Keywords

1 Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

To bridge the gap of theory and practice and to cultivate both “hard-skills” and “soft-skills”, many schools have been providing students with some kind of internship for “hands-on” experiences. In fact, internship plays an important role in the triangle partnership, and a successful internship can benefit the three main stakeholders of the school’s curricular assessment, the student’s preparing better for the future endeavors, and the industry’s hiring potential talented individuals. However, internship experience may also bring about some frustration or dissatisfaction for students and discourages them to stay in the field. In Taiwan, there are three major sources of the higher education providing basic workforce, high school, junior college, and college/university. Many of them are the so-called “Generation Z”, the first all-digital generation, being technology savvy, very entrepreneurial, emphasizing on work-life balance, and searching how to take advantage of relevant professional opportunities for providing them experience for the future. Specifically, males are often found to be stronger with mathematical/logical intelligence (Hou 2015, 2016), which is expected to have higher connection with technology, hence the above mentioned characteristics of Generation Z tend to be more obvious for those majors with more male students.

As the coming young workforce will be the new Generation Z, the “digital natives”, and more and more females have been entering into the job market, some relative issues dealing with gender difference and majors with different levels of technology related to internship satisfaction should be paid more attention. Hence, the study intends to investigate the young workforce’s internship satisfaction to provide some hints for the stakeholders to get ready for the new coming generation.

1.2 Purpose of the Study

The study aims to investigate Taiwanese young Generation Z students’ internship satisfaction and future job intention from an aspect of gender and major with different levels of technology, expecting to find out the answers to the following research questions: What is Taiwanese Generation Z workforce’s internship satisfaction and future job intention? Is there any difference on their internship satisfaction and future job intention between genders and among different majors? and What factors relate to their internship satisfaction and future job intention?

2 Related Literature

Most courses taken in schools are helpful for a future career in a specific field, yet, students still need some practical skills, hands-on experiences, and marketability provided by the industry to enter the field successfully, and internship is the time to help students well equip themselves with soft skills complementing their hard skills. Hence, internship can be regarded as the last mile of students’ education journey.

Internship is a triangular partnership among the school, the students, and the industry. When it runs well, all the three main stakeholders benefit, including first, the school’s being able to receiving feedback from the industry and students as input for curriculum improvement and build up closer ties with local relevant business community; second, the student’s availing a practical learning environment to understand the reality of professional commitment and develop people skills (soft skills) (Schulz 2008) for future foundation of career development; and the third, the industry’s providing workplace training for recruiting potential talented individuals and also strengthening bonds with academic institutions and incorporating new ideas (Swanson and Tomkovick 2012). However, as Hou (2018) pointed out that some students may not be fully aware of the workload, job demands, and requirements in advance, and are not ready to work in the real world situations, together with some other personal reasons, all cause their being dissatisfied about the internship, pessimistic about their career development, and even decide to turn away from the field. Hence, it has been supported that students’ satisfaction about the internship plays a very important role in their future job intention. Normally, factors relative to students’ internship satisfaction are divided into five factors, namely, about job itself, about superior, about training and development, about pay and welfare, as well as about peer relationship (Bao and Fang 2014).

In addition, as more and more females have been entering into the work force, some issues relevant to gender differences have been generated considerable interest in the job, such as salary, position, performance, satisfaction, etc. Generally speaking, in many cases of the society, many females are not expected to take more responsibilities to support a family like males, hence, as Clark (1997) mentioned that more women are happy at work, because they tend to be less likely to identify earning as the most important aspect of a job. Instead, for many females, to identify social relations at work is one of the benefits. Hence, a significant gender difference exists in expectation about jobs which correlates with levels of job satisfaction, and many findings indicated that females have higher satisfaction about jobs (Bender et al. 2005; Okpara et al. 2005).

