From Insight to Impact: Leveraging Learning in Business Internships

Internships are widely used to develop human and graduate capital; however, interns—and the educators and mentors who support them—may lack a clear understanding of how reflection facilitates learning, potentially limiting the transformation of experience into actionable knowledge. Therefore, the purpose of this qualitative study is to examine the use of reflection and its impact on learning quality for first-time business interns in the United States, and to consider how such learning may contribute to organizational stakeholder outcomes (e.g., talent pipeline health, retention, and succession).. Twelve first-time undergraduate business interns participated in semi-structured interviews aligned with the Gibbs Reflective Cycle. Findings indicate that interns often miss opportunities to convert experience into intentional learning and to follow through with actionable steps. Implications for practice include embedding structured reflective scaffolds and teaching reflective practice explicitly. Additionally, shifting feedback beyond the task to professional competencies, and requiring brief written action plans including execution to support learning transfer.