Perceptions of Satisfaction-Dissatisfaction in the Internship Experience

Perceptions of Satisfaction-Dissatisfaction in the Internship ExperienceAuthor(s): Jerry L. McCafferySource: Public Administration Review, Vol. 39, No. 3 (May - Jun., 1979), pp. 241-244Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Society for Public AdministrationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/975948 .

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INTERNSHIPS IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 241

Intern Program Graduates

Certainly one criteria to measure the effectiveness of the Phoenix internship is to follow the careers of its graduates, which we are able to do through our Phoenix Alumni As- sociation. Most of the 87 former interns hold responsible administrative positions in city government, including 22 city managers or assistant city managers. Three are assistant city managers in other cities in the Phoenix metropoli- tan area. Others hold responsible positions in county, state, and federal governments. Several former interns are now employed by public interest groups and professional associations. One is executive editor of The American City magazine, one is executive director of a state municipal league, two hold positions with the American Public Works Association, and one is executive director of the New England Municipal Center.

. . . in keeping with a philosophy to treat interns as regular staff members, there are few restrictions on the types of assignments which interns receive.

Twelve former interns have remained with the city of Phoenix, including two urban service managers, the spe- cial assistant to the mayor, the management and budget director, the assistant management and budget director, five management assistants in the management and budget department, and two management assistants in the city man- ager's office.

Success of the Program

We believe that the Management Intern Program has been highly successful for three reasons: First, top management staff and elected officials have had a strong commitment to the program from its inception. Second, the program is structured as part of the ongoing operation of the Management and Budget Department which is responsible for all intern activities. Interns are regarded as regular staff members and their duties and assignments re- flect that status. Finally, every attempt is made to make the internship as meaningful as possible to the individual intern in light of his or her career goals. This means that while the program is structured to assure that interns receive basic skills as part of their training, it remains flexible enough for individual career emphasis. The intern is given the opportunity to express his or her preference for working with a particular city operation and, if at all possible, those preferences are met.

Future of the Program

Each year, the Management Intern Program undergoes an informal evaluation by management and budget staff and by members of the current intern class. The evaluation process serves to point out the strengths and weaknesses of the program and the need for any changes in its operation. Although the program is backed by tradition, it has indeed changed in focus somewhat over the years, as both the needs of the city and the new interns have become more sophisticated. While the intern program's primary goals will remain intact, we anticipate that the program will con- tinue to be flexible in order to adapt to the training needs of future public administration graduates.

PERCEPTIONS OF SATISFACTION-DISSATISFACTION

IN THE INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCE

Jerry L. McCaffery, Indiana University

Public administration has made a major commitment' to mid-curriculum internships.2 At least part of the ratio- nale for that commitment is that the internship is consid- ered an investment in the future, a way of reducing the front-end costs of learning the labyrinthine byways of complex organizations. That commitment is not inexpen- sive. A rough calculation of the direct cost of last summer's intern group at Indiana University cost the Univer- sity, the interns, and the host agencies roughly $110,000 to support 55 interns. Applying estimated national enroll- ment figures, if the average direct cost of an internship is $2000 per intern, and if even half of the 20,000 students enrolled in M.P.A. degrees take an internship, then total direct cost could be somewhere around $20,000,000. If one

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were to use a concept of opportunity cost for both the agency-"the intern is cheap expertise"-and the intern- "I could have made 3 times this as a truck driver"-the cost could be even more substantial. Using even the "roughest" calculations, if viewed in monetary terms alone the concept of internships deserves serious consider- ation.

Jerry McCaffery is associate professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. He served in the Wisconsin Department of Revenue from 1965-1972 in several bud- getary and analytic staff positions and is currently working on local government fiscal patterns.



