Measuring Student Satisfaction and Success in Political Internships

• In Event: Experiential Learning in Political Science: Examples & Assessment

Abstract

Promoting civic engagement through internships is an important part of undergraduate education in political science. Internships are essential to success in many careers that political science students pursue after graduation, including nonprofit management, law, intelligence, foreign service, legislative staffer, lobbying, and campaign professional.

Many political science departments allocate considerable resources to their internship programs. However, few systematically evaluate the satisfaction and success of their undergraduate interns, and more should. Analyzing student outcomes in internships allows for program development, more successful alumni, and ultimately better civic engagement.

This paper does an exploratory analysis of a novel dataset and generates new insights about student satisfaction and success in political internships. The paper's data is drawn from a unique survey of almost 150 undergraduates who completed directed political internships in a single 10- or 15-week semester. The author collected the data over 4 years as part of an ongoing effort to measure and improve student internship outcomes.

The analysis examines student satisfaction and success in several ways, including self-reported learning and skill acquisition, career engagement, exceeding the student's expectations, the student's willingness to recommend the internship to others, and connections between classroom teaching and experiential learning at the student's internship.

The paper assesses a variety of predictors of satisfaction and success as well, including class year, whether the student found the internship or was assisted by a professor, level of professionalism required by the internship, campus involvement, Big 5 personality traits, Need for Cognition, and Need to Evaluate. The paper's findings reveal important insights about the relationship between these factors and student success, as well as what kind of political science undergraduates choose to do directed internships. This assessment helps political scientists understand student interns better and shows us how to enhance the success of teaching, recruitment, and development in internship programs. It also provides suggestions for community internship partners.

Author

• Grant Ferguson, Texas Christian University