Handbook for Research in Cooperative Education and Internships

Patricia L. Linn, Adam Howard, Eric Miller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• eBook ISBN: 9781135638139
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

This Handbook is designed to help cooperative education and internship professionals and employers design, carry out, and disseminate quality research and evaluation studies of work-based education. It offers examples of current, leading-edge studies about work-based education, but with a practical twist: The chapter authors frame their studies within a specific key research design issue, including finding a starting point and a theoretical framework; fitting research into one's busy practitioner workload; deciding on particular data-gathering methods and an overall methodological approach; integrating qualitative and quantitative methodologies; and disseminating results. Also addressed are questions and concerns that are relevant throughout the course of a research project: the use of theory in research; the role and relationship of program assessment to research; and ethical considerations in research.

By combining descriptions of exemplary research and evaluation studies with practical advice from top researchers in the field, this volume is a useful tool for educators and employers who are designing and carrying out their own studies, as well as a resource for what current research is discovering and affirming about the field itself. Educators from other fields, such as study abroad and service-learning will also find this book an indispensable reference in conducting research on experiential learning and teaching.

Part I
Cooperative Education
and Internships in Context

1
Cooperative Education
and Internships at the Threshold
of the Twenty-First Century

Adam Howard

Antioch College

CHALLENGES FACING THE WORK FORCE AND HIGHER EDUCATION

Work-based education is at a critical juncture. Both the popular press and management texts claim that the notion of career as it has been historically known, where worker loyalty was repaid with a lifetime job with a single firm, is gone forever (Goleman, 1998; Lewis, 2000; Tulgan, 1995). Rather, young workers find they need skills to manage their own careers. Many are discovering that the traditional college setting of classrooms plus dorm life may not prepare them well to become successful workers in a competitive new environment. Students, colleges, and employers are all asking how young people can be prepared better for these challenges.

Employers feel that academic programs for the most part have not adequately provided students with the essential skills to be competent in the workplace (Foggin, 1992). They suggest colleges drastically change their way of preparing students for employment (Gardner & Korth, 1997; Muller, Porter, & Rehder, 1991). More specifically, in a study conducted by Business-Higher Education Forum (1997), business leaders agreed that recent graduates were deficient in communication skills, the ability to work in teams, flexibility, the ability to accept ambiguity comfortably, the ability to work with people from diverse backgrounds, understanding of globalization and its implications, and ethics training.

How can colleges and universities respond to these challenges to help students align their educational paths with their career plans and provide the kinds of skills that employers say they want? Cooperative education is an excellent educational model to introduce students to, and prepare them for, the rigors of the workplace. In 1906, Herman Schneider, a University of Cincinnati engineering professor and dean, founded cooperative education because he recognized that most students need and/or want to work while attending college. He observed that the jobs his students obtained were either menial or unrelated to their career goals. Through cooperative education, Schneider found a way to satisfy students’ financial needs as well as provide them with meaningful experiences.

Although the concept of cooperative education originated nearly 100 years ago, cooperative education did not flourish until the 1960s when the federal government provided funding for new program development. Title VIII of the Higher Education Act of 1965 set aside funds for co-op programs and many colleges and universities used this money to establish their co-op programs. During this time, cooperative education experienced rapid and expansive growth. Where there had been approximately 60 co-op programs in 1956, by 1971 there were 225, and at the peak in 1986, there were 1,012. However, soon after co-op's peak, federal funding was gradually reduced and by 1996, it was discontinued. Since the decrease and eventual elimination of federal funding, colleges and universities throughout the country have shut down nearly 400 co-op programs, and countless other co-op programs have become marginalized in their institutions. Although the number of co-op programs have decreased, the number of students placed in cooperative education jobs—about 250,000 each year—has not decreased (Pettit, 1998).

