An examination of accounting internship on subsequent academic performance

Abstract

Increasingly, internship has become an essential component of the undergraduate degree programmes. It provides students with a smooth transition from on-campus environment to the working environment. It is often viewed as a ‘win-win’ situation for both the intern and the intern’s employers. Students are able to learn about the profession and gain practical experience while simultaneously being able to reflect on what they have learned in the classroom. Employers benefit from internships because interns are sources of future employees. The relationship between Internship and academic performance on accounting degree is significantly under-researched. This paper examines the effect of accounting student internships on subsequent academic performance in one of the national universities in Sri Lanka. For this purpose post-internship course unit performance of students with accounting internship experience were considered. Readily available data on internship status, gender and prior achievement of accounting special degree undergraduates were used. Linear regression models were constructed using the data with undergraduates. Research finds that internships do a have a positive impact on learning and higher scores tend to have a higher GPA and gender is negatively correlated with GPA signaling that male students performed better than female students.