An investigation into internship satisfaction among senior english major undergraduates at banking academy of vietnam

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 Tai ngay!!! Ban co the xoa dong chu nay!!! 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 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v LIST OF TABLES vi LIST OF FIGURES vii ABSTRACT viii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of study 1.2 Research Aim .1 1.3 Research Question 1.4 Significance of study 1.5 Scope of study 1.6 Structure of study CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW .4 2.1 Definition of Internship 2.2 Characteristics of Internship 2.2.1 Structure of Internship .5 2.2.2 Benefits of Internship 2.2.3 Challenges of Internship 2.3 Internship satisfaction 10 2.3.1 Definition of internship satisfaction 10 2.3.2 Factors Contributing to Internship Satisfaction 11 2.4 Previous Studies 14 2.5 Proposed Theoretical Framework 18 CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .19 3.1 Locale of the study 19 3.2 Participants 19 3.3 Research instruments 19 3.4 Data collection procedure 20 3.5 Data processing method 21 3.6 Data Analysis 23 3.6.1 Scale Reliability 23 3.6.2 Exploratory Factor Analysis 23 iii 3.6.3 Multivariate regression analysis 24 CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 26 4.1 Demographic results 26 4.2 Descriptive Statistics 27 4.3 Scale Reliability Testing 30 4.4 Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) 31 4.5 Findings 31 4.5.1 Exploratory factor analysis .31 4.5.4 Final Research Model .41 4.6 Discussions 42 CHAPTER V: SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS, IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .45 5.1 Summary of the Findings 45 5.2 Implications 45 5.2.2 Implications for host companies .46 5.3 Recommendations for further research 46 REFERENCES 48 APPENDIX 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 3.1 Numbers of final year ATC students .19 Table 4.1 Profile of Respondents (N=137) 26 Table 4.2 Descriptive Statistics 28 Table 4.3 Scale Reliability .30 Table 4.4 KMO and Bartlett's Test 32 Table 4.5 Total Variance Explained .32 Table 4.6 Result of EFA (independent variables) 33 Table 4.7 KMO and Bartlett's Test (dependent variable) 35 Table 4.8 Total Variance Explained .36 Table 4.9 Total Variance Explained .36 Table 4.10 Component Matrixa .36 Table 4.11 Correlations 37 Table 4.12 Model Summary 39 Table 4.13 ANOVA 39 Table 4.14 Coefficients 40 Table 4.15 Model Summary 40 Table 4.16 ANOVA 40 Table 4.17 Coefficients 40 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Job Characteristics Model – Hackman/Oldham 13 Figure Proposed Theoretical Framework (Extracted from the study of Hussien & La Lopa (2018) .18 Figure 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 Advisor: Ms 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 fourthyear 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 1.1 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., 2010) 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., (2011); and Kawai, (2012) 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 1.2 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