Mass Media Internships in Vocational Training of Students Majoring in Journalism.

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to answer the questions of how and to what extend the internship programme, seen as a part of their vocational training, could contribute to students’ learning process and professional growth and how the students perceived the internship programme. This was a quasi-experimental study utilising quantitative and qualitative methods. Such statistical tools as a cumulative grade point average, the career motivation test, and Mettl’s aptitude online test for journalists, the semi-structured interview for the focus-group, and references from internship host company were used for calculations of the variables. The dependence of variables on the internship was analysed using a two-way ANOVA. The study found that mass media internships significantly improve vocational training system of students majoring in Journalism. Due to involvement in this programme, students’ academic performance and career motivation increased, journalism skills developed and the quality of this education rose. This internship programme fosters students’ job-related skills like working in a team and fast-paced environment, time-management, editing and publishing, communication, and social networking, using software to create digital and printed content. This study implies that universitybased journalism education is likely to soon become a secondary process. This study implies and experimentally proves that universitybased journalism education should soon become a secondary thing as de-institutionalised education is emerging laying the basics for “entrepreneurial journalism”.