Abstract:

The purpose of this action research study was to understand how advisors and administrators could assist students in making relevant and meaningful connections between their work-based learning opportunities and academic learning and enhance their work-based learning opportunities so that they gain the actionable knowledge and skills needed to handle real-world challenges. Work-based learning experience is defined as opportunities such as internships, work-study, and research that provide students a chance to gain necessary on-the-job skills outside of the classroom setting. Knowledge generated will inform university leadership, department heads, administrators, faculty, advisors, students, and academia on work-based learning experiences of the student during outside classroom activities and how they result into actionable knowledge and skills. This research was conducted in a higher education polytechnic state university in Northeast America utilizing students from different cohorts and programs.

The participants for the study were students, academic advisors and also administrators who provide job opportunities to students. Participants were encouraged to first reflect on their situation, have an awareness of the existing research problem, engaged in discussions to critical consciousness, and come up with solutions that could bring about the change needed to better insure that the students have an enhanced learning experience. Based on the literature review, programs that incorporate reflection in decision making and authentic experiences allow high quality leadership to emerge as students gain better judgment about their talents as leaders through authentic experiences.

There were 5 key action steps that were carried out with the intention to set expectations, raise critical consciousness, and engage participants using reflection and change agent activities. Four theoretical perspectives – Social Constructivism, Adult Learning Theory, Transformative Learning Theory, and Critical Social Theory were combined with the three pedagogical strategies of critical reflection, rational discourse, and policy praxis to increase awareness, acknowledgment, and change agency which provided a guideline for the action step activities and encouraged participants to take control and set their own goals, locate appropriate resources, decide on which methods to use, and evaluate their progress. The researcher encouraged the advisors and department administrators to refine the work-based opportunity to facilitate a better learning experience while developing actionable skill development by the students. A baseline focus group meeting was conducted at the beginning of the research study. Follow-up discussions formulated the action step activities to create a plan to motivate students, develop guidelines for admins and advisors, and framework for the program. Data was also collected via a survey administered to students with follow-up interviews with students. The data was analyzed using the Miles, Huberman, and Saldana (2019) framework. The interviews and surveys highlighted several important aspects of framework, collaborative relationships, mentoring, inclusion, social justice, and training needed for work-based learning opportunities. Discussions with participants helped obtain valuable guidelines for the framework for work-based learning opportunities.

Keywords:

Work-based learning opportunities, internships, work-study, co-op, research, mentoring, work-based learning.