I focus on this topic by investigating the ways in which undergraduates were impacted…

For decades, scholars have studied how individuals are shaped by experiential learning. Dozens of learning models have been developed to better understand how experiential learners acquire new knowledge and skills. In a higher education setting, many students "learn by doing" through internships. As one of Kuh's high-impact practices,…

The nation's need for a diverse and competent Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforce contributing to economic growth, global competitiveness, and innovation is a primary policy driver for broadening participation in STEM. Yet, social justice and ethics policies dating as far back as the civil rights movement and earlier…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to examine how college undergraduates perceive the effectiveness of internships that lead to career aspirations in their major. The theoretical foundation was Super and Hall's career exploration stages of the working life model. The sample was college undergraduates from a public urban…