Today, despite lack of federal support, co-op seems to be finding a second wind. Cooperative education is once again attracting the attention of colleges and universities eager to establish educational programs to better prepare students for employment. The primary reason for this interest is co-op prepares students to make a smooth and intentional transition from college to the workplace by providing them with opportunities to explore the world beyond the classroom. Students are placed in real-world contexts and required to make decisions, negotiate their different roles as students and workers, develop relationships with co-workers and supervisors, take on responsibilities, and work as members of teams. During co-op experiences, students are neither “just students” nor are they full-fledged employees, rather, they are both at the same time. Through the educational experiences gained from this dual role, students begin developing the necessary skills to transition from student to professional.

Cooperative education provides students with unique learning outcomes and learning processes that prepare them for the world beyond the confines of educational institutions. When students can build experiences in varied work environments as part of their undergraduate preparation, they learn to adapt to change, they build a set of marketable skills, and develop the self-confidence theyneed to manage their own careers. There is new evidence from Antioch research (Linn, 1999; Linn & Ferguson, 1999) that graduates of a cooperative education program attributed their success to this combination of work and study, even 50 years later.

THE NEED FOR RESEARCH

Although co-op educators know from their experience with students that the combination of work and study is a powerful learning model for undergraduates, co-op has not been fully integrated in higher education. For the most part, cooperative education's livelihood has relied on the fluctuation of federal and other forms of funding and on the good will of higher education administrators who understand the value of experiential learning. This unreliable dependency has not only marginalized the field of cooperative education but also has significantly contributed to the continued lack of relationship between the workforce and higher education. In order to establish a more integrated position in higher education, research needs to become a top priority in the field of cooperative education. As Weaver (1993) pointed out, “to be credible, cooperative education must be able to substantiate claims that cooperative education practice is good educational practice and be able to relate cooperative education practice to the theoretical framework of education” (p. 10).

The field of cooperative education and internships has not made consistent and systematic efforts to surface questions and then seek answers, as have other fields of study. Furthermore, the existing body of research in co-op and internships “has fallen short of the ideal of scientific inquiry to illuminate relationships, predict effects, explain findings in light of existing theory, or contribute to theory development” (Wilson, 1988, p. 83). Many experienced co-op professionals (e.g., Bartkus & Stull, 1997; Ricks, Cutt, Branton, Lokent, & Van Gyn, 1993) have highlighted the need for research in cooperative education in order to become more credible and prominent.

In addition to establishing legitimacy in higher education, co-op educators are under increased pressure, and have bigger incentives than in the past, to document the learning outcomes of students who participate in co-op. Today's climate in higher education focuses heavily on student learning outcomes. One source of this pressure is the accreditation process; accreditation agencies now insist that educators define learning outcomes, measure them, and revise programs based on the results. Just like educators in classroom programs, co-op educators must demonstrate that student learning outcomes are being met. As Cates and Jones (1999) pointed out, “…co-op is an educational program. It is imperative that coop professionals demonstrate that co-op is educational and not simply concerned with employment” (p. 66). Not only do co-op educators need to document the learning in co-op but also design assessment efforts that contribute to the overall assessment goals of their institutions.

These assessment trends and cooperative education's current status and position in higher education suggest that educators working in co-op programs need tools to help them design and carry out research and evaluation studies. For years, co-op educators have predominantly relied on research models such as the researcher-practitioner model (Howard, 1986; Tinsley, Tinsley, Boone, & Shim-Li, 1993) or the reflective practice model (Schön, 1983; Van Gyn, 1996). Although these models provide co-op educators an opportunity to examine individual features of their programs and to refect on their practices, these models can have a limited scope and may be overly simplistic. These research models have most commonly been used to compare students who co-oped with those who did not on single variable such as starting salary. In order for research to have a more prominent place in the field of cooperative education, co-op educators need a diverse range of more sophisticated models that attempt to describe and understand the complex cognitive, social, and career-building outcomes of alternating work and study and how these outcomes happen.