242 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW

Rather than focus on the monetary benefit of an internship, the question this paper attempts to explore is "what makes an internship satisfactory or unsatisfactory to the intern himself?" Certainly direct benefits may occur to an agency, to the student, and to the school itself. For example, the host organization may get a sophisticated project done at low cost. The intern's fresh perspective and sharply-honed classroom talents may occasion some organizational analysis for the agency, not only about its mission or missions, but also about the skill mixes of the type of people it wishes to hire. The intern gains insight into the world of administration, assesses his current skill inventory, perhaps gains or reaffirms his career path, and may even secure a job for himself after graduation. The

... if a school's interns do well in the field, then they advertise the strength of the school's program and increase the market value and marketability of its graduates.

school's most concrete gain is probably the testing of its curricula through the feed-back that a group of interns process to insure the best match between what is taught and what should be taught. Additionally, interns in class will help other students relate to the real world of administration. Finally, but not insignificantly, if a school's interns do well in the field, then they advertise the strength of the school's program and increase the market value and marketability of its graduates.3 In the main these are short run gains and one could attempt to cost-out their benefits, but the proposition we wish to explore is that the internship is training in what has been called 'interpersonal literacy'4 or knowing "when and how to communicate what to whom in order to achieve specified goals." Obviously, this definition includes almost all communication from infancy on, for a baby can provide non-verbal cues which have as much saliency as a superior's raised eyebrow, but the thrust of this definition assumes a complex organization with multiple subsystems and formal and informal power and communication systems. To some extent, interpersonal literacy in an organizational context is agency, person, situation and issue-specific, but we must assume some transference of knowledge. That is to say, however new these skills are, once an intern has become sensitized to communication behavior patterns in one organization, he will look for similar patterns in any other organization he may join later.

In the summer of 1977 we set out to explore the ade- quacy of the internship as a supplement to classroom learning by interviewing a group of graduate and undergraduate student-interns who were enrolled at Indiana University-Bloomington. Few would suggest that interpersonal organizational communication skills can be taught satisfactorily in the classroom, although their importance can be discussed. Even so, we expected most interns to emphasize the value of practical skills in the begin- ning of their internship and, as the internship proceeded,

we expected interpersonal literacy skills to become more highly regarded. Consequently, we expected the emphasis on practical skills to decline over time. We expected students enrolled in the University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) to show less change over time than non-SPEA students, and we expected SPEA graduate students to show less change than SPEA undergraduates. Thus, the person who should have shown the most change would have been a non-public affairs undergraduate. One of the problems with this set of propositions was that a non-public affairs undergraduate major may not have had any practical skills to place initial reliance on, or, thus, to move away from. However, the SPEA intern office runs its intern program on a management-by-objectives pattern. Sponsors bring in a project or projects that needs to be done and SPEA selects four or five people for a final interview, all of whom have the basic training appropriate for the job, e.g., an English major is quite capable of drafting traffic safety brochures. For each intern placed about five do not get placed. Competition is strong and final selection is made by the host agency selecting from a pool of people skilled to do the job.

A paradox also existed with the SPEA graduate students who were highly trained in practical skills, but who also had been sensitized to organizational power structures and theories about leadership, motivation, and communication as part of their core course curriculum. Possessors of practical skills, but knowledgeable about interpersonal literacy, which way would they go? We decided that the most dissatisfied persons would be those who had begun with high expectations about practical skills, although it did not ne- cessarily follow that the most satisfied would be those who placed a lot of importance on interpersonal literacy. Addi- tionally, we expected that satisfaction would be related to supervision, that interns with meaningful supervision would be more satisfied and that SPEA graduate students would need less contact to be satisfied and their need for contact would decrease faster. We also expected older and more experienced interns to show less overall change.

Methodology

A two-wave questionnaire was sent out to 55 interns in the summer of 1977. The first questionnaire was mailed during the second week of the internship and the second during the I I th or penultimate week. The first eight ques- tions were demographic and experience data, the next six were modified Likert scales relating to experience, aca- demic background, practical skills, and interpersonal skills, the next six covered relations with the co-ordination given by the intern office, and the last four sought, in open-ended forum, levels of satisfactions-dissatisfactions, problems and skills most important for completion of the internship. The same questionnaire was administered both times. On the first questionnaire 50 interns (or 90 per cent) responded. Second questionnaires were sent to these 50 re- spondents and 34 of them (68 per cent) responded. Includ- ing late responses and a follow-up questionnaire, on cer- tain dimensions we have a response rate of 90 per cent for the second questionnaire.5

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INTERNSHIPS IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 243

Findings

Both surveys indicated that the majority of the interns were satisfied or very satisfied with their experience, and their satisfaction tended to increase over time, from 73 per cent on the first survey to 85 per cent on the second. The percentage of people who were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied did not change (total 6 per cent).