Generation Z is the name used for the group of people born after the Generation Y, the Millennial. There are no precise dates for when to start or end of Generation Z. According to Sunburn (2015), Generation Z were those born after December 2000; next to Generation Y (born from 1981 to 2000), Generation X (born from 1965 to 1980), Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), and the Sages (born between 1925 and 1945). In fact, Generation Z is the first cohort to have Internet technology readily available at a young age (Prensky 2001). They use the Internet as a way to gain access to information and to interact with others. In addition, the use of social media has become integrated into the daily lives of most of the Generation Z’ers who have access to mobile technology, earning them the nickname “digital natives” (Dill 2015). On the other hand, they are faced with a growing income gap and a shrinking middle-class, which all have led to increasing stress levels in families (Turner 2015), and some of their competencies, for example, reading competence, are being transformed because of their familiarity with digital device, platforms, and texts (Amiama-Espaillat and Mayor-Ruiz 2017). Furthermore, Generation Z students are found to be loyal, compassionate, thoughtful, open-minded, responsible, and determined (Seemiller 2016). With the technological proficiency they possess, Generation Z’ers have the advantage to be helpful to the typical company, but they no longer just want a job, instead, they want a feeling of fulfillment and excitement in their job (Williams 2015). In fact, they are ready to make the best use of relevant professional chances for providing them experience for the future (Levit 2015). Consequently, to attract the new incoming Generation Z workforce, Dill (2015) pointed out seven things that employers should know, including (1) their parents have the greatest influence on their educational and professional decision- making, but the perspectives of friends and teachers are important too; (2) curiosity is the strongest motivator for choosing a course of study; (3) they are interested in entering the workforce without higher education, but fear actually doing so; (4) they are very entrepreneurial; (5) despite their entrepreneurial nature, work-life balance and job security are the two career goals most important to this generation; (6) they want lots of information; and (7) they may be less optimistic than Millennials about their work opportunities. Specifically, males are found to be stronger with mathematical/logical intelligence (Hou 2015, 2016), which is expected to have higher connection with technology, hence the above mentioned characteristics of Generation Z for those majors with more male students tend to be more obvious.

As the coming young workforce will be the new Generation Z, the “digital natives” (Dill 2015), and more and more females have been entering into the job market, some relative issues dealing with gender difference and majors with different levels of technology related to internship satisfaction should be paid more attention.

3 Methodology

3.1 Research Design

The study employed a quantitative approach with data gathered through a 26-item questionnaire to get necessary information from the target participants. They helped to fill out the questionnaire and provided valuable reflections about their internship experience and satisfaction toward the internship.

3.2 Subjects of the Study

A total of 270 seniors of a private five-year junior college in North-East Taiwan served as subjects of the study, including 65 males (24.1%) and 205 females (75.9%). They were from the five departments of the college. They just completed their two consecutive semesters internship off campus and came back to school for their last semester, including 54 from Nursing Department, 60 from Hospitality Management Department, 67 from Cosmetic Application and Management Department, 55 from Information Management Department, and 34 from Child Education Department. Subjects of the study by gender and major were displayed in Table 1.

Table 1. Subjects of the study
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3.3 Research Instrument

The research instrument was a 26-item questionnaire based on an extensive review of related literature, which consisted two sections. The first section collected students’ demographic data (4 items), including gender, major, intern-related part-time job experience and duration, as well as intern with pay or not. The other section included 22 items of students’ opinions about internship satisfaction, composing of 2 items relating to the school (items 5, 7), 3 items relating to the teacher (items 6, 8, 9), 7 items relating to the company (items 10–16), and 8 items relating to students themselves (items 17–24), as well as 2 items relating to their future job intention (items 25, 26). Students were requested to give a score to each of the 22 items using a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from very dissatisfied (1) to very satisfied (5), and the mean score of 1.0–2.4, 2.5–3.4, and 3.5–5.0 was regarded as Low, Medium, and High (Oxford 1990).

