BANKING ACADEMY OF VIETNAM FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------- GRADUATION THESIS AN INVESTIGATION INTO INTERNSHIP SATISFACTION AMONG SENIOR ENGLISH-MAJOR UNDERGRADUATES AT BANKING ACADEMY OF VIETNAM Student : Phung Thi Tuyet Class : K21ATCA Academic Year : 2018-2022 Student ID : 21A7510143 Instructor : Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Trang (MA) Hanoi, May 2022 17014125837691000000 DECLARATIONS I hereby declare that this research is completely my own and this work has not been previously submitted and approved for a degree at the Banking Academy of Vietnam or any other higher educational institutions. This dissertation is copyright material, from which no quotation may be published without appropriate acknowledgement. Hanoi, 24th May 2022 Signature Phung Thi Tuyet i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Without the help and support of a number of people, this dissertation would not have been able to be completed.
I would like to take this occasion to show my gratitude and appreciation to all that assisted me in this research. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my respected supervisor, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Trang (MA) for her detailed guidance and insightful feedback for me throughout my dissertation. Her invaluable expertise pushed me to sharpen my thinking, drove me to excel for the best and helped me to develop as a researcher.
The profound belief that she had in my work was a great source of motivation. I would also wish to thank the lecturers Ms. Tran Thi Thu Thuy, Ms. Tran Ngoc Hang, Ms.
Dinh Thi Kieu Trinh and Ms. Pham Thi Ngoc Anh for their assistance and encouragement. They took out their precious time to answer my questions and gave me words of support. Many thanks are due to 137 participants who lent breadth and value to the research findings.
Their participation played a decisive role in this dissertation. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to my dearest friend Nguyen Thi Kim Lien. She never wavered in their support and always believed in my abilities. Her constant encouragement and unrelenting support were much needed and appreciated.
Last but not least, from the bottom of my heart, I am grateful to my family. My parents were always there by my side through ups and downs. They had also been the driving forces that encouraged and motivated me all along. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATIONS.
ii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.v LIST OF TABLES .vi LIST OF FIGURES. viii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION. Rationale of study.
Significance of study. Scope of study. Structure of study .2 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW. Definition of Internship.
Characteristics of Internship. Structure of Internship. Benefits of Internship. Challenges of Internship.
Definition of internship satisfaction. Factors Contributing to Internship Satisfaction. Proposed Theoretical Framework .18 CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .1 Locale of the study .4 Data collection procedure .5 Data processing method. Exploratory Factor Analysis.
Multivariate regression analysis .24 CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. Scale Reliability Testing .4 Exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Exploratory factor analysis. Final Research Model .42 CHAPTER V: SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS, IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS.
Summary of the Findings. Implications for host companies. Recommendations for further research .56 iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviations Meanings ATC English-major students at Banking Academy of Vietnam CF Contextual Factors EFA Exploratory Factor Analysis IF Individual Factors IS Internship Satisfaction JC Job Characteristics OE Organizational Environment SPSS Statistical Package for Social Sciences US University Support v LIST OF TABLES Table 3. Numbers of final year ATC students.
Profile of Respondents (N=137). KMO and Bartlett's Test. Total Variance Explained. Result of EFA (independent variables).
KMO and Bartlett's Test (dependent variable). Total Variance Explained. Total Variance Explained.40 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Job Characteristics Model – Hackman/Oldham.
Proposed Theoretical Framework (Extracted from the study of Hussien & La Lopa (2018). Final Research Model .42 vii ABSTRACT Title: An Investigation Into Internship Satisfaction Among Senior English-Major Undergraduates At Banking Academy Of Vietnam Author: Phung Thi Tuyet, a fourth-year student of Faculty of Foreign Languages at Banking Academy of Vietnam. Nguyen Thi Thu Trang (MA), a lecturer of Faculty of Foreign Languages at Banking Academy of Vietnam. Internship is a form of experiential learning that creates a close relationship between the academic institutions and the business organizations.
It has been proved to play an important role in university students’ personal and professional growth. Also, it can be considered as a preparatory step for students to achieve practical knowledge and observed experience throughout an internship program. Nevertheless, how English-major students value the internship has not been widely explored in Vietnam. The research aim was to investigate internship satisfaction among fourth- year undergraduates majoring in English at the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Banking Academy of Vietnam.
The study employed a quantitative method approach and used a web-based questionnaire with 46 question items to collect the data from 137 senior ATC students. The quantitative data by then was analyzed by SPSS with Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and linear regression to examine factors contributing to student’s internship effectiveness. The findings reveal that Job Characteristics, Organizational Environment and Contextual Factors had a positive correlation with the students’ internship satisfaction, while Individual Factors and University Support did not have influences on internship satisfaction. The research results can be valuable for stakeholders such as academic staff, higher educational institutions and business organizations to adjust and re-design their programs to raise higher level satisfaction of student’s internship.
Key words: Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA); internship satisfaction, experiential learning, English-major interns; academic staff, higher educational institutions, business organizations. viii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION The chapter provides information about the rationale of the study of factors contributing to internship satisfaction, the research aim, the research question, the scope, the significance, and the structure of the study. Rationale of study In the workplace, an internship is a long-term arrangement of an enrolled student in an organization, with or without any salary, which provides learning from an enterprise supervisor, and some academic subjects toward a degree (Narayanan et al. According to Nguyễn and Vũ (2015), the Vietnamese government try hard to reform and enhance the teaching and training programs in the universities.
