Evaluation of Internship Programs for Educational Improvements: A Case Study for Civil Engineering

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to evaluate civil engineering internship programs for educational improvements by doing statistical analyses on comprehensive survey data gathered from inquiry sheets. A web base online survey tool was prepared and 251 inquiry sheets were statistically analyzed. Univariate analyses were performed to describe the interns' population and their needs. Levene's test was used to test equality of variances and the t-value was used for equality of means. The One-Way ANOVA procedure was used to test the hypothesis that the means of groups are not significantly different. Finally, binary logistic regression was conducted to identify factors that predict the students' satisfaction level. A positive, statistically significant relationship was identified between internship satisfaction level, future carrier planning, multidisciplinary team working, learning theoretical and practical applications, food service during the internship period and worksite internship. This study proved that the civil engineering students are keen to participate in practical training programs during their period of education and also that civil engineering departments should update the theoretical courses taking into consideration the practical applications.