For this study, I designed the research based on exploring six graduates, six employers, and six academics’ perspectives, and their experiences of internships and their expectations of employability. I grounded my study on ontology and epistemology. Ontology refers to what sort of things exist in the social world and assumptions about the form and nature of that social reality (Creswell, 2003). It is concerned with whether social reality exists independently of human understanding and interpretation. Epistemology is concerned with knowledge and ways of knowing and learning about social reality (Guba & Lincoln, 1998). Two main perspectives for knowing are positivism and interpretivism. Constructivism and ‘naturalistic’ are terms referred to in the literature and sometimes inconsistently for interpretivism (Guba & Lincoln 1994). The term constructivism is helpful because it identifies the basic principle that reality is socially
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constructed; a relativist position that holds the view that there is no external reality independent of human consciousness (Crotty, 1998). The researcher considered “the study of being” (Crotty, 1998:10) or “the nature of reality” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985:37) as vital elements for the data collection of information from graduates, employers, and academics. I gave particular emphasis to each stakeholder’s individual experiences of transition. I explored the likenesses and differences such as the resources on which the graduates, employers, and academics drew to accomplish their goals and tasks in their participation as unique identities and capacities in internships. I analysed the perspectives and views of the three groups of participants who would give an insight into my understanding of the relationship between internship and employability.
To achieve my aim, I conceptualised, a descriptive and interpretive case-study research design using internship workplaces as research sites, employers as providers of placement for graduates, and academics acting as coordinators for internships.
My first challenge was to identify the internship workplace settings, which met various criteria, such as companies that were undergoing a tradition of providing structured internships. I also searched for a knowledge-intensive enterprise that would use graduate-level knowledge and skills. I favoured companies that accepted the practice of hiring graduates from many fields of competences, and organisations that gave opportunities to adhere to the process which shaped a person’s internship experiences. I selected three sectors of activities: The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector, the financial sector, and the accommodation and hotel sectors. I chose companies in these sectors of activities because they turned out to be the most structured and flourishing organisation at present in Mauritius. First, these enterprises had had a continuous expansion over the last decade and continued to select graduates for internships. I have consulted these three unique businesses from the viewpoint of employers and recent graduates. Therefore, there was an opportunity to explore an unexamined phenomenon such as an internship. Second, the ICT, finance, and hotel industries enrolled many university graduates, and these organisations attracted graduates from a range of qualifications and degree sectors, thus providing a blend of student knowledge backgrounds.
My next challenges in this study were negotiating access to (1) the graduates who had progressed through internships, (2) the employers who had experienced and recruited graduates for internships, and (3) academics who had organised internships. I built relationships with participants and with other people referred to “gatekeepers” who could make easy or intervene within my study. This was an essential part of my methods, and how I started and negotiated
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these states of connectedness was a fundamental design decision. Bogdan and Biklen (2006) conceptualise these relationships as “gaining accesses” to the setting or as “negotiating entry.”
Being a coordinator placing graduates in companies for internships, I carried out negotiation and re-consultation with stakeholders who took part in this study. I drew on my fixed contacts with employers to gain formal permission from companies, negotiating access. However, I needed relationships that obliged me to arrive at the information that could answer my research questions. In this qualitative study, I was the pawn of the research, and the research relationships were how I worked out the research. These relationships affected both the participants and myself on other components of the research design. In these relationships, I could facilitate the elements of the study design, such as selecting participants and collecting data. I gave opportunities to stakeholders to designate the places and time I would interview them, for instance, at their workplace or at any other places they would feel more comfortable. What was essential in interviewing for me, was to secure a working research partnership in generating useful information on knowledge by these research participants.
In promoting “multiple access points” to the research site, the Director of the Mauritius Employers Federation recommended me to the Internship programme manager of these companies, who became my direct and continued contacts while planning the fieldwork and during the interviews. With the help of programme managers in companies, I was given the lists of ex-graduates who have progressed through internships and also were employed with the company or elsewhere, as competent leaders, for example, managers/mentors, and academics who were coordinating internships. Companies equipped me with facilities to interview the academies. Gatekeepers also informed the managers of those graduates of my presence throughout the internship period, and that graduates would require to attend occasional contacts with me. From the list of ex-graduate interns, I selected those who had completed their internships and had come from unique backgrounds. The companies encouraged the graduates who had been accepted to volunteer for this research. They received an e-mail request from me to take part in this study, and I explained the research, outlining what they could expect for their participation. I informed them that staff and managers of companies knew of and supported this research, and I guaranteed participant anonymity and confidentiality. All graduates who were invited to take part in the research responded and agreed to be part of the study. From the overall number of graduates available in each of the three fields, I selected a balance of gender among the graduates wherever workable.
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Another challenge was collecting data from stakeholders; I knew that they should answer the research questions: and the data analysis had to be in line with the ontological stance of the study.
Therefore, in the researching design stages, I made critical choices to collect data. Pascarella (2006) shows that quantitative methods explained the existing relationship between people while, on the contrary, qualitative research methods were indispensable for my study as it made coherent the “why” of a relationship between people. I learned that the qualitative method was, among others, for selecting the remarkable opinions or attitudes of employers, academics, and graduates’ experiences while learning. For this study, this concerned qualitative studies in stories with details, for example, the participants who would spell out their rich stories about the theme of the research. Salehi and Golafshani supported a comparable study adopting a qualitative method (2010). Creswell (2007) noticed that someone accepts qualitative methods when issues are difficult to analyse or to understand. I, therefore, selected the qualitative methodology that could produce, develop, and even describe the experiences of individuals. The concept is supported by Hendricks (2009) who gives details of what the study population experiences and gives them manners of seeing. Analysing internships was paramount in understanding the details of all participants’ experiences.