This requires much great effort and determination in innovation, improving the effectiveness of training as well as internship. In this context, students’ satisfaction with the internship is regarded as one of the most essential aspects determining the success of education. As a result, many universities and practitioners have been concerned about measuring internships and evaluating their impacts on student satisfaction. To measure Internship Satisfaction among university students, some frameworks have been developed and performed all over the world (D’abate et al.
(2009); Gupta et al., (2010); Lord et al. Nevertheless, Internship Satisfaction in Vietnam business or linguistic universities has not been examined so far. The current research has been instructed with a theoretical framework designed by Hussien & La Lopa (2018), other previous studies on Internship Satisfaction. The research purpose is to explore the factors contributing to English-major undergraduates students’ internship satisfaction.
Research Aim The study ultimately aims to examine student’s perception of factors contributing to internship satisfaction among senior English-major students at Banking Academy of Vietnam. Research Question The research objectives of the current study are to examine whether: 1. Individual factors have significant effects on internship satisfaction. University support has significant effects on internship satisfaction.
Job characteristics have significant effects on internship satisfaction. Organizational environment has significant effects on internship satisfaction. Contextual factors have significant effects on internship satisfaction. Significance of study This study was conducted to investigate factors that contribute to the internship satisfaction of senior English-major students at Banking Academy of Vietnam.
Firstly, the research makes theoretical contributions to the literature of internship satisfaction in various contexts. Particularly, the current study examines factors that contribute to internship satisfaction among students who major in English for Banking and Finance. Secondly, the research study is expected to provide stakeholders (academic staff, educational institutions, and business organizations) valuable information to enhance internship effectiveness. As a result, students could be more confident to enter the labor market after their graduation.
Scope of study This research examines the major factors contributing to internship satisfaction among senior English-major undergraduates at Banking Academy of Vietnam. Only the students of K21 majoring in English language were invited to participate in this research. The study was carried out from 21th March, 2022 to 21th May, 2022. Structure of study The research includes five chapters as follows: Chapter I - Introduction.
The chapter provides information about the rationale of the study of factors contributing to internship satisfaction, the research aim, the research question, the scope, the significance, and the structure of the study. 2 Chapter II - Literature Review. The chapter presents relevant literature on graduation internships, followed by the theoretical framework which guides the current study. Chapter III - Methodology.
The chapter covers valuable information on research methodology. It includes detailed descriptions of the study locale, the research instruments, participants, data collection procedure, data processing method and data analysis. Chapter IV - Findings and Discussion. The chapter demonstrates demographic results, descriptive statistics, scale reliability resting, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), correlation analysis and multiple regression, final research model.
At the end of this chapter, there will be a discussion to further evaluate the findings in relation to the previous studies. Chapter V - Summary, Implications and Recommendation. The chapter contains a brief summary of the findings, implications for academic institutions and business organizations/companies. The final chapter clarifies the research limitations before offering suggestions for further studies.
3 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW The chapter presents relevant literature on graduation internships, followed by the theoretical framework which guides the current study. Definition of Internship According to Patton and Dial (1988), the graduation internship is a type of work- based learning in which students gain practical knowledge and supervised experience. In higher education institutions, graduation internship has long been considered as an important element of the academic curriculum (Coco, 2000; Cook, Parker & Pettijohn, 2004; Gault, Redington & Schlager, 2000; Stichman & Farkas, 2005). Tan et al.
(2007) state that numerous people have varied perspectives on the word "internship." Some define it as any work experience completed before completing a formal education or a short-term work experience within six weeks or less. Despite its benefits, the authors stated that part-time employment should be considered an exception as a sort of internship training. The term internship refers to a working and training experience in any business industry in which undergraduates are attached, in relation to their course of study, under the supervision of onsite supervisors as well as the support of academic supervisors for a minimum of three months. In 1906, the first internship was recorded at the University of Cincinnati's Accounting Department (Thiel & Hartley, 1997).
The internship has four distinct characteristics, despite its origins in cooperative education. These consist of: 1) students work part-time; 2) no compensation is required; 3) school credits are supplied for interns; and 4) both institutions and industry serve as mentors to interns (Coco, 2000; DiLorenzo-Aiss & Mathisen, 1996; Divine, Linrud, Miller & Wilson, 2007; Maelah, Mohamed, Raml & Aman, 2014). According to Malborough (1999) internship originated within medical education. This phrase is now used to describe a wide range of pre-work activities.
The author added that an internship can be defined and labeled in a variety of ways, all of which have a comparable meaning or depict activities that are similar to internships. These terms include: experiential learning; experiential education; practice or 4 practicum; cooperative education; fieldwork or field experience; multicultural education, cross-cultural internship. The term ‘internship’ will be utilized throughout this research paper to ensure consistency and standardization. Characteristics of Internship 2.
Structure of Internship According to Divine et al. (2007), Stansbie et al. (2013), Rangan and Natarajarathinam (2014), internships should be organized to give maximum value and satisfy all stakeholders. Well-structured internships are essential to the success of a program that benefits both interns and organizations.