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The purpose of this research paper is to analyse the internship expectations gap amongst the three main internship stakeholders: employers (company supervisors), academic supervisors and students, in an effort to detect the variables which could assist closing the gap between students' perceptions and the labour market employers and then, between the academic supervisors in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the students. This paper analyses firstly, the variables that determine students' perceptions and overall satisfaction with the internships. After, it examines the differences with the employers' expectations of the interns' performance. Finally, this paper analyses the variables that determine the academic supervisors in HEIs grading of the interns with the overall satisfaction about the students' internship performance. This research serves as a guide for the improvement, refinement and expansion of university internship programme design together with internship best practices definition to close the expectation gaps between the HEIs and the Business World.

Two quantitative surveys were designed to measure students' and employers' perceptions of the internships. Additionally, one semi-structured qualitative interview is performed to deepen understanding of each student's perception of the internship. The authors perform a triangular analysis of students' perceptions and employers' (company supervisors) and academic supervisors' expectations. A T-test analyses the differences between cognitive, transversal and social skills developed in an internship as perceived by students and employers (company supervisors). Finally, linear regressions are run both to identify the variables that determine the students' internship overall satisfaction and also detect the variables that determine the final internship grade assigned by the academic supervisor from the university.

The authors highlight the following interesting findings. While the students feel that the internships are highly useful and perceive that they were fully integrated into the company's culture, they also state that they learn how to develop their transversal skills much more than the cognitive skills learnt in the whole study programme in their degrees. In parallel, employers (company supervisors), for their part, perceive that students have strong social skills and adjust perfectly to the company's culture, but expected the students to have more creativity and cognitive skills. Finally, the academic supervisor's value the students' written skills together with the company's supervisor valuation more than the students' transversal skills. These main expectation gaps detected must be solved to improve internship outcomes and closing the gaps between the Higher Education and Business World. These findings consolidate existing research and add more quantitative results contextualised to Spanish Higher Education Institutions.

The limitations of this research are that it only embeds a HEIs in Spain and the sample should be enlarged with more universities not only from Spain but also from around the world. Thus, the findings in this research can be used to improve the internship programme in this HEIs and its best practices, however they cannot be extrapolated to other HEIs still. Nevertheless, other HEIs can learn from this experience. Regarding the surveys these can be reviewed and homogenised for the student's perception items to be more aligned with the company supervisor's expectations and the academic supervisor's requirements of an internship. As implications, the authors have divided them into theoretical and practical. From the theoretical point of view, there needs to be more research about internships done in Economics, Law and Business Degrees field. From the practical point of view, the authors highlight several implications. First, HEIs must develop internship programmes further and promote the three stakeholders, employer–academic supervisor–student communication more fluid. This communication flow will maximize and align both employer and academic supervisor expectations about the students' performance in their internships. This way, student perceptions of their internship experience will improve and align further. Second, internships must be promoted in the Economics and Business Degrees as they are a unique opportunity for students to apply cognitive, transversal and social skills acquired in their study programmes, developing themselves as future professionals. Third, there is a growing need for HEIs to strengthen links with different companies, not only to teach students the skills employers' value but also to ensure that graduates are aware of what is happening in the labour market. Finally, through the internships developing further, academic supervisors must open their assessment to the students' professional skills (critical thinking, creativity, capacity to solve short term problems efficiently,) aligning with labour market needs.

This paper is significant because it shows the growing need for universities to strengthen links with a variety of companies (Business World). Internships are becoming compulsory, having assigned a high percentage of European Credits Transfer System (ECTS) credits to students' Grade Point Average (GPA) in Economics, Law and Business. This research work shows HEIs should improve internship design to close the gap between Higher Education's supply of graduates and the business world's demand for adequately prepared professionals. The results in this paper can help the academic actors start improving the internship design and best practices definition.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the expectations and reality perspectives accrued in a preliminary management course and understand if they impart and embed real-world skills and develop work readiness.

Primary data collected for the research were qualitative. A total of six focus groups were conducted with a total of 52 students enrolled at a large metropolitan university in Australia. NViVO was used to code and analyse the data.

The study found that at the commencement of university studies, the expectations were simple like, making new friends, getting around the campus and settling well into the university culture, which over time extended to getting a part-time job, securing internships, memberships of associations, desire to participate in exchange programs and get work-ready by the close of the first year. The research outcomes show that those who held a part-time job while studying demonstrated a better understanding of the preliminary management subject matter taught in class and obtained better grades. Primarily, the preliminary management course did not specifically impart work-ready skills and it would be fitting to embed employability skills in the management curriculum from the commencement of their programs in the first year.

Qualitative research is used to comprehend a research problem from the outlook perspectives of the local population it involves. The limitations of this methodology includes no objectively verifiable result, adept interviewing skills for interviewers, slow and time consuming during interviewing process and intensive category process also as qualitative inquiry is normally open-ended, the participants have more control over the content of the data collected.

