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PRACTICUM PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF EXIT COMPETENCIES AS
INDICATORS TO CAREER READINESS

Ma. Felma Carlos-Tria, Ed.D.
Director, College Division
Southville International School and Colleges
Las Pinas, Philippines

ABSTRACT

This study was carried out on the final year of study of Multimedia students in the past academic
year with the objective of measuring the students’ career readiness upon graduation. Evaluation
reports from 20 companies were analyzed focusing on the prescribed exit competencies of the
school anchored on the 5Cs (Competence, Character, Commitment to Achieve, Creativity,
Collaboration) program upon the completion of a 250-hour practicum. Feedback from the
industry partners were compared to that of the faculty members’ and the students’
self-evaluation. Evaluation from the industry indicated that the interns possess the needed skills
and attitude for the workplace as deduced from the total mean scores of 3.88. This is further
reinforced by several favorable written comments by the employer. However, there are still areas
for continual improvement in the aspects of quality of work and professional behavior.
Further to this, inferential statistics results show that employers and students rated Collaboration
the highest with a mean score of 4.23 and 4.32 respectively while the teachers rated the interns
highest in Creativity with 3.28. The findings show that there is dissonance and significant
differences in four out of the five exit competencies rated by the respondents.

KEYWORDS
Internship, Practicum, Education, Curriculum, Industry Standards