How internship environmental factors affect students’ career intentions in the hotel industry through the reflective thinking processes

Abstract

Based on the social cognitive theory and reflective thinking theory, this study constructs a research model to examine the roles of different internship environmental factors (skills variety, learning opportunities, supervisor support, and interpersonal relationships) influencing students’ career intentions through the reflective thinking processes. The results of a survey in Hong Kong and Macau indicate that only interpersonal relationships affect habitual action, four factors affect understanding, but supervisor support does not affect reflection and critical thinking. For career intentions, all the reflective thinking levels except habitual action have a significant effect but understanding has the greatest effect.