Community-Based Internships: How a Hybridized High-Impact Practice Affects Students, Community Partners, and the University

Abstract

This qualitative participatory action research project demonstrates how participation in a communitybased internship (CBI), a hybridization of servicelearning and internship practices, affects undergraduate students, community partners, and the university at a large public university. This article outlines a rationale for the study, demonstrating that robust knowledge regarding the effects of servicelearning and internships exists, but there is a need to understand how hybridization of these highimpact practices (HIPs) affects program stakeholders. Next, the participatory methodological procedures will be highlighted as they are integral to the presentation and interpretation of the data. The findings will demonstrate that although stakeholders in a CBI have similar experiences to traditional servicelearning and internship programs, the hybridization of these HIPs creates a unique environment that shapes these experiences. Furthermore, the participatory inquiry raises questions regarding how research ought to be conducted in servicelearning and community engagement. Higher education institutions (HEIs) are charged with preparing students for their future professional roles (Coker et al., 2017) while maintaining a civic mission of developing engaged citizens (Ehrlich, 2000). Internships and servicelearning experiences have been proposed as pedagogical practices that fulfill these goals— internships as a means to prepare students for professional life (Silva et al., 2016) and servicelearning as a means to support the university’s civic mission (Nichols, 2016). Therefore, understanding the structure of a program that amalgamates these two highimpact practices (HIPs) (Kuh, 2008) through an examination of the experiences of stakeholders of a communitybased internship (CBI) is important. Furthermore, both internships and servicelearning are relatively well understood and conceptualized in existing literature, yet there is much less information regarding the hybridization of these practices. Both servicelearning and internships have been recognized for their positive impacts on students and have evolved into widely implemented practices; therefore, combining the two into one learning experience seems to be a pathway for future educational practice that meets the goals of HEIs.