Formative assessment practice in international internships enhance development of employability skills

Background:
Traditionally, some Biomedical Laboratory Science students have been interns on international clinical internships in Europe and Australia. Little is known about how international internships foster development of intern’s professional competencies.
The aim of this study is therefore to identify the impact of formative assessment practice in international clinical research departments on employability skills of Biomedical Laboratory Science interns.

Summary of work:
Quantitative data (n=22) from internship evaluations (questionnaire) were collected from 2015-22. We conducted focus groups with 12 former interns (1-7 years post-graduating) and interviewed 4 international research departments (AU, FI, DE, FO) and 1 core healthcare employer. Data was thematically analyzed.

Results:
On a 5-point Likert scale, interns experienced a practice enhancing student achievement (average: 4.9) and obtaining profession-relevant skills (average: 4.6).
Qualitative data elucidated following key formative assessment components (Black & William, 2009): Clinical supervisors clarify the significance of intern’s work, engineer effective trouble shooting laboratory meeting discussions, initiate dialogues that induce reflection and create belief in the intern’s ability to succeed (self-efficacy). Qualitative data also showed that employer experienced 10 employability skills (Jackson, 2015) when employing former interns, particularly self-management, professionalism and problem-solving.

Discussion:
Through continuous formative assessment practice, interns in fact develop all the highly desired employability skills and are simultaneously kept motivated and persistent (Tinto, 2017) because clinical supervisors clarify learning intentions & criteria for success, elicit intern understanding and provide encouraging feedback, and as a result activate interns as owners of their own learning.

Conclusion:
Our study showed that formative assessment practice through work-integrated learning developed all 10 employability skills, especially self-management, professionalism and problem-solving which are desired competencies for employer.

Take-home message:
Continuous formative assessment practice embedded in authentic international clinical settings is a powerful tool in developing employability skills.