Co-op educators sometimes face an uphill battle in trying to justify our outside-the-classroom programs as having a legitimate place within the academy. For most educators, learning in the academy means learning inside the classroom: scholarly learning, not practical learning. Because we strive for academic legitimacy, we may also feel obligated to employ research methodologies with unquestioned legitimacy: experimental methods and quantitative analyses where results can be validated with statistical procedures. Although these methods are the best choice for some research questions, the method should not determine the research question, rather, the research question should guide the choice of a method. In this book the reader will find a wide variety of research methodologies being used in service of different types of research questions. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used, alone and in combination, depending on the researchers’ particular curiosities. We feel strongly that research and evaluation of co-op and internship programs should encompass as much methodological variety as in other types of research on learning and education. Employers face the similar need to justify their co-op and internship programs. They need to demonstrate that these programs are economically beneficial to their company and will help recruit talented new employees.

CONDUCTING RESEARCH

Researchers are confronted with a variety of questions during the research process. To engage in research is to engage in a questioning process filled with dilemmas along the way. Of course, some questions can be and should be answered before beginning a research project. By planning and thinking things out beforehand, researchers are more equipped to deal with the dilemmas they face during the course of a study. This book is divided into four sections that line up with the stages of conducting research. Here I summarize some of the questions that surface throughout the book for researchers to consider in their planning and thinking.

Part I: The Beginning Phase of a Research Project

Decisions are made throughout any research project, but the first important question is: What should I study? Although this question seems simple, determining what needs to be researched is often the most difficult part of the overall project. Frequently, people get bogged down with “getting it right” when they are formulating research questions instead of exploring ideas about potential research inquiry. As Bogdan and Biklen (1992) pointed out, “the exact decisions you make are not always crucial, but it is crucial that you make them” (p. 59). Although initial decisions about what to study are important to make, the research questions most often become more defined and even sometimes drastically change as the research project progresses.

Once researchers have determined what needs to be researched the questions then become: How do I find the time to conduct a research project? Where do I find the necessary resources to conduct research? Finding time and resources are other initial obstacles to overcome. Co-op and internship educators are in a difficult position. For the most part, they are not provided the time in their schedule to conduct research but have the pressure to assess their programs and document student learning outcomes. Because of this, educators in work-based programs are required to balance this contradictory tension in order to conduct research. During the initial phase, they also have to find the necessary funding and resources for conducting research. In order to do this, they have to locate sources of funding and then develop strategies to successfully secure these resources.

Part II: Methods and Analysis

Decisions about methodological options and strategies for any research inquiry depend on answers to several questions:

• Who is the information for and who will use the research findings?
• What information is needed?
• How is the information going to be used? What is the purpose of the evaluation begin done?
• When is the information needed?
• What resources are available to conduct the research project?
• Given answers to the above questions, what methods are appropriate?

Answers to these questions will guide educators about the kinds of data that will be most appropriate and useful in a particular research project. But as Cronbach(1982) reminded us, “There is no single best plan for an evaluation, not even for an inquiry into a particular program, at a particular time, with a particular budget” (p. 231).

In designing a research study, researchers must consider the strengths and weaknesses of qualitative and quantitative methods of collecting data. Qualitative methods allow both depth and detail because researchers are not constrained by predetermined categories of analysis. On the other hand, quantitative methods most often require the use of standardized measures in order to ft what is being studied into a limited number of predetermined categories to which numbers are assigned.

In terms of analysis, statistics are used to help understand the data collected in quantitative research investigations. Statistics allow researchers to describe the data and to make inferences, on the basis of sample data, about a population. In contrast, Rosaldo (1989) maintained that analysis in qualitative approach is about “making the familiar strange and the strange familiar” instead of surfacing the “brute timeless facts of nature” (p. 39). In qualitative approach, analysis involves working with the data, organizing the data, synthesizing the data, searching...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Author Biographies
• Part I Cooperative Education and Internships in Context
• Part II Beginning Phase of Research Projects
• Part III Methods and Analysis
• Part IV Dissemination, Use, and Application
• Part V Overriding Considerations
• Part VI Implications for Research and Practice
• Author Index
• Subject Index