Supporting Engineering Education through Internship Mentoring Program: Approaches, Perceptions and Challenges

University-industry linkage is considered as a strategy to equip university students, with theoretical and practical knowledge. The purpose of this research was to investigate the approaches, perceptions, and challenges of internship mentoring in Bahir Dar Institute of Technology, Bahir Dar University. The participants were mentors, students, and a director. Thus, 60 mentors, 80 students, and one academic program director were selected through availability and purposive sampling techniques. The research was designed through a case study, embedded mixed research design approach. The data were collected through questionnaire and interview and analyzed through descriptive statistics (mean), the Kruskal-Wallis H test, and thematic analysis. The data revealed that both mentors and students perceived internship mentoring helped to improve engineering students’ academic achievements and their psychology. However, different responses were observed between mentors and students. Most students did not perceive the internship mentoring program helped them improve their communication skills and their future careers. The data also proved that majority of mentors used a cloning model than the nurturing and friendship models. Finally, the data indicated that lack of company supervisor’s interest to involve students in the actual work, inadequate support from administrators, and inadequate guidance for mentoring are the major challenges that affect the implementation of internship mentoring in Bahir Dar Institute of Technology, Bahir Dar University.

Graduate Students’ Perceived Needs and Preferences for Supervisor Written Feedback for Thesis Writing

A plethora of previous research has explored students’ preferences for written feedback from teachers to respond to students’ writing in the classroom. However, little or no research has investigated graduate students’ needs and preferences regarding written feedback provided by their supervisors in response to thesis writing. This study examined the feedback needs and preferences of EFL graduate students to the three nominated themes defining supervisor written feedback to thesis writing in this study: content, genre, and linguistic feedback to thesis writing. Data was collected from 32 master’s students from the TEFL and Media and Communications at Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia using a questionnaire and an unstructured interview. The participants’ responses were tabulated and analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results indicated that both groups commonly preferred feedback on content the most. When sub-categories of this feedback were examined further, it was found that TEFL students favored gaps in theoretical understanding, but Media and Communications students preferred coverage and gaps in the literature. They also showed discrepancies regarding their preferences for part-genres in thesis writing and the various features of linguistic accuracy. The results of this study suggest that feedback on theses should be realized in regard to the needs and preferences of graduate students. Finally, implications for further research that could shed light on the resonant understanding of feedback on thesis writing are presented.