A critique of the internship measurement scales in higher education

Abstract

This article is a critical review of the internship measurement scales in higher education. Although the importance of internships is widely acknowledged in the literature, there is a scarcity of attempts to construct a scale to measure internship outcomes. In fact, a thorough examination of the internship literature reveals that there are only two internship measurement scales, which are relatively recent. It is a widespread practice that empirical studies in this area use job-related scales in their endeavour to measure internship-related constructs such as internship satisfaction and internship effectiveness. This is mostly due to the lack of available internship scales and partly due to the naive assumption that job-related scales can be somehow altered and may readily be adapted to internship-related contexts, disregarding the contextual and contractual differences between a job and an internship. This casts doubt on the validity of the findings in those studies. However, the valid measurement of internships is not only necessary to meet the highest academic standards but also to make evidence-based employability policies in higher education institutions. Therefore, this article aims to highlight the need to measure internship processes more effectively based on a sound method and bring this issue to the attention of the research community worldwide. To that end, the existing scales of internship are critically examined and areas for improvements are highlighted.