International student development through service-oriented overseas internships

A qualitative framework analysis of hair-and-beauty student reflections

Abstract

International internships connect outward mobility, work-integrated learning, intercultural adaptation, and career development, yet vocational students in customer-facing service occupations remain under-examined. This secondary qualitative study analysed structured, de-identified case summaries derived from the required post-internship reflection reports of 14 Taiwanese hair-and-beauty students who completed placements in Canada or Australia. Experienced internship scholars reviewed the source reports and verified the summaries, which were organised using six a priori domains adapted from an earlier international-internship study. A hybrid deductive-inductive qualitative Framework Method supported comparison within and across cases and domains. Four interpretive themes were developed: embodied professionalism in customer-facing beauty work; adaptation as communicative, affective, and everyday-life labor; translating mobility into graduate capital and career agency; and, from prompted recommendations, a three-stage support ecology. The summaries linked professional learning with service routines, aesthetic preferences, clarification, emotional self-management, and everyday life stability. These connections support an interpretation of intercultural learning as situated service participation, while the condensed data do not establish the detailed interactional processes involved. Career relevance depended on students' ability to identify and articulate experience as evidence of capability; subsequent employment was not assessed. The study identifies connected responsibilities for preparation before departure, support during placement, and reflection and career translation after return.