Exploring online internships amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020: Recommendations for the future of online internships

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In this multi-case study of online internships during the COVID-19 pandemic, we sought to contribute to
both the research literature and the ongoing practice of designing and implementing online internships
for college students. Through the collection of both quantitative and qualitative data across three distinct
cases—two OINPs, 11 colleges and universities, and one employer—our aim was to generate robust
empirical data that addressed the following research questions:

• RQ1: How many students successfully completed an online internship in 2020, and what were their demographic and academic characteristics (e.g., major or discipline)?
• RQ2: What were some key structural features of these online internships such as duration, compensation, type of mentorship and the nature of interns’ tasks? Were these features associated with particular student demographic or academic characteristics?
• RQ3: How do students rate their satisfaction and developmental value (both academic and career-related) of their online internship experience?
• RQ4: How, if at all, do these data compare with students pursuing in-person internships?

In this report we provided answers to these questions using three distinct, yet complementary datasets
that contribute important new empirical insights into the phenomenon of online internships, particularly
during the highly unusual year of 2020. In interpreting the data reported in this paper, we focus not only on
descriptions of the prevalence and nature of online internships, but also the other two key elements of the
Internship Scorecard—that of program quality and commitment to equity and access.

With respect to the quality of online internships, we remind readers that our criteria include both key
principles of internship program quality that have long been articulated by agencies such as NACE (2018)
that include factors such as making the internship an extension of the classroom, providing transferable
skills and routine feedback, and ensuring that student interns are given clearly defined learning goals, we
also consider principles from other fields of inquiry (see Table 10).

With these criteria in mind, one of our primary conclusions is that considerable variation exists within the world of online internships, including differences in the program duration, quality, and host or intermediary (e.g., OINP or employer). While such variation is also evident in in-person internships, another layer of complexity is added to the online experience with considerations about IT, internet access, work-life boundaries, and challenges associated with online or remote work that many occupations have experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic. In short, we argue that these additional concerns and factors make online internships—which are unlikely to disappear post-pandemic—a top priority for improvement and quality control in the field of higher education. Further, given that first-generation and low-income students are not significantly more likely to pursue online internships, but their more well-resourced counterparts are pursuing these positions, the field should be concerned that online internships may be vehicles for the reproduction of privilege and inequality, which are long-standing concerns about in-person internships (Curiale, 2009; Shade & Jacobson, 2015). Finally, we present our key findings, which are outlined below and should be interpreted with caution as they do not reflect all types of online internships and also do not reflect a random and/or representative sample of all college students in the U.S. With these caveats and standards for interpreting our data in mind, we offer the following seven conclusions and recommendations.

Finding #1: Internship participation was rather low during the COVID-19 pandemic, with interns roughly split 50/50 between online and in-person modalities

Of the 9,964 students from 11 campuses answering our survey from the NSCI, one of the biggest findings
is the large number of students (77.9%, n=7,761) who did not take an internship. Of the 22.1% (n=2,203)
students who did take one, our key finding is that 45.1% (n=993) had taken an online internship, with
47.4% (n=1,004) having had an in-person experience. These finding indicate that overall participation in internships during the pandemic was rather low, with only 1 in 5 students successfully completing an
internship. Further, contrary to conventional wisdom that most (if not all) internships were online during
the pandemic, our data show that as many students took in-person internships as they did online positions.

These results on internship participation are similar to our 13-institution dataset for the College Internship
Study, where interns and non-interns reflect 30% and 70% of that study sample, respectively, but these
more recent data do indicate a decline in overall internship participation in comparison with those earlier
data (2017-2019).

Finding #2: Online internship networking platforms (OINPs) had limited capacity to serve students during the pandemic with demand outstripping the supply of available positions

Another key finding pertained to the role that OINPs played during the pandemic, with some arguing that
they would fill an important gap in providing access to online positions as in-person positions were widely
cancelled while also addressing long-standing problems with access to internships by low-income, working
and/or geographically isolated students. Our data indicate, however, that while OINPs did serve the needs
of many students, there were more students registering with these platforms than there were positions
available for them. For students who registered with the OINPs, the number of students who actually
took a position was rather low, with less than ½ interviewees (8% for OINP-A, 42% for OINP-B) and 66%
(n=120) of survey respondents from OINP-B. These findings raise questions about the scope and role of
OINPs in the broader ecosystem of internships, while also pointing to the need to increase the number of
remote positions available to students seeking internships.