3.4 Procedure and Data Analysis

The study was conducted in the second semester of the academic year of 2017 in a private five-year junior college in North-East Taiwan. The data were collected from the seniors of the five departments of the college. They just completed their two consecutive semesters’ internship out of campus and came back to school for their last semester in the college. All available data were computed by the Statistical Package of Social Science (SPSS) for windows. Along with descriptive analysis of mean and standard deviation to display the distributions of students’ demographic profiles, the data were analyzed by t-test and ANOVA to find out if there was any difference on internship experience/satisfaction between males and females, as well as among the five major students. In addition, Pearson correlation analysis and Liner Regression analysis were adopted to investigate the correlation among the factors of internship experience, and the factors relative to students’ internship satisfaction and future job intention, respectively.

4 Findings

Results and discussions included (1) reliability of the research instrument, (2) students’ demographic profiles and ratings of internship satisfaction and future job intention, (3) gender difference, (4) major difference of internship satisfaction and future job intention, (5) correlation among internship variables, and (6) factors relative to internship satisfaction and future job intention. They were described below:

4.1 Reliability of the Research Instrument

The reliability of the research instrument was Cronbach’s Alpha .920 (n = 22). According to Gay and Airasian (2003), ‘If a test were perfectly reliable, the reliability coefficient would be 1.00. However, no test is perfect reliable” (p. 141), hence, the research instrument of the study with an Alpha value of .920 was quite reliable.

4.2 Students’ Ratings of Demographic Profiles, Internship Satisfaction, and Future Job Intention

Findings showed that among the 270 participants, more than three fourths (75.9%) were females, while slightly less than one-fourth of the students were from Department of Cosmetic Application Management (24.8%), followed by Hospitality Management (22.2%), Information Management (20.4%), Nursing (20.0%), and Child Education Management (12.6%). Based on their self-reports, more than half (54.9%) of the students had some intern-related part-time job experiences, including less than 1 year (18.5%), 1–3 years (21.2%), and more than 3 years (15.2%). As for the required two consecutive semesters’ internship, slightly more than two-fifths (41.9%) of the students were unpaid, while the remaining, nearly three-fifths (58.1%), were paid.

The findings also presented students’ rating of their internship satisfaction and future job intention. First, findings showed that students had good satisfaction about the school (items 5, 7) (M = 3.49, rank 2nd in total), including the school helped them know more and get ready for the intern in advance by holding meetings (item 5, rank 9th), as well as the school’s curriculum matched the need in their intern practice (item 7, rank 18th). Second, for their satisfaction about the teachers (items 6, 8, 9) (M = 3.45, rank 3rd in total), students expressed that teachers helped them feel to be cared by visiting them (item 8, rank 11th), solve the problems encountered in intern (item 9, rank 12th), and choose appropriate intern units (item 6, rank15th). Third, among the four factors of students’ internship experience, students’ expressed the lowest satisfaction about the company (items 10–16) (M = 3.29, rank 4th in total). In general, students seemed to be satisfied about the company’s “working environment” (item 12, rank 10th), “providing pre-job or in-job training” (item 10, rank 13th), “working time arrangement” (item 16, rank 14th), and “the convenience of transportation” (item 11, rank 16th); while they tended to be less satisfied about the company about “salary” (item 13, rank 22nd), “system” (item 14, rank 21st), and “welfare” (item 15, ranked 20th). Fourth, for students themselves, they felt most satisfied with what they learned from the valuable intern experience. In particular, the top eight were that the intern could “expand social experience” (item 21, 1st), “strengthen practical skills” (item 20, 2nd), “increase the ability to resist pressure” (item 18, 3rd), “increase professional knowledge” (item19, 4th), “peer relationship” (item 17, 5th), “be challenging” (item 23, 6th), “help with career planning” (item 22, 7th), and “create more chances for work” (item 24, 8th), respectively. Lastly, for students’ future job intention, findings revealed that the mean score of students’ stay in the intern-related field (M = 3.34, SD = .95) was lower than that of considering to change to other fields (M = 3.39, SD = .94). In other words, more students would consider to change the field than those who intended to stay in their present field.

