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IU Northwest Assessment Center Internship Opportunities

Thank you for your interest in our internship program. Our Assessment Center was established in 2005 as part of the University’s initiative to assess certain learning outcomes. It will play a crucial role in fulfilling IU Northwest’s goal of providing exceptional educational opportunities to its students.

The Center is currently housed in the School of Business and Economics, which is where the program was first instituted in the fall of 2006. We currently assess around 200 students a year and are working to expand the program even more. Our goal is to expand to other divisions on campus and to the MBA program within the business school.

Our Assessment Center is different from most academic based programs in a couple of ways. First, we focus on the undergraduate level, while most focus on graduate students. We do this because we want students to begin developing these skills as soon in their careers as possible. Second, our entire process for rating students is online. This online format provides great flexibility and allows assessors to rate student performance from wherever they are.

As an IU Northwest Assessment Center Intern, your primary responsibility will be to rate student performance. The benefits of rating students are numerous. You will gain experience in evaluating behavior, learn how students react to the assessment center situation, and further develop your own skills. You will also gain experience in providing constructive feedback.

In addition to rating students, you will choose a special project to work on, which is how you will explore the assessment center methodology. Special projects, for example, include designing an exercise, developing instruments, and developing training programs. If you truly want to see how much work is involved in developing an Assessment Center, you should create an exercise from scratch, including student and rater instructions and the assessment instrument. The Assessment Center is still in a developmental phase, so there are many things that still need to be done. Key projects that are on the horizon include validating the process and conducting research.

Lastly, we have an online worksite for online discussions and chats between the Director and all of the interns. These chats allow you to interact with I/O students from across the country. During the Fall of 2008, interns represented the states of Washington, California, Connecticut, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Texas, and Kansas. Learning/reflection discussions can also be conducted.

We offer two types of internships to Industrial-Organizational Psychology graduate students.

1. Traditional internships - Students come and work at the Assessment Center. They help run the sessions, including participating as an actor, and rate students. In addition, they help with day to day issues that arise and help with fine tuning and expanding our program. These interns also participate in the online program.
2. Virtual internships - Students who are unable to travel to our campus complete their internship online. They rate students and help with preparing materials for expansion of our program. The virtual intern’s primary responsibility is rating student performance. These interns are invited to come to campus to help run the sessions, but are not required to do so.

The key difference between the virtual internship and the traditional internship is that virtual interns are merely invited to attend the assessment center sessions. It is not required. Virtual interns still receive a very thorough look at the assessment center methodology. Traditional interns, however, are expected to attend the assessment center sessions. They are able to see the flow of the entire process. Although it is nice to be able to see how the Assessment Center operates, it is not crucial to understanding this methodology.

Our online system allows for tremendous flexibility where internships are concerned. The number of virtual intern positions is limitless, simply because we do not have to find office space for the interns. Also, because our program is new and still being developed, we are able to allow interns to start and end their internship whenever it is convenient for them because we always have projects in progress. In addition, the number of hours per week that interns work is completely flexible. Interns can be as involved in our process as they want to be.

The virtual internship is extremely popular with I/O graduate students. There are few, if any, internships that allow students to see the inner workings of an assessment center. This internship provides that experience. It is convenient, interesting, and relevant to the field of I/O. It is also meaningful work, rather than menial work that many interns endure. All interns, whether traditional or virtual, are expected to actively participate in the design of the assessment center. Input is expected and is considered in final decisions. This internship provides an opportunity to directly impact the development of our assessment center and our students.

There are a lot of positives to the virtual internship, but it isn’t for everyone. Self-discipline is extremely important for the virtual intern. It is very easy to neglect the work of this internship when you don’t have a physical office to go to. It is highly recommended that virtual interns set up a specific schedule for doing their work.

Traditional interns are paid for the time they are at the assessment center. Our virtual internships are unpaid in that they are not on our payroll and do not receive regular paychecks. However, virtual interns are paid a fee for each file he or she rates. This payment is made at the end of the semester and usually works out to be several hundred dollars.

Interested students should e-mail the following information to: , attention Dr. Jana Szostek.

• Resume (cover letter may be in the body of the e-mail)
• Pertinent information regarding internship requirements
• Begin and end dates for the internship
• Number of hours per week they want to work
• Specific interests for special projects