The lack of skill mismatch and graduates who are not work-ready incurs significant economic and social costs. A number of policy implications emerge due to university-labour market links and skills mismatches and the impact on students and the labour market. The rise in unemployment and the skills mismatch seen after the economic crisis requires immediate attention. Job creation is crucial but so is the need to develop graduate with appropriate matching skills and qualities to do the job. Mandatory internships, apprenticeships and on-the-job training for university students would help. Governments can provide financial incentives and subsidies to organisations providing the above services and working cooperatively with the universities to get students work-ready. Universities must raise the educational requirements over time as jobs become more complex. Universities can build communities of practice with the assistance of this scheme to enable students to interact with the industry professionals. An additional year of vocational training could be recommended for the graduating students. This would help the young graduates to get work-related skills. Wheelahan et al. (2015) state that building better links between education and work can help provide a more rational approach to vocational development. They propose the use of vocational streams and productive capabilities in the education system and labour market to achieve this.

This requires a combined effort from all stakeholders. A systematic approach needs to be adopted. First, the gap between the knowledge provided by the universities and the skills required by the employers need to be reduced. Second, the employers and the universities should keep a watch on the labour market and develop strategies to meet the dynamic requirements of the labour market collaboratively. Third, career guidance will help inform students make a career choice to match the labour market opportunities. This should be a part of the policy agenda for responding to the lack of work-ready graduates in the labour market.

Learning and teaching activities must include industry interface and engagement right from the first year at university. The main findings from this research indicated the need for better understanding of first-year students’ expectations. The two significant student expectations that emerged were “need for collaborations” and “industry interface”.

Previous students' housing studies have neglected the need to study all-inclusive student housing and quality of services delivery among students with disability. This study explores the expectations in students' housing among university students living with disabilities (SWDs) in Ghana.

The study adopted a mixed-methods approach, involving 423 SWD selected from five public and three private universities across Ghana. Grounded on the Gap Model, the study employed exploratory factor analysis to extract factors of service quality delivery and universal building design for SWD living in off-campus students' housing.

The study uncovered that, expectations of SWD regarding building design specifications hinges more on inbuilt universal design than external building environment designs. SWD are more interested in safety, health, managerial assurances and security. In all, five factors provided a huge gap in services quality delivered by off-campus students' housing.

The Gap Model technique offers a framework that provides an insight for students' housing investors, managers, researchers and local authorities that provides an insight on the needs of SWD in student housing, thus making it possible to attain satisfactions amongst SWD.

Unlike health-related studies that deals with expectations of all-inclusive buildings for persons with disability in hospitals, this study uniquely uncovered the expectations of services delivery and building design support to SWD in the Ghanaian context.

Claims that few studies have examined student expectations regarding public accounting. Suggests that this is surprising since previous research suggests that unmet employee expectations may result in negative consequences for organizations. Aims to extend previous research by examining student expectations regarding very specific duties and responsibilities in public accounting. The questionnaire was completed by 129 upper‐division accounting students. Finds that a surprising number of students exhibit unrealistic expectations. Discusses practical implications for accounting educators.

This study aims to better understand how academics-in-the-making construe doctoral performance and the impacts of this construal on their positioning in relation to doctoral performance expectations.

This study is based on 25 semi-structured interviews with PhD students from Canadian, Dutch, Scottish and Australian business schools.

Based on Decoteau’s (2016) concept of reflexive habitus, this study highlights how doctoral students’ construal is influenced by their previous experiences and by expectations from other adjacent fields in which they simultaneously gravitate. This leads them to adopt a position oscillating between resistance and compliance in relation to their understanding of doctoral performance expectations promoted in the academic field.

The concept of reflexivity, as understood by Decoteau (2016), is found to be pivotal when an individual integrates into a new field.

This study encourages business schools to review expectations regarding doctoral performance. These expectations should be clear, but they should also leave room for PhD students to preserve their academic aspirations.

It is beneficial to empirically clarify the influence of performance expectations in academia on the reflexivity of PhD students, as the majority of studies exploring this topic mainly leverage auto-ethnographic data.

As markets, economies and institutions are increasingly globalized, there is a growing understanding of the need to introduce intercultural learning alongside business learning. Participating in a study abroad program is potentially one of the most important experiences for any college student. Such programs provide students the opportunity to immerse themselves in different cultures and gain new perspectives. The purpose of this paper is threefold: to identify the main factors that students consider when selecting a program; to integrate quality function deployment (QFD), benchmarking and Hoshin Kanri in the analysis of student expectations and to examine the implications for research and practice.

The study was based on primary data collected from 180 students at four universities. To design an approach that helps students in the selection of a program that best satisfies their expectations, a self-designed questionnaire was used for data collection. The data were analyzed using the techniques of QFD/benchmarking. Finally, a long-term strategy is proposed based on the Hoshin Kanri theory.

