Identifying scaffold for high impact practices in the public higher education context through the lens of internship practitioners: A case study in a Midwestern Public University

High impact practices, commonly referred to as HIPs, are rapidly gaining attention in higher education settings. While HIPs include several categories of purposeful, reflective, student experiences, internships are among the most common of the recommended HIPs. However, little is known about how to manage HIPs and support its practitioners from an institution level. This study may be the first of its kind to integrate Lewin’s Change as Three Steps (CATS) theoretical model with internship practitioner views and ideas of improving program management practices to ultimately scale high impact practices institutionally. This case study of a Midwest Public University (MPU) was guided by two research questions, the first identified current practices for effective and efficient internship program management, and the second identified ideas for change, institutional support, and parallel processes that could lend to sustainable planned change. Merging findings from both research questions provided unique concepts for planned change initiatives and commenced the unfreezing step of planned change. Approximately 181 years of practitioner experience among 21 practitioners provided data identifying the need for high impact practices scaffold to support practitioners, with the goal of scaling high impact practices institutionally. Scaling efforts impact students, particularly underrepresented students, improves retention rates, and increases grade point averages and student engagement. It is in the best interest of the students when institutions support high impact practices practitioners in program management practices through strategic planned change initiatives. Lewin’s CATS framework guided this study to springboard the essential step of unfreezing the environment for sustainable change by revealing the need and data to construct HIPs scaling scaffold. Although this study focused on internships, it is recommended that all high impact practitioners be interviewed to capture additional best practices and lessons learned.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ed.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Taylor, Tammy L.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Huang, Wenhao D
• Oh, Eunjung G
• Kang, Hyun-Sook
• Rockey, Marci

• Best Practices
• Change As Three Steps
• Change Management
• Equity
• High Impact Practices
• Hips
• Higher Education
• Internships
• Lessons Learned
• Lewin
• Marginalized Students
• Program Management
• Scaffold
• Strategic Planning
• Training
• Unfreeze

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2023 Tammy Taylor

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120212

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F120212