To summarize, in the study, majority of the participants were females (75.9%), more than half (54.9%) had some intern-related part-time jobs, and nearly three-fifths (58.1%) of their internship were paid. As a whole, students’ satisfaction mean score on their overall internship was high (3.54 out of 5.00), ranging from 2.98 to 3.98. In general, students had rated their internship satisfaction about themselves first, followed by the school, the teachers, and the company; in particular, the top three variables were students’ satisfaction about their increasing “social experience”, “practical skills” and “pressure resistance”, while the bottom three were the company’s “salary”, “systems”, and “welfare”.

4.3 Gender Difference of Students’ Intern Experience, Satisfaction, and Future Job Intentions

The findings consisted of two parts. The first part explored the general gender difference of students’ intern experiences, including their intern-related part-time job experiences, intern with/without pay, as well as their satisfaction (about the school, the teachers, the company, students themselves), and future job intention. As for the second part, it focused on descriptions of individual items with significant gender difference on the variables mentioned above. The findings were displayed in Tables 2 and 3.

Table 2. Gender difference of students’ internship experience, satisfaction, and future job intention (n = 270)
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Table 3. Variables of gender difference of students’ internship experience, satisfaction, and future job intentions
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Gender Difference of Students’ Intern Experience, Satisfaction, and Future Job Intention

The study found that males had significant higher means in “intern with pay” (p < .01) and “satisfaction about the company” (p < .01) than females. Though males also had higher means in “part-time job experience” and “considering to change the field”, while females had higher means in satisfaction about “the school”, “the teacher”, “students themselves”, “overall satisfaction”, and “intention to stay in the field”, yet the differences didn’t reach significant levels. As for rankings of the four variables of intern satisfaction, both males and females ranked satisfaction about students themselves the first (1st), but ranked the school and the company the last (4th), respectively. In other words, males significantly had more intern experiences with pay and were more satisfied with the company than females (p < .01), and satisfaction rankings differed in males’ ranking the school the last, while the company was females’ last ranking. The findings were presented in Table 2.

Variables of Gender Difference of Students’ Internship Experience, Satisfaction, and Future Job Intentions

The findings included items of gender difference of students’ internship experience, satisfaction (about the school, the teachers, the company, students), and future job intention. First, males had higher mean in intern with pay (item 4) (p < .01) and in satisfaction about the company (p < .01), but females had higher mean in the company’s “convenient transportation” (item 11) (p < .01). Second, among the four factors of satisfaction of internship, students had the highest mean about students themselves, especially females. In particular, females had higher means in feeling that the intern could “increase professional knowledge” (item 19) (p < .05), “strengthen practical skills” (item 20) (p < .01), “help with career planning” (item 22) (p < .05), “be challenging” (item 23) (p < .01), and “help to create more chances for work” (item 24) (p < .01). Third, as for future job intention, males had higher mean in “considering change the field” (item 26), while females were higher in “staying in the field” (item 25), however, the differences didn’t reach significant levels. The findings were presented in Table 3.

4.4 Major Difference of Students’ Internship Experience, Satisfaction, and Future Job Intention

The same as that of gender difference, the findings of major difference also consisted of two parts. The first part explored the general major difference of students’ intern experience (such as intern-related part-time job experience and intern with/without pay), satisfaction (about the school, the teachers, the company, and students themselves), as well as future job intention (to stay in the field or change to other fields). As for the second part, it focused on descriptions of individual variables of the major difference mentioned above. They were described below:

General Major Difference of Students’ Internship Experience, Satisfaction, and Future Job Intention

Among the five majors, first, Nursing students ranked 3, 4, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 2, 5 for intern-related part-time job experience, intern with pay, satisfaction about the school, the teachers, the company, the students, overall satisfaction, to stay in the field, and to change to other fields. As for Hospitality Management students, Cosmetic Management students, Information Management students, and Child Education students, the rankings were 1, 2, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 4; 2, 1, 4, 4, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3; 4, 3, 2, 2, 1, 3, 2, 4, 1; and 5, 5, 1, 1, 4, 1, 1, 1, 2, respectively.

