The contributions of extracurricular internship activities in terms of learning potential for administration training

Abstract

This research reveals reflections that contribute to the formulation of self-evaluation policies by each university intern and studies in the field of organizations with an emphasis on the management of people development policies that will benefit the training of graduates, future administrators, who aim to achieve significant and critical learning in their extracurricular internship experiences. The purpose was to analyze the contributions of extracurricular supervised internship activities in terms of significant and critical learning potential for the training of students in the administration course at a Brazilian Federal University. From the critical perspective of the theory of meaningfull learning, propositions were identified that served as a basis for analyzing the interns’ experiences in their internship activities. From the empirical theoretical confrontation, the analysis revealed that internship activities, for the most part, do not contribute in terms of potentially significant and critical learning to the training of students, but contribute to the reinforcement of potentially more mechanical learning in the organizations who receive them. The diagnosis of this case study contributes to reflections on supervised internship management policies in organizations, in which the importance of the proactive and meaningful learning process of interns to leverage their training is discussed.