Legitimate peripheral participation by sandwich year interns in the national health service

Student internships are widely seen as a valuable part of education provision and there is a growing body of research into internship programmes from student, employer and educator perspectives. This paper explores the experiences of a group of information technology interns employed in a small organisation involved in health care business intelligence. Taking an ethnographic approach and drawing from a range of data sources including participant observation and qualitative interviewing, this study explores the legitimate peripheral participation of a small group of interns working in a single organisation. The internship programme is shown to be of benefit to the organisