WCER’s Hora Adds Chinese University to Internship Study

September 5, 2018

Hora has just begun a 2.5-week residency as a guest professor in the School of Education at Tianjin University in China.

Hora has just begun a 2.5-week residency as a guest professor in the School of Education at Tianjin University in China.

Matt Hora, a research scientist at UW-Madison’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research, has just begun a residency as a guest professor in the School of Education at Tianjin University in China, where he will teach and study for 2 ½ weeks.

Supported by a $10,528 grant from Tianjin University, Hora will deliver guest lectures and oversee a team of faculty members and graduate students working to implement the WCER-based College Internship Study at Tianjin and at a nearby School of Applied Sciences. The overall study, directed by Hora starting in April, uses a mixed-methods approach based on student focus groups, an online student survey and interviews with faculty members, career services professionals and local employers.

Already underway at five U.S. institutions, the study will use the data collected in China, Hora says, to inform comparative analyses of internship program design and impacts across institutional, political, socio-economic and cultural contexts. Overall, the study aims to document the effects of internship participation and program characteristics on student outcomes such as college completion, career adaptability, employment and earnings.

As the idea of work-based learning opportunities such as internships gains influence in public higher education and workforce development policy globally, Hora hopes to share study findings with employers and other stakeholders to help ensure internship programs provide equitable, robust experiential learning opportunities that improve the workforce transitions of all students.

Hora, an assistant professor in adult teaching and learning in the Division of Continuing Studies, launched the Center for Research on College to Workforce Transitions (CCWT) in 2017 within WCER. His doctorate in learning sciences is from the Department of Educational Psychology at UW-Madison.