Finding #3: Online interns in our sample tended to be continuing-generation, have higher GPAs, come from upper-income families, and non-STEM majors

Our data indicate that the demographics of students pursuing online internships varied significantly along
key demographic variables such as first-generation status, grade point average, family income, major,
race and gender. While these results need to be cautiously interpreted given the non-random and nonrepresentative nature of our study sample with respect to the national population of college students, the
data do indicate that online interns represent a relatively narrow slice of the student population.

For those engaged in supporting STEM education such as the National Science Foundation, these data
highlight the fact that online internships are currently not a feasible option for STEM students. This
situation may be due to the hands-on nature of work in these disciplines and/or the predominance of
Business and non-STEM employers offering remote positions.

Finding #4: Online internships do not appear to solve the access and equity problem

For some observers the online internship has the potential to solve the access and equity problem in
the internship world, where unpaid positions have excluded low-income or working students, too many
positions are available only through social networks, and geographically isolated students have been
unable to access positions located in large urban areas. However, our data suggest that online interns
are predominantly from upper- and middle-income backgrounds (75.8%, n=634) and that there are more
unpaid online than in-person internships (42% versus 34.9% unpaid).

Our data also indicate that informal and inter-personal resources are the most common source of
information about internships, that most (but not all) students recall anti-discrimination policies as part
of their internship posting, and that a small number (2%, n=20) experienced discriminatory behaviors
first-hand in their online internship. However, the fact that 64 students overall reported discriminatory
behaviors and that about 40% of online interns did not recall anti-discriminatory policies from their
organizations indicates room for improvement.

Finding #5: Online interns report lower satisfaction, developmental value, 21st century skills, professional network development, and high-skill tasks than in-person interns

As part of the quality indicators of the Internship Scorecard, we highlight key factors that the literature
indicates are important components of an effective internship as well as outcomes that are often
discussed as benefits of the internship experience. Unfortunately, our data indicate that online interns
have significantly lower rates of satisfaction with their experience, lower scores for both academic and
developmental value, lower rates of acquiring new 21st century skills, and less growth of professional
networks than students pursuing in-person internships. Furthermore, the data indicate that fewer
online interns report being engaged in high-skill supervised work than in-person interns (31.9% to 40%), which is one of the core ideas of experiential learning, especially for experiences like internships
and apprenticeships that are intended to introduce novices to the professional world. These results are
troubling and indicate that the benefits of an in-person internship do not easily or uniformly translate to an
online experience.

Finding #6: Future online internships must pay especially close attention to task design, supervision and communication

Based on data from both our surveys and interviews with students, it is clear that while all internship
providers (and their academic advisor counterparts) need to pay close attention to the quality of task
design, supervision and communication, these issues are especially lacking in some online internships.
Consequently, as the field continues to advocate for students to take online or virtual internships, these
issues must be addressed and internships improved along these dimensions. Since these elements are
also issues with remote work more generally, especially the problems of social isolation and ineffective
supervision and communication, if an online internship is to provide students with remote working skills
which one student called “the future of work,” then employers and academic advisors will need to improve
how online experiences model and cultivate these skills.

Finding #7: Support services and training will need to be provided to many employers (and academic advisors) regarding how to design and implement an effective online internship

One of the primary conclusions we can draw from the data collected for this study is that while online
internships are likely a permanent part of the ecosystem of experiential learning for college students, and
a potential answer to some vexing issues related to equitable access, they remain a work in progress. To
improve these complex forms of remote and/or digital learning and professional socialization, employers
and academic advisors will need training and support services to develop high-quality programs. While
not all organizations will be able to offer positions like those featured by TreeHouse Foods, the goal for all
online internships should be to offer experiences that comply with the NACE standards, the principles of
the Internship Scorecard and key elements of effective remote work and digital learning.

Our study indicates that the field has a long way to go, and also that these debates and discussions about
work-based learning cannot ignore the fact that many college students were struggling with financial,
mental health, and academic challenges even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, in a post-pandemic world attention should be paid to not only improving internships at the employer and advisor
levels, but also in providing support services so that students have the tools and resources to thrive and
persist in higher education.

— This is the last of eight articles in this series. Click [here] to go to next article in this series. This series of articles is courtesy of the University of Wisconsin (Madison) Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions (CCWT). To download the full report, go to http://ccwt.wceruw.org/research/technicalreports.html