Second, in general, for overall intern satisfaction, Child Education students had the highest mean, followed by Nursing students, Cosmetic Management students, Information Management students, and Hospitality Management students. In particular, Nursing students had more intention to stay in the field (rank 2nd), while Hospitality Management students had most intern-related part-time job experience (rank 1st) and intern with pay (rank 2nd), but had lowest intern satisfaction (about the school, the teachers, the company, the students themselves) and future job intention to stay in the field (all rank 5th). In addition, Cosmetic Management students had highest mean of intern with pay (rank 1st) followed by inter-related part-time experience, satisfaction about the company and students themselves (all rank 2nd).

Third, Information Management students had highest satisfaction about the company (1st), followed by the school, the teacher, and overall intern satisfaction (all rank 2nd), but surprisingly, they also had the highest intention to change the field after the intern (1st). Furthermore, Child Education students had least intern-related part-time job experience and intern with pay opportunity (both rank 5th), but they had highest intern satisfaction about the school, the teachers, students themselves, overall satisfaction, and future job intention to stay in the field (all rank 1st), however, they had lower satisfaction about the company next to the last (4th) and higher future job intention to change the field (2nd) next to the first.

In short, among the five department students, some results need to be paid more attention. One is the result of students of Hospitality Management Department, who had the most part-time job experience (1st) and more internship with pay (2nd), but they had the lowest internship satisfaction (5th) and future job intention to stay in the field (5th), though they also had the next to the lowest desire to change the field (4th). The results typically supported that the Generation Z might be “less optimistic about their work opportunities” (Dill 2015), consequently, though they were not satisfied about the internship, yet they were less confident to find a better job in other field, so they hesitated to turn away. Another example was that, with more male students, who were believed to be stronger with Mathematical/Logical intelligence and higher levels of technology as expected, Information Management majors were more “digital natives” together with their “entrepreneurial nature”, and were more interested in changing the field (1st), though they had favorable overall internship satisfaction (2nd). And the other was the result of students of Child Education Department, who had the strongest allover internship satisfaction, including satisfaction about the school, the teachers, and the company, but excluded the company; and though they had the strongest intention to stay in the field (1st), yet they also had strong desire to change to other fields (2nd). It seems that many of the three department students were at the crossroads in their career decision. The findings were presented in Table 4.

Table 4. General majors difference of students’ Intern experience
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Variables of Major Difference of Students’ Internship Experience, Satisfaction, and Future Job Intention

First, in light of intern experience, students of Hospitality Management Department (H) had higher mean of intern-related part-time job experience (item 3), mostly with pay (item 4), than other department students (p < .01).

Second, among the five department students, significant differences existed in their overall satisfaction about the school (p < .01), including school’s holding meetings with students prior to the intern to help them know more and get ready for it (item 5) (p < .05), as well as providing curriculum matched the need in intern practice (item 7) (p < .01), in which students of Nursing Department and Child Education Department had higher satisfaction than students of Hospitality Management Department (p < .05).

Third, as for their satisfaction about the teachers, in a whole, students of Nursing Department, Information Management Department, and Child Education Management Department tended to have higher satisfaction than students of Hospitality Management Department and Cosmetic Application and Management Department (p < .05).

Fourth, students’ satisfaction about the company was the least among the four factors, and there was a significant difference among the five department students (p < .05). The differences included the company’s “working environment” (item 12), in which students of Hospitality Management Department was less satisfied than students of Information Management Department (p < .05) and Child Education Department (p < .05); and “salary” (item 13), in which students of Child Education Department seemed to be the least satisfied than their counterparts (p < .05); as well as “working-time arrangement” (item 16), in which students of Information Management Department were more satisfied than students of Hospitality Management Department and Cosmetic Application and Management Department (p < .01).

Fifth, among the four factors of intern satisfaction, students had the most satisfaction about the benefits they gained from the intern experience. In lights of major difference, the students of Child Education Department seemed to be more satisfied than the other four, including about “professional knowledge” (item 19), in which they were more satisfied than other three (except Cosmetic Application and Management Department) (p < .05), about “practical skills” (item 20) and “career planning” (item 22), (p < .05), in which they were more satisfied than students of Hospitality Management (p < .05); about “social experience” (item 21), in which they were the most satisfied (p < .05); as well as about “more chances for work” (item 24), in which they were more satisfied than students of Hospitality Management Department and Information Management Department (p < .05).

Last, regarding to students’ future job intention, students of Child Education Department and Nursing Department had higher intention to stay in the field, while students of Hospitality Management Department and Information Management Department had the lower intention (item 25). Consequently, it was reasonable to find that students of Nursing Department (with higher intention to stay, rank 2nd) had the lowest intention to change the field (item 26) (rank 5th), and students of Information Department (with lower intention to stay in the field, rank 4th) had the highest intention to change the field (item 26) (rank 1st). However, it was surprising to find that students of Hospitality Department (with the lowest intention to stay in the field, rank 5th) also had the lower intention to change the field (4th); and students of Child Education Department (with the highest intention to stay in the field, 1st) also had higher intention to change the field (rank 2nd), just next to students of Information Management Department. Furthermore, for the overall internship satisfaction, students of Child Education Department had the highest (1st), followed by Information Management Department (2nd), Cosmetic Application Management Department (3rd), Nursing Department (4th), and Hospitality Management Department (5th), respectively.

4.5 Correlation Among Variables of Intern Satisfaction and Future Job Intention

Findings showed that except for future job intention to change the field, strong correlations existed among variables of intern satisfaction about the school, the teachers, the company, the students, and future job intention to stay in the field (p < .01) positively.

4.6 Regression Analysis of Factors Relative to Internship Satisfaction and Future Job Intention

Regression Analysis of Factors Relative to Overall Internship Satisfaction

By Regression analysis, it was found that among the variables of students’ demographic profiles of gender, major, intern-related part-time job experience, and intern with pay, major was the only factor relative to students’ overall internship satisfaction (t = 2.287, Sig = .023).

In fact, based on what Table 4 presented, students of Child Education Management had the highest overall internship satisfaction (1st), especially higher than students of Hospitality Management Department (5th) significantly (p < .05).

Regression Analysis of Factors Relative to Future Job Intention

Findings revealed that factors relative to students’ future job intention to stay in the filed were gender (t = 2.774, Sig = .006), part-time job experience (t = 2.624, Sig = .009), intern with pay (t = 3.977, Sig = .000), satisfaction about the company (t = 5.744, Sig = .000), and about students themselves (t = 4.894, Sig = .000). That is to say, students, especially females, who had more intern-related part-time job experiences, intern with pay, had more intern satisfaction about the company and about students themselves tended to have more future job intention to stay in the field.

On the other hand, findings presented that major was the only factor to be relative to students’ future job intention to change the field (t = 3.557, Sig = .000). As stated in Table 4, it can be seen that students of Information Management (I) had highest intention to change the field (1st), while students of Nursing had the least intention to change the field (5th).

5 Conclusions

Majority of the students of Departments of Nursing, Cosmetic Application Management, and Child Education Management were females (94.1%–98.1%), while Department of Information Management had more males (61.8%) and 40% of the students of Department of Hospitality Management were males (Table 1). It’s supported that more and more females have been entering into the work force and which brings about some issues relevant to gender differences in the job market, including satisfaction (Clark 1997, Bender et al. 2005, Okpara et al. 2005).

