Engineering Co-op and Internship Experiences: The Roles of Workplaces, Academic Institutions and Students

Abstract

Work-integrated learning, particularly in theform of co-ops and internships, has long been an integralpart of many engineering programs. While recentgovernment interest in work-integrated learning hasraised its profile, it is unclear how the three main actors –the workplace, the academic institution and studentsthemselves – interact with each other to enhance students’learning experiences and outcomes. This paper attemptsto fill this gap by examining engineering co-op andinternship literature as well as programming practices atnineteen North American universities. In light of aconceptual framework foregrounding organizationalstructure, human agency and learning outcomes, weidentified five themes that demonstrated the interactionsbetween organizational and individual factors involved inthe workplace learning process of engineering co-ops andinternships. The paper contributes to the discussion onwork-integrated engineering education by highlightingthe usefulness of the conceptual framework to empiricalresearch on workplace learning and the practicalimplications of the findings for engineering educators,employers, and engineering co-op and internshipstudents.