The great variability in student expectations presents a challenge in designing a methodology of selection; however, it does help in identifying the most important student expectations. A key, balanced relationship among academic quality, having fun and cost cannot be ignored in this study because they represent the factors that are altogether influential in the decision to study abroad. In the current literature, the key variables of study abroad programs are discussed; however, most studies fail to incorporate student expectations. This paper will fill this gap by incorporating both key academic variables and the voice of the customer (student).

Given the diversity of the population, the authors developed several methodologies to standardize the array of student responses to the questionnaire. Using this standardization along with several total quality management (TQM) tools allows us to simplify and categorize the different student expectations. The gathering of students’ expectations directly provided by students (voice of the customer) allows international programs to focus on the real problems and expectations that have been acknowledged, thus yielding student satisfaction with their experience, most importantly, in their field of study.

For universities, the current study identifies new means by which to improve the quality of international programs with the use of TQM tools including QFD, benchmarking and the Hoshin Kanri Planning Process with an evidence-based real case.

This paper presents a conclusive application of QFD, benchmarking and Hoshin Kanri and an analysis of how these tools can help international programs with future improvements incorporating the needs of students in their programs. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first application of these techniques to improve the international experience for business undergraduate students.

This paper aims to address students' expectations of classroom pedagogy. It suggests that meeting students' specific expectations of teaching, one of the core educational processes, could impact the perception of the overall quality of the educational experience.

A survey was administered to 372 first‐year college students addressing their expectations regarding the use of various instructional pedagogies within the classroom and their desired or ideal classroom environment. A gap analysis was conducted between students' responses of the expected and the actual classroom environment.

For eight of the 15 pedagogies, 25 percent or more of the students had a significant gap (greater than or equal to two) between their expected and actual classroom. The largest gap occurred in accessing the internet from class (34 percent) followed by the use of videos or DVDs (33 percent) and outside classroom assignments (30 percent).

A broader sample could be explored as well as how classroom environment impacts learning.

This paper explores the impact of the expectations of one aspect of a student's educational experience, the pedagogies used in the classroom, and considers the impact on the perception of overall quality.

Awareness of the gap between expectations of ideal classroom pedagogies and the actual learning environment is useful for educators to consider as they plan courses. Information on pedagogies to be used, presented early in the course, is suggested as a way to manage the gap.

The purpose of this paper is to consider customer expectation, perceived service performance and customer satisfaction as issues of total quality management (TQM) in relationship marketing, and examines how these relate to students' anticipated loyalty to college after graduation.

It is a survey research. Participants are 467 college students of 18 years and above, in the USA. Standardized instruments are used for data collection.

Standard multiple regression analyses results show that customer satisfaction, expectation and perceived service performance jointly predict anticipated loyalty. The predictor variables correlate among themselves. Among seven services studied, academic and recreational/social services are the most important predictors of students' anticipated loyalty.

School administrators should closely assess students' expectations on academic and recreational/social services with the aim of improving school services. This could encourage students' loyalty to the school after graduation. This paper is conducted among undergraduate students only, and from just one institution; these limit the generalizability of the paper.

Customer expectations, perceived service performance and students' satisfaction serve as issues of TQM in school organisations.

Students are customers of school services, and research on TQM could be extended to the school setting.

This study aims to explore the perceptions and expectations of the undergraduate students toward the teaching-research-practice nexus (TRPN) and propose a framework for the integration of nexus components at each undergraduate level. It also intends to identify whether students' views differ depending on their specialization, year of study, academic performance and gender.

Quantitative analysis was employed to evaluate the views of 460 undergraduate students from faculties of education in the Southeast Anatolia region of Turkey. The data were collected through the survey with a five-point Likert scale. A t-test and one-way ANOVA were used for the analysis of data.

Significant differences in the perceptions and expectations of the undergraduate students in relation to the TRPN suggest a gap in their satisfaction with the present teaching approach. The factors influencing students' perceptions include specialization, year of study and academic performance. Student expectations of the TRPN are affected by their specialization and GPA. The influence of gender was not confirmed.

The lack of previous research on the TRPN creates a need for further development in this area of study. The sample limited to education faculty in one region precludes generalization of the findings beyond the study setting.

The present study provides preliminary information for education faculties on how to meet students' learning expectations through proportional integration of the TRPN components into the undergraduate curriculum.

The study contributes to the ongoing debate and scarce literature on the TRPN at the undergraduate level and proposes an original framework for linking teaching, research, and practice.

Labour market expectations and especially wage expectations are important determinants for individual schooling decisions. However, research on individual expectations of students is scarce. The paper presents the Swiss results of a survey that was conducted in ten European countries. Its main findings are that point estimates of wages after graduation are close to actual wages, whereas the expectations of the wage gain in the first ten years of professional experience exceed the actual wage gains significantly. We find that rates of return to education that are calculated on the basis of individual wage and cost expectations as well as individual time preferences can be explained partially by the seniority of students, the self‐perception of their academic performance and their subjective job perspectives.