Internship Program of Instituto de Formacao Turistica de Macau: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

<p>This study examined the experiences of hospitality interns and their supervisors who have been involved in the internship program of a public tertiary institution in Macao SAR, China. The main data source was the interns’ completed internship logbooks (N=1,149). Qualitative content analysis was performed manually and triangulated with Leximancer Text Mining software. Quantitative data were analysed using principal component analysis (PCA), Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests, tests, and ANOVA. This study comprises two research tasks (RT1 and RT2). The findings of the first task (RT1) informed a theoretical framework that differed from that proposed by Tse (2010) in the ranking of importance of what hospitality interns find most important about internships. For RT1, a framework of three factors was found to influence the quality of a supervisor: supervisor’s sense of responsibility, supervisor’s willingness to teach interns, and supervisor’s eagerness to share their work experiences and life knowledge with interns. The first derived variable of this study, Supervision Quality, showed statistically significant differences among program types. In the second task (RT2), another derived variable, Interns’ Performance, which reflected supervisors’ evaluation of the interns, indicated significant differences according to interns’ ages and program types. With respect to the theoretical implications, a conceptual framework for hospitality internship practice was proposed based on the relevant extant literature and the findings generated from this study. With regard to the practical implications, the findings may inform the tertiary institution about aspects of their internship program that could be improved. The institute could examine why there are significant differences among program types in Supervision Quality and among ages and program types in Interns’ Performance. The findings regarding the quality of a supervisor may also help internship providers identify quality supervisors for interns. </p>