Leadership development of students engaged in experiential learning: Implications for internship programs in textiles and apparel

The purposes of this research were to determine if learning preferences are important to the leadership development process and to investigate whether leadership development can occur in a pre-internship course. Specifically, two research hypotheses were formulated: (1) students who report andragogical learning preferences will have greater positive changes in leadership development scores; and (2) students engaged in the leadership development treatment will have greater positive changes in leadership development scores than those students who were not a part of the leadership development treatment.; During Fall Semester 2000, a study of leadership development was conducted in connection with a seminar at North Carolina A&T State University (A&T) and The University of North Carolina Greensboro (UNCG). The subjects (n = 39) for the study were female, junior and senior students. Roughly a third of the students were randomly selected as leaders in teams of three to complete a project. The leaders were given support in the form of extra contact with the researcher.; Three instruments were used to collect pretest and post test data for this longitudinal study. The Student Leadership Practices Inventory (SLPI) was used to collect data on students' leadership as assessed by self reports and by observer reports. The Student Orientation Questionnaire was used as a self assessment of the students' andragogical-pedagogical orientation (learning style preferences), and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Index was used to determine whether the students tended to respond in a socially desirable way. The difference between the leadership scores for the post test and the pretest formed the “difference scores” that were used to determine whether andragogical learning preferences enhanced leadership development and whether being a leader contributed to leadership development.; The seminar was conducted at two schools. At A&T all five subscales for both observer rated and self rated leadership development were greater for andragogical learners than for non andragogical learners. One such difference was significant. At UNCG only four of the ten possible differences were positive.; At A&T 60% of the 20 comparisons of leadership development of leaders with non-leaders were positive while 70% of these comparisons were positive at UNCG. Only three results were significant.; Overall there is evidence to support the research hypotheses in this sample, but not enough evidence to infer that the research hypotheses are true in the target population.