VIRTUAL INTERNSHIP AND EMPLOYABILITY: AN EXPERIMENT OF VIRTUAL INTERNSHIP IN SCHOOL ON INTERNET ASIA

In response to the demands of global talents, the first step that can match potential students and demands of companies is “Virtual Internship”, an opportunity for students to gain practical experience by completing project assigned by companies, and interacting with the companies’ representatives via online communication channels for supervision.

This experiment aims to figure out two points: first, how online communication can affect outputs of virtual internship including:
1) performance, which is accomplishment of students, and
2) satisfaction, which is fulfilment of expectation of supervisor toward students; second, how virtual internship can make impacts on employment of participants.

An evaluation form was provided to supervisors to evaluate outputs. Before-after questionnaires, interviews, and observations were used to discover additional causes and effects. Participants were five employees from two Japanese companies and thirty-five Asian students who participated in the virtual internship of School On Internet Asia.

Key findings are:
- Use of synchronous communication channels such as videoconference resulted in higher performance of the students and satisfaction of the companies’ supervisors with significant p-value less than 0.05 by chi-square analysis. In contrast, response time of e-mail had no significant relationship with performance of students, and satisfaction of supervisors.
- Six out of thirty-five virtual internship students (17 percent) got full-time job offer after showing performance via constant interaction during the virtual internship, and passing the subsequent processes of face-to-face internship and job interview.

In addition, this research summarized key effectiveness of virtual internship including:
1) suitable online communication patterns, and
2) roles and responsibilities of participants.

Recommendations were indicated as future plan of improving and expanding virtual internship as effective global human resource development platform.