Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
may have been developed either through course-
work in the program or the students have already
worked at an operational level previously hence
able to apply the skills. For post-internship, the
level of competence were increased because the
students became more confident in interpersonal
communication, presenting information by writing
effectively, understanding self and others, and per-
sonal productivity and motivation. However, her
findings revealed that students still least confident
on presenting ideas, motivating others, controlling
and participative decision making. As well, her
study identified that students are most competent
in Mentor and Monitor roles while least compe-
tent in Broker and Innovator roles (Quinn, et al.,
1990; Walo, 2001).
Additionally, tourism and hospitality employ-
ers are encouraged to structure the orientation and
training of new graduates to take advantage of their
strong mentor competencies and to further develop
coordinator competencies through job work expe-
rience. Into the bargain, there is a need for on-go-
ing evaluation by hospitality and tourism educators
regarding the students' competency development
to ensure it fits with the industry needs and require-
ment (Breen, et al., 2004; Hansson, 2001).
who enrolled in a third year core unit in semester
five, before they left the campus to start internship
in semester six.
Purposive sampling method was used as
researchers believed the respondents who were
belongs to the targeted groups are able to answer
the survey precisely. A self-administered question-
naire comprised of two parts was developed. Part
one adopted items from Quinn et al. (1990) 113
competency statements whereby each student was
asked to self-assess himself/herself in relation to
each competency statement. Likert scale was used
to rate each of the competency statements ranging
from 1 “Strongly Disagree” to 6 “Strongly Agree”.
The 113 competency statements were presented in
the same order as set out by Quinn et al. (1990).
Part two collected basic demographic data of the
respondents including gender and intention to work
in the industry after graduation. The students were
informed of the purpose of the study before the
surveys were distributed and they were also been
informed that a same questionnaire will be given to
them at the completion of their internship.
4
ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
Of the 270 surveys distributed to the students, 200
surveys were returned given a response rate of 74
per cent. The internal consistency of the item was
assessed by computing the Cronbach-Alpha reli-
ability scale with the result of 0.987 for all items
which are excellent (Hair, Money, Samouel, &
Page, 2007). Based from the frequency statis-
tics, 75 per cent from the total respondents are
female (n
3 METHODOLOGY
A causal cross-sectional study was conducted to
determine whether the students' management com-
petencies are developed after they had undergone
the internship. Besides, researchers compared the
mean scores of the students' responses to the 24
management competencies before and after intern-
ship. The sampling frame was limited to semester
six students comprises of four departments in the
Faculty of Hotel and Tourism Management, Uni-
versiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Pulau Pinang
namely Diploma in Hotel Management, Diploma
in Foodservice Management, Diploma in Tourism
Management, and Diploma in Culinary Arts. The
majority of these students were expected to under-
take the internship subject for their final year in
Diploma program. Statistic from the Industrial
Training Department showed the number of senior
hospitality students going for internship in the four
different programmes were 270 students. The first
round of the survey was distributed to all students
=
150) while another 25 per cent are
male (n
50). Findings worth noted that almost
majority of the students have the intention to
work in hotel industry after graduation (n
=
=
178;
89%) and only 11% (n
22) refuse to work in the
field. Somehow, this result is contradicted with a
study done by Mohd Zahari, Hanafiah, Othman,
Jamaluddin and Zulkifly (2010) who found that
students became less interested and less committed
to accept any job in the hotel industry even after
few years they had studying the program and had
undergone their practical training.
Result in Table 2 revealed the output from paired
sample t-tests which was conducted to compare the
students' pre and post-internship mean scores for
the 24 management competencies and eight mana-
gerial roles. It was found that students' pre-intern-
ship mean scores ranged from 4.5250 to 4.0720.
These relatively high scores for pre-internship pos-
sibly due to majority of this group of students had
the opportunity to apply or practice those skills.
Alternatively, those skills may have been developed
through coursework in their diploma program.
=
Table 1.
Distribution of the students.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search