In a whole, students’ mean score of internship satisfaction was 3.54 (Table 2). According to Oxford (1990) (p. 300), the average was high (High = 3.5 to 5.0, Medium = 2.5 to 3.4, Low = 1.0 to 2.4). In particular, they were more satisfied with themselves for their “social experience”, “practical skills”, and “pressure assistance” being strengthened. On the contrary, they were less satisfied with the company’s “salary”, “systems”, and “welfare”, as well as the school’s “curriculum” and the teachers’ help to “choose appropriate intern units”. Additionally, their future job intention to stay in the field was lower than to consider changing the field (Table 2). The finding of high internship satisfaction and lower intention to stay in the field was not commensurate with general phenomenon that high internship satisfaction led to high intention to stay in the field (Chen et al. 2011, Cook et al. 2004).

As for gender differences, overall, males had more intern-with-pay experiences (p < .01) and were more satisfied about overall of the company (p < .01) (Table 2). In particular, females were more satisfied with the company’s “convenient transportation” (p < .01) and what they gained from the internship experience, including “professional knowledge” (p < .05), “practical skills” (p < .01), “career planning” (p < .05), “challenging” (p < .01), and “more work chances” (p < .01) (Table 3).

For major differences, among students of the five majors, comparatively, Nursing students had medium levels of internship satisfaction and had the weakest intention to change the field after graduation; while Hospitality students had more intern-related part-time jobs, and with pay, but they were least satisfied with internship, and had the weakest desire to stay in the field (Table 4). That Hospitality students had low internship satisfaction was consistent with Bao and Fang (2014)’s finding. As for Cosmetic Application students, everyone was paid (100%) during their internship, and their satisfaction and future job intention were between medium to high (M = 3.32–3.83). In addition, Child Education students were most satisfied about the school, the teachers, the students, overall internship satisfaction, and had the strongest intention to stay in the field; while Information students had the highest satisfaction about the company, but had the strongest intention to change to other field after graduation. In a whole, the results indicated that Hospitality students had the weakest intention to stay in the field, but they also had the weaker desire to turn away from the industry; similarly, Child Education students had higher internship satisfaction and strongest intention to stay in the field, yet on the other hand, they also had strong desire to change to other fields. Both the two phenomena should be noticed with care (Table 4).

By regression analysis, apparently, majors were found to be relative to students’ overall internship satisfaction (p < .05) and intention to change the field after graduation, hence, students of Hospitality, Nursing, and Cosmetic Application with low overall internship satisfaction, as well as students of Hospitality, Information, and Cosmetic Application with low future job intention to stay, all need to be paid more attention trying to find out the possible reasons.

The most important is students’ internship satisfaction plays an important role in their future job intention, and factors of internship satisfaction (the school, the teachers, and company, and the students) and future job intention to stay in the field were found to be strongly correlated with one another (p < .01), as a result, it’s suggested that for a more successful and more satisfied internship program, the triangular partnership among the school/teachers, the company, and the students work together to evaluate the school’s curriculum and internship policy, the company’s system and program, as well as students’ individual differences and expectation so as to run the “win-win-win” triangular network well and benefit the three stakeholders, especially the students.

Last, some individual suggestions are provided for the five majors:

Nursing Department: Overall, nursing students had high level of internship satisfaction (M = 3.59) about the school (M = 3.72) and the teachers (M = 3.56), especially they had stronger intention to stay in the field (M = 3.59) (Table 3). However, comparatively, nursing students seemed to be less confident about themselves in the internship performance of “professional knowledge” (item 19) and “social experience” (item 21) (Table 4). In addition, the majority of the nursing students are females (98.1%), who are less satisfied about the company/hospital (p < .01) (Table 2). Hence, it is suggested that the school teachers and the hospital nurses provide more assistance and encouragement to help the student interns build up self-confidence to overcome the “Reality Shock” in the internship.

