Research internship

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The internship is part of module 4 (Research Practice) in the master’s programmes “Social Work” and “Diversity – Research – Social Work” in the departement of Social Work and Social Welfare at the University of Kassel.

Module 4 consists of 480 hours: 450 hours internship including writing the report and 30 contact hours for attending a colloquium at the University of Kassel.

The goal of the internship is to provide students with an opportunity to acquire practical experience in carrying out empirical research in an ongoing project and to learn to work independently.

Integrated into a research team, students will gain insight into the day-to-day business of an empirical survey. They are expected to work independently on a manageable piece of research covering 450 hours full-time or part-time including writing a research report. In addition students will be required to present and discuss their experience in a colloquium. The module seeks to develop the student’s competence to evaluate different academic contexts and styles, and the planning of processes and the working conditions related to academic research. It also seeks to encourage reflection on the impact of research on practice.

Students can do the research internship at the University of Kassel or at another university in Germany or abroad. Alternatively, they can go as well to an appropriate non-university research institution.

The research institution agrees that it will integrate the student intern into a research project, allow her/him to participate in the realization and arrangement of a research process and support her/him in the development of their own research work. The research institution enables the student intern to attend the academic colloquium which is run as a compact seminar and to certificate the research internship.

For further informations please contact:
Lina Eckhardt (coordination) ma-soziale-arbeit@uni-kassel.de or Prof. Dr. Mechthild Bereswill bereswill@uni-kassel.de

Information for supervisors of the research internship

What are the goals of the internship?

Students gain an insight into the ongoing practice of an empirical study. They learn how to transfer scientific questions into concrete research designs and the practical application of empirical research methods.

What is the scope of the internship?

The internship comprises 600 semester hours per week (SWS) of 45 minutes each (450 hours). This amount of time is available for the internship and for writing the final research report.

The internship can be arranged as a full-time or part-time activity by agreement between the research institution and the student.

In addition, students attend a scientific colloquium of 30 SWS to accompany the internship. Participation in the colloquium (compulsory attendance), which is usually offered in block form, must be made possible by the research institution.

What tasks does the research center perform?

The research center undertakes to integrate interns into an ongoing research project and to involve them in the implementation and design of a specific research process and to support them in the development of independent research steps. After checking the suitability of the internship, an internship contract will be issued to ensure the legal security of all parties involved.

Students should develop their own research question during the internship and work on it. The work process and the results are recorded by the students in a research report (min. 40,000 characters incl. spaces). The report refers to aspects of social diversity and is usually written in the language in which the internship was completed. The research office is usually responsible for supervising and grading this report, but in exceptional cases this can also be done by the module coordinator of the degree program.

The usual social science standards apply to the assessment of the research paper. Grading is only formalized to the extent that grades from very good (in intermediate grades: 0.7; 1.0; 1.3) to sufficient (4.0) can be awarded for a passed performance. The most important criterion for grading the report is the student's own academic performance.

Contact and advice:

Function/Name	Address/telephone number/e-mail
Course Coordination/Study Advisory Service Dr. Marko Perels	Department 01 Human Sciences Nora-Platiel 2, Room 0106 Phone: +49 561 804-2975 E-mail: ma-soziale-arbeit[at]uni-kassel[dot]de Consultation hours: by appointment by e-mail