کارآموزی مدیریت ورزشی: توصیه هایی برای بهبود یادگیری تجربی Sport management internships: Recommendations for improving upon experiential learning

1. Introduction Sport management is an applied field of study in which the knowledge and expertise needed to be successful is acquired both inside and outside of the classroom. The more opportunities students have to immerse themselves in practical and applied sport management experiences before graduation, the greater the likelihood they will be attractive to potential employers in the competitive field of sport management. In order to graduate sport management majors who will be competitive in the marketplace, educators must foster opportunities for them to participate in applied learning or experiential learning opportunities, primarily in the form of internships (Lee, Kane, Gregg, & Cavanaugh, 2016, p. 116). The significance of applied learning is illuminated by Moorman (2004), who suggests that no single step in the sport management career path is as valuable as an internship. Internships have become the modus operandi for most professional preparation programs in sport management in the United States and abroad, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels (DeLuca & Braunstein-Minkove, 2016; Stier & Schneider, 2000). In the United States, 86% of sport management programs have mandatory internship credits incorporated into their curriculum, and 77% of sport management programs at the bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral level have an experiential learning requirement (Jones, Brooks, & Mak, 2008; Schoepfer & Dodds, 2011). Additionally, an examination of sport management curriculum (Schoepfer & Dodds, 2011) revealed that internships were the most common curricular component in sport management programs. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE, 2016) Job Outlook Survey, relevant work experience continues to be an important consideration among employers when interviewing college graduates. Of those employers surveyed, 64.5% prefer to hire candidates with relevant work experience, and of those, 56% favor candidates who have acquired experience through an internship/co-op. Furthermore, the Sport Business Journal surveyed more than 2000 senior-level sport industry executives (in both professional and college sports) regarding the curricular requirements of sport management programs. Specifically, this survey found that executives in the sport industry rank the internship experience as the most valuable requirement (51%) of sport management programs, and they consider the internship essential to the success of a sport management program. In addition, seventy-four percent of the sport executives reported that internships/extracurricular activities carried the most weight when they evaluated entry-level candidates on paper (Sport Business Journal, 2015). Thus, relevant research demonstrates the importance of internships in establishing the credibility of the sports management program and in providing graduates with benefits that make them desirable to potential employers in the field. The purpose of this paper is to (1) provide an overview of the pertinent internship literature relative to sport management internships and experiential learning and (2) provide suggestions for enhancing the sport management internship. The recommendations for improving the internship process are, in part, grounded in Dewey’s experiential learning theory, which contends that “education must be based upon experience – which is always the actual life experience of some individual” (Dewey, 1938, p. 89).