4 Conclusion and discussion

This thesis significantly increased the understanding of the internship process, the role of different stakeholders and the challenges that the students face during the internship abroad that affect their learning and in consequences improvement of skills. - How is the internship process organized? The investigation shows that the internship process is organized differently from school to school. There is no best method to be used at the national and international level. Some schools use screening process and a long preparatory time, some meet their students only once. Nevertheless, student’s percentage presented in diagram 1 that successfully completed their internship does not show connection with the answer whether they use (or not) the preparatory time before the internship at all. In addition, I take them with a lot of consideration, because of my own experience, experience from interviewed persons and from the internship guides which shows, that good preparatory time results in higher number of students that successfully ended the internship abroad. I must admit that I had some problems in getting more answers from respondents, both from students and from mentors. This is due to different reasons, for example the form of asking questions. Too many open questions affect questionnaire completion rate, which was investigated by Sax et al., (2003). The theories and investigations helped in pointing out the important issues in the planning of the internship. At JU, and other organizations that answered the questionnaire, and were interviewed, the internship process and what’s more the learning of the students, is challenged by different factors such as limited preparatory time, lack of communication among teachers, limited contact with hosting organization. This was also investigated by Bukaliya (2012), and his main founding was that many mentors are too busy to provide effective supervision for the students during the internship process. Furthermore, at JU the number of students going abroad increases every year. Moreover, according to JU’s strategy, we want to increase the number of students going abroad from 7 up to 10%, which can be a challenge in selecting the right students. By increasing the number of students going abroad, and by not having a system that will help in selecting the appropriate students, we might risk sending students that are insufficiently prepared, which can cause a failure. Furthermore, not matching the students to the right host will result in poor improvement of skills and competences, which is a difficult dilemma for all stakeholders. Additionally, the challenge that all VET institutions in Denmark are facing is dimensionering (word in Danish) by EUD-reform 2015, introduced by Undervisnings Ministeriet (2019). According to the reform, some of the VET courses will have a quota for the number of students that would like to start GF. This means that I will have more students going abroad from one course, this will result in limitation of number of placements we have available abroad. According to Kasli & Ilban (2013) collaboration is essential in order to eliminate problems that must affect the student’s internship. I believe that figure 1, which was made to illustrate the complexity of the internship process, will be used as a helping tool at JU in the internship process. Nevertheless, I began to wonder how to use it smarter. In order to follow the diagram a lot of work is required, and already now figure 1 should be modified by adding the feedback of different stakeholders at the end of the internship process. By reflecting on what went well and wrong during the whole internship process, the feedback will help to make it easier and qualitative preparation of the internship in the future (Bukaliya (2012) referred to Tackett et al., (2001)). Furthermore, it is important to reflect on the agreed learning unit, whether was suitable for particular student (Maertz et al., 2014). The mentors also recommended this during questionnaires and interviews. Unprepared internship can cause situations with unethical aspects, and this should be avoided.

- What is the role of each stakeholder in the internship process, and how can I facilitate the learning process during the internship? This study shows the importance of each stakeholder in the internship process. To make it work, it is necessary that all stakeholders work on the student’s success, which might be difficult. The main founding was that there is a communication gap between all stakeholders, and the importance of knowing and having trustable host, which sometimes is a challenge at JU. The mentor and other teachers from the sending organization makes the decision whether the student is ready or not for internship abroad. However, how to make the ethical decision? This is a dilemma. Maybe we should give a chance to all students that would like to go abroad. According to philosopher Bentham (1983) the decision whether something is right or wrong should depend on the consequences. He is in opinion that the best decision is one that brings the best benefits to the greatest number of people. Still, in order to evaluate the decision-making, more students should be sent with different challenges. I am afraid that it will be difficult to convince other colleagues to let the students have their internship abroad. We already had a long discussion about sending Nick to Iceland. This case has a positive ending, but what if the next decision will result in negative ending. The next problem is to choose the right host. In many cases, JU uses intermediary partners (they are helping in finding a host for our student) in finding host. Intermediary partners are met through different projects, conferences and student exchange. Besides, JU is a member of EUROPEA- International, an organization where 1000 VET institutions are member from all over the Europe. Nevertheless, 90 % of the students have their internship at the companies, and our intermediary partners are not always involved in finding the host. Some students use their own contacts, which can affect the communication between the host and the school, and in consequence result on students’ internship quality, which is required by Erasmus+ (Erasmus Student Network 2019). The next aspect is that stakeholders come from different cultures and ethics. According to Day & Steensen (2010), culture is something that humans themselves create, and culture is what allows us to understand the world around us. It is what we create through our experience with the social world. Nevertheless, even if the people belong to the same ethical group, coming from the same country, they are still different. I come from Poland, where I grew up and studied in a different culture from Denmark, in which the behavioristic teaching dominates. I noticed that Danish students are very open, and during their internship, they ask many questions in order to understand the topic, which can sometimes be problematic in different countries. This was already mentioned in this thesis, where a host from Portugal was surprised that the girls asked so many questions. - What are the challenges that affect learning process (improving skills) of the students during their internship? 100 % of students answered that the main motivation of having internship abroad is the improvement of their skills. The statistics made by Uddannelses- og Forskningsministeriet 2019, based on all Danish students internship abroad financed by Erasmus+, shows that only 63 % of the students were satisfied with improvement of skills, where compared to higher education students, 88% were satisfied and at JU 71,70%. This confirms my findings, that many students are facing different challenges/problems: before, during and after internship, that result in their lower skills satisfaction. For example, short preparatory time, bureaucracy, feeling homesick, internship location, poor description of the learning unit, limited contact with mentor from sending institution and the host, diagnoses, lack of pedagogical skills, wrong match studentshost and to high expectations were the main problems named by students, mentors and different articles.