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Does engagement in high impact practices such as technical internships and undergraduate research influence engineering students’ career decisions and future plans? And how is learning that comes from these high impact practices related to “school learning”? These high impact educational practices have been shown to increase the rates of student engagement and retention in higher education. While access to and participation in these activities is often unsystematic across various institutions, these practices have been shown to benefit college students with diverse backgrounds and learner qualities. This paper establishes a context for understanding the characteristics and attitudes of students who participate in internships and undergraduate research by drawing from analyses of the first administration of the Engineering Majors Survey (EMS), a longitudinal study designed to examine engineering students’ career objectives related to creativity and innovation, and the experiences and attitudes that might influence those goals. In addition, using interview data from product development interns at a single engineering firm, we add insights into the specific skills that interns identify as learning in their internship and suggest connections between school-and-work learning. The more general picture of the impact of internship and research experiences (from the EMS), complemented with a “deep dive” into the learning that happens in internship experiences (from the interviews) provides a solid starting point for future exploration of how high impact practices such as internships and research experiences might be better integrated into a student’s educational development.
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This content will become publicly available on March 11, 2026
The Role of Science Internships in Shaping High School Students’ Career Choices
Background:Science internships have been suggested as a powerful way to engage high school students in conducting authentic science inquiry. However, despite the recognized significance of high school science internships, little research is done to examinehowthese experiences affect high school students’ career choices.Purpose:Our study drew on the theoretical framework of social cognitive career theory to examine how a 7-month science internship might shape high school students’ career choices.Method:88 students were interviewed 6–8 months after their internship graduation.Findings:The analysis suggests that the science internships altered more than 90% of the participating students’ career choices by either enhancing, expanding, narrowing down, or even replacing their original career choices. Students reported that the science internships boosted their self-efficacy through their first-hand mastery of authentic STEM practices, by directly observing scientists’ STEM performance, by hearing scientists’ opinions on students’ capabilities and potential in STEM, and by the impact of the students’ own physiological and affective states on the STEM practices.Implications:These findings help educators better understand how a unique learning environment like science internship may influence high school students’ career choices; they have important implications for internship design, career counseling, and education policy.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2329579
- PAR ID:
- 10603972
- Publisher / Repository:
- Journal
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Experiential Education
- ISSN:
- 1053-8259
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Scientific internships
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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