Let’s dig in. How are students learning new skills during a year-long internship program?

This is a follow up to our pilot program in 2022. You can read more about it the initial work here.

Context

The Next Move Internship Program has supported students in Pierce County with career awareness, exploration, and preparation since 2005. Each school year, Next Move engages over 500 students in career awareness and exploration through their Intro to Internship course where students research career pathways, build resumes, write cover letters, and practice professional networking and communication skills.

Upon completing Intro to Internship, students are placed in unpaid, credit-bearing internship experiences in the community. With over 250 different community partners, Next Move gives students first-hand experience in a career field that they hope to pursue in the future. Internship experiences also allow students to build their resumes, connect with career mentors, and ensure that they make informed decisions about their post-high education.

Learn about the program at nextmoveinternships.com.

Research

Next Move wanted to understand how their curriculum supports student growth. Which program components impact students most? How are students changed after participating in an internship? Do students learn skills that lead to professional behaviors like networking and sending out a resume?

In spring of 2022, we worked with Next Move to design a survey measuring their skills, attitudes, and behaviors (read more about that work here). Students took the survey at the beginning, middle, and end of the 2022-2023 school year so we could compare how students grow over the course of the year. We also conducted focused groups at each of the three schools to understand how students feel about the program.

Deliverable

Because we surveyed students at the beginning, middle, and end of the year, we provided reports at each interval. The final report included results from all three time periods and the focus groups. Because we collected data multiple times, we could attribute the changes more directly to the program intervention. The year-long survey demonstrated remarkable student growth across necessary professional beliefs, skills, and behaviors. The results directly tied the course work and objectives to the growth students experience and helped understand which demographic characteristics may indicate that a student needs additional support. We worked with the program director to draw inferences from the results that pointed to some possible underlying mechanisms at play so they can replicate the success at other sites.