Enhancing the benefits of cooperative education through structured learning experience

Cooperative education provides students with the opportunity to incorporate degree-related work experience into their academic program. In the College of Business Administration at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, the current program curriculum includes several written requirements; however, there is no formal instruction or structure provided in the program. The purpose of this study was to determine if the benefits a student receives from cooperative education were enhanced by participation in a more structured learning experience.;Eighty-seven students enrolled in the College of Business Administration volunteered to participate. Each student completed a Survey of Work Experience and Attitudes at the beginning of the Spring 1995 semester. During the semester, one group of students received instruction in the areas of employment seeking techniques, business etiquette, and business writing skills. At the end of the semester, all students completed the Survey of Work Experience and Attitudes again.;There was an additional component of this study that was not evaluated by the Survey of Work Experience and Attitudes. This involved etiquette training in one of the treatment sessions and the opportunity to apply this knowledge at an actual dinner in another treatment session.;The results of the study are as follows. (1) There is a significant difference in the responses on the pretest and the posttest of cooperative education students and noncooperative education students. In all three areas studies (attitude about work while in college, employment seeking skills, and business writing skills) a difference less than the 0.05 level of significance was found. (2) Regarding the issue of adding a structured learning experience to the co-op program, the results of co-op students who received treatment compared to co-op students who did not receive the treatment showed a significance at the 0.0570 level with respect to the student's perception of their cooperative education experience; no significance with respect to employment seeking skills; and a level of significance of less than 0.05 with respect to business writing skills.