An exploratory study on intern's communicative abilities: The industrial internship experience

Idrus, Hairuzila and Azelin, Mohamed Noor and Salleh, Rohani and Mohd Hashim, Hezlina (2010) An exploratory study on intern's communicative abilities: The industrial internship experience. In: 2010 2nd International Congress On Engineering Education, 8th-9th December 2010, Sunway Lagoon Hotel & SPA, Kuala Lumpur, M'sia.

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Abstract

Communication skills, other than specialized technology competency is a competency valued by employers. Universities are accountable in providing adequate communication skills for graduates to prepare them to face the challenging and changing industry. This study investigates the communication skills (oral and written) of interns from a private engineering and technology focused university in Malaysia. For a more comprehensive perspective, two sets of questionnaires are used to gather data from the interns and their respective industrial supervisors. Overall, the findings indicate that the interns possess high communicative abilities both in oral and written. Although the mean scores suggest that the interns had rated their communicative abilities higher than their industrial supervisors, t-test results show no significant difference between the two groups of respondents. Interestingly, no significant difference is found between interns from different academic programmes. The findings of this study indicate that the university may have prepared and groomed its students adequately to meet the needs of the current industries. Explanations for the findings are discussed in relation to the university’s intake requirements, course syllabus, and university-industry collaborative initiatives.

Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Uncontrolled Keywords: Engineering education; industrial internship; industrial supervisors; communication skills; oral communication skills; written communication skills
Subjects: H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
L Education > LG Individual institutions (Asia. Africa)
L Education > L Education (General)
Departments / MOR / COE: Departments > Management & Humanities
Depositing User: Azelin Mohamed Noor
Date Deposited: 23 Dec 2010 03:26
Last Modified: 19 Jan 2017 08:23
URI: http://scholars.utp.edu.my/id/eprint/3457

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