Reflect on Thyself: Interns' Reflection upon Their Strengths and Weaknesses

Abstract

Political science internships are a valuable tool through which interns are able to gain relevant work experience while also gaining hands-on experience with material from their course work. One key element to a successful internship is an interns' ability to meet the needs of the sponsoring organization in terms of the skills and tools they hold. Previous research has focused on those skills that make interns more valuable to sponsoring organizations, we know little about interns' ability to evaluate themselves on those skillsets. In this paper we use data from on-site supervisor evaluations of interns' performance and interns' own evaluations of their performance to investigate how accurately interns evaluate their performance in their internship. Interns' ability to accurately reflect upon their performance is critical for their ability to improve and adapt to changing desires. Findings from this research may suggest potential interventions to help interns' further improve their performance.