Factors Affecting Internship Satisfaction of Undergraduates

Abstract

Undergraduates are valuable resources among the various resources within a university. Moreover, most of the universities encourage their undergraduates to take industry exposure as it has many advantages such as getting practical experiences and help to find a job. However, anecdotal evidence showed that all the interns are not happy with their internship programme. most of the universities encourage their undergraduates to take industry exposure as it has many adv.… Accordingly, previous research has found that factors that influence undergraduate internship satisfaction have been categorized as individual factors, university support, and contextual factors. However, most of these studies have been conducted in the Western context, thus; We know little about what factors influence undergraduate internship satisfaction. Thus, the aim of the study was to identify determinants of internship satisfaction of undergraduates of Sri Lanka. To attain this objective, we collected data from 125 undergraduates from the department of human resource management who completed their internship in the year of 2022/2023. The results of this study showed that individual factors, university support, and contextual factors are significantly influenced on undergraduates' internship satisfaction. The results of this study are highly significant and inform decision makers of the higher education sector and industry partners to design their internship programmes. However, the scope of the study is limited to undergraduates in the department of human resource management of the University of Kelaniya in Sri Lanka.