By Colleen Nevison
The Waterloo Centre for the Advancement of Cooperative Education (WatCACE) has recently completed a project investigating the perceptions of co-op supervisors and their experiences with students in the workplace. A key learning from this study is that both supervisors and students should be encouraged to engage in a conversation about what the supervisor expects for the work term.
The results of the study revealed two perspectives of supervisors towards co-op. Approximately 20 percent of supervisors surveyed viewed co-op from a pragmatic perspective. These supervisors are focused on the student as an employee, with the expectation of getting a return on their investment of time and money. On the opposite end, 30 percent of supervisors share a view of co-op as a way for students to learn in the workplace. The remaining 50 percent of supervisors reported a viewpoint which mixes the two perspectives. This group views co-op as a combination of both tangible benefits to the organization as well as opportunities for growth for the students.
We found that supervisors’ satisfaction with the work term experience was largely dependent on the specific attributes most important to them. For some supervisors it may be very important for the student to display enthusiasm and to fit in with the team. For other supervisors the quantity of the work completed may be most important. By sharing expectations early in the term, the likelihood of a successful work term for both the supervisor and the students increases.
This was a project funded by the Ontario Human Capital Research and Innovation Fund (OHCRIF) and represented one of the first research investigations into how the day-to-day supervisors view co-op students at work, their satisfaction with their student employees, and what they believe makes for a quality work term. The study was conducted in two parts: qualitative interviews and a quantitative survey that was completed by over 500 co-op supervisors.
For further information about this project, and other WatCACE research projects, visit theWatCACE website or send an email to watcace@uwaterloo.ca.