Hospitality Management Department: Hospitality students had more intern-related part-time jobs, and with pay, but among the five majors, they were the least satisfied with the internship (Table 4), which was commensurate with Bao and Fang’ s (2014) finding that hospitality students’ internship satisfaction was low. In particular, next to information Management major, male students occupied high percentage (40%) (Table 1); comparing with females, they were less satisfied about the school and had lower satisfaction about the company’s transportation, as well as what they gained from the internship, including “professional knowledge”, “practical skills”, “career planning”, “challenging”, and “more work chances” (Table 3). However, an example of Generation Z’s characteristics of being “less optimistic about their opportunities” (Dill 2015), though they had the lowest future job intention to stay in the field, they also had lower desire to turn away from the hospitality industry (Table 4). It seems that they are at the crossroads in their career decision. So, it’s time that the school and the company work together to bring the education-service split to keep more potential talents in the industry.

Cosmetic Application Management Department: Students had more intern-related part-time job experiences and everyone was paid (100%). Among the five majors, they belonged to be “medium” of internship satisfaction (rank 3rd) and future job intention (rank 3rd) (Table 4). The same as that of Nursing students, the majority of Cosmetic Application Management students were females (94%), and seemed to be less satisfied with teachers’ visit for feeling “care and concern” (item 8) than Child Education majors, as well as less satisfied with the company’s “working time arrangement” (item 16) than Information Management majors. Consequently, it’s suggested that the school teacher, if possible, a full-time specialist staff, preferably with industrial experience, can arrange more time to visit the student interns and the company can notice the arrangement of working time.

Information Management Department: In the study, it is the only department in the college with more male students (61.8%) than females (38.2%). Consequently, it had more gender differences in males’ favorable intern-related part-time job experiences, interns with pay, and higher overall internship satisfaction (2nd), especially about the company (1st). In addition, males are found to be stronger with Mathematical/Logical intelligence (Hou 2015), and their better technology skills of “digital natives” are expected, together with another characteristics of Generation Z’s “entrepreneurial nature” (Dill 2015), not surprisingly, they had weaker future job intention to stay in the field (4th) but had the strongest desire to turn away from the industry (1st) (Table 4). Hence, it’s suggested that the school and the department need to pay attention to the phenomena and to help students to ease the school-to-work transition.

Child Education Management Department: Similar to Nursing majors and Cosmetic Application management majors, the Child Education Management majors had more female students (94.1%). They had least intern-related part-time job experiences, and unlike Cosmetic Application Management students all with pay (100%), they all were unpaid (100%) in their internship. Nevertheless, they had highest overall internship satisfaction, including about the school, the teachers, and their own performance from the internship, but they had lower satisfaction about the company, in fact, next to the last (4th). In addition, they had strongest future job intention to stay in the field, but, surprisingly, they also had stronger desire to turn away from the field, in fact, next to the first (2nd). Hence, it’s suggested that the school and the company work together to help the students bridge the gap of education-service and the Role Transition and consider to stay in the field.

All in all, gender difference and majors with different technology levels were found to make a difference in the young Generation Z students’ internship satisfaction and future job intention, and factors of internship dealing with the school, the teacher, the company, the students, and the future job intention to stay in the field were found to be strongly correlated with one another. Hence, all the three main stakeholders of the school/department, the company/industry, and the students themselves should work together to take students’ individual differences into consideration for a more successful “win-win-win” triangular internship program to avoid the possible gap of “Reality Shock”, “Role Transition”, “Education-Service Split”, and “School-to-Work Transition” to help the students, especially the young Generation Z, to get ready for the job market. More importantly, some characteristics of the young generation had been supported to be relevant to their internship satisfaction and future job intention, such as their “digital natives”, “being very entrepreneurial”, “less optimistic about work opportunities”, and the like. Consequently, the young Generation Z students’ individual differences need to be paid much more attention.