Professional development through workplace experiences in dual higher education

Dual higher education programs combine studies at universities/colleges with in-company work experiences. In Germany, both the number of study programs and enrolledstudents increases constantly. While many providers of such study programs promise graduates with a high degree of employability, only little is known about the internships embedded in dual study programs at the current state of research. For example, it is largely unclear which learning and working tasks the students perform/observe at the workplace and what impact internships have on students ́ competencies. Therefore, we analyze three internship semesters embedded in a dual higher education program by using learning diaries and additional surveys concerning aspects as the students ́ prerequisites or the perceived competence development. Results show that the students mostly observe colleagues at the beginning of their internship while the share of self-performed tasks slowly increases during the duration of the program. Both observations and self-performances seem to be important in developing the students ́ competencies. The perceived competence development varies between different areas of competencies (professional, methodological, personal, or social competencies) and stages of the study program