Satisfaction First Survey Second Survey (00) (No)

Responsibility 18 9 Professionalization 21 27 Environment 27 21 Personal Skills 6 15 Job Itself 6 9 Education-skills 18 12 Other 4 7

100% 100%

Responsibility and education-skills diminished over time as did satisfaction with the environment. Satisfaction with the job itself was not a major satisfaction, although it did increase some over time. The major factor here is that the interns quickly developed a sense of professionalization and took increasing satisfaction with it as well as dramatic- ally increased satisfaction with their personal skills growth. When asked to list dissatisfactions, the first survey included 13 categories, with 21 per cent indicating lack of direction, 9 per cent money, 9 per cent communication with the intern office, and 9 per cent commuting; about 21 per cent listed no dissatisfactions.

After the second survey, the direction of change was as follows for major categories:

Dissatisfaction First Survey (%o) Second Survey (No) Intern office 9 18 Job 6 15 No direction 21 12 Politics 3 9 Money 9 Commuting 9 6 Supervision 6 3 No challenge 3 9 None 21 21

The percentage listing "none" remained stable throughout the internship. Money dropped out altogether. Dissatis- faction with the intern office increased, as did dissatisfaction with the job. Dissatisfaction with lack of direction and supervision decreased and the perception of "no challenge" increased.

We also tried to analyze change by selected grouping, although the numbers in our sample can only suggest out- comes. A. Sex-When grouped by male and female the following

trends were noted. 1. When asked about overall satisfaction males

tended to be more satisfied initially, while females became the most satisfied group in the final survey.

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2. Female ratings of satisfaction with responsibility, professional development and the educational skills acquired increased over time. Males tended to rate these items high initially and changed little over the course of time.

3. Initially females showed more dissatisfaction with lack of direction, but this tended to drop out over time.

B. Other majors vs. public affairs (SPEA) majors- Groups were isolated on the basis of being a public affairs major or not. The following differences were noted between ratings. 1. Public affairs majors were more satisfied initially

yet tended to show less overall satisfaction in the final survey.

2. Public affairs majors identified professional development as an overwhelming satisfaction, yet other majors indicated such professionalism to be of little importance. Non-public affairs majors tended to show the most satisfaction in the educational and technical abilities required.

C. Undergraduate-Graduate 1. Both groups tended to become more satisfied with

time. No appreciable difference was found in the overall satisfactions of the two groups.

2. Graduate students listed professional development as the most important satisfaction while the undergraduates did not rate this as an important satisfaction. Also graduate students tended to feel that educational and skill development was less of a satisfaction.

3. Graduate students tended to be much less dissatisfied with lack of direction this relationship remained constant over time.

D. Past Work Experience vs. No Work Experience 1. Both groups tended to increase their overall satis-

faction with the internship over time, although both groups were about the same in satisfaction ratings.

2. Satisfaction for the more job-experienced interns was much more related to the job environment, than the less experienced who ranked items like responsibility and professional development higher. These ratings remained constant over time.

3. Lack of direction was a dissatisfaction for the more experienced, although it diminished over time. Such a concern did not appear to be as important for those with less experience.

E. Age-those younger than 24 were compared with those 24 or over. The following trends were noticed. 1. Overall satisfaction tended to be lower with the

older group. 2. Professional development as well as the job itself

seemed to be less of a satisfaction to the older group. The older group maintained more relative satisfaction in the work environment, than the younger group.

3. Little difference was found in the dissatisfaction list, although the older group tended to be less satisfied with the stipend involved as well as other personal arrangements.



244 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW

Concluding Remarks

The paradox of the mid-curriculum internship is that the intern is an organizational transient and he knows it. How, then, is he to react in terms of motivation? One body of lit- erature suggests that the intern would treat the internship as a means to an end,6 in this case the internship serves as a means to further professionalization and the interns satisfactions are not found in the job itself, but in what it prom- ises for the future. Perhaps this explains the emphasis on professionalization and the lack of emphasis on supervision. On the other hand, our response pattern seems to re- inforce the work of Argyris and Herzberg7 where work is seen as the dominant life interest of most people. The individual seeks self-actualization in the challenge of his daily work, but while he seeks challenge and fulfillment his em- ployment situation is often limited to prosaic tasks which

. . . once an intern has become sensitized to communication behavior patterns in one organization, he will look for similar patterns in any other organization he may join later.

challenge only a' fraction of his abilities. The employer, sensing dissatisfaction, in effect buys him off with pay and fringe benefits because he cannot or will not restructure the work environment to provide for self-actualizing behavior. Frederick Herzberg's research on satisfiers and dis- satisfiers in the work environment tends to support Argyris. Basically, Herzberg found that some factors caused dissatisfaction, but even when those conditions were corrected they did not automatically produce job satisfaction. Herzberg also suggested that while other factors produced satisfaction, their absence did not seem to cause dissatifaction. Since management strove to eliminate dissatisfactions but could not clearly see satisfiers, the correc- tive actions of management seem to produce a gradual al- ienation of the worker from his aspirations. In this study we found some items that dissatisfied the interns-low pay, change in pay periods, lack of direction; but the clear- est signals seemed to be about issues which related to work as a dominant issue. Lack of challenge in the job, the job itself, and decline in satisfaction with the level of responsibility were clear dissatisfactions which occurred over time. Conversely, interns learned to operate with a low level of supervision, and, over time, this became less of a problem for them. Clearly continued professionalization and increasing satisfaction with personal skills remained, or

grew, as satisfiers; but in this time when journalists tell us that more Americans are treating their job as a means to other ends, it is satisfying to know that, at least at this stage, students in public affairs programs show evidence of placing their major concern in the job itself.

Notes

For the dimensions of that commitment, see Nicholas Hen- ry's article in this issue.

2. Public administrationists qua practitioners have made the same commitment with a variety of internship programs, like those in Phoenix and the Presidential Management Intern Program. See the appropriate articles in this symposium.

3. These benefits are drawn from "Building the Internship Ex- perience with Management By Objectives" a paper prepared with Lee Cheaney and presented at the Southwestern re- gional Conference of ASPA, in Phoenix, November 1975.

4. Cooperative Assessment of Experiential Learning, Working Paper No. 4. "The Learning and Assessment of In- terpersonal Skills: Guidelines for Administrators and Fac- ulty." p. 8.

5. Of the 34 matched questionnaires, 15 were undergraduates and 19 were graduates, only 8 were over 24, the male-female split was exactly 50 per cent, 80 per cent were from public affairs programs, 95 per cent of the intern placements were in staff or research positions, roughly 36 per cent claimed their major as general management, with the other 64 per cent fall- ing into 12 categories. About 50 per cent were placed in state agencies, 24 per cent in local agencies, 18 per cent in federal agencies and 8 per cent in the private sector. All of these were within the boundaries of Indiana. Almost half claimed to have no job comparable in subject matter or duration to the internship, and 77 per cent claimed 1 or none. In sum it was a relatively young inexperienced group, evenly split between male and females, skewed toward public administration and affairs students, but manifesting much diversity in that cate- gory.

6. See for example the work of Robert Dubin, "Persons in Or- ganizations," in Robert Dubin, Ed., Human Relations in Administration. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1961) and Michael Schwartz, Personnel Administration, Vol. 27, No. 2, (March-April 1964), p. 7.

7. See Chris Argyris. Personality and Organization (N.Y.: 1957), and the work of Frederick Herzberg in Herzberg, Mansner and Snyderman, The Motivation to Work (N.Y.: 1959); "The Motivation-Hygiene Concept and Problems of Manpower" in Personnel Administration, Vol. 27, No. I(Jan-Feb. 1964) p. 4 and "One More Time: How do You Motivate Employees?" Harvard Business Review Vol. 46, No. 1, (Jan.-Feb. 1968), pp. 53-62.

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Documents

Perceptions of Satisfaction-Dissatisfaction in the Internship Experience