Abstract:

Education can no longer be conceived outside of alternative methods and cannot ignore the benefits brought by them in the formation of competencies, skills, abilities, among students and in increasing the quality of the didactic act. The reform of the education system brings in a new vision the role of the internship/practice mentor who must train, among practicing students, the skills and abilities necessary for the future profession. The mentor helps his students to value their knowledge and skills by giving them the motivation to discover their future job. Mentor competence is particularly complex and includes a set of capacities regarding the ways of diagnosing and applying knowledge, but also of motivating students for future professional activity.

Practicing students need skills, tools, procedures to enable them to continue their own learning throughout their careers, to become what is called a reflective professional. Students must be aware of the importance of vocational training. They must approach the training process from questioning positions.

The present paper presents a case study carried out during two internships by a group of 30 students from the Faculty of Engineering in Sibiu (Romania), looking at aspects such as mentor-practitioner student communication, guidance, skills development, evaluation student performance. The evaluation was carried out on the basis of a questionnaire applied to students at the beginning and end of the internship. The reality shows us the existence of a lack of communication between the faculty and some companies where the students did the internship and the results of the study showed that there are big differences in training between the different mentors, a situation that has a negative effect on the unit training of the students.

Keywords:

Competencies, skills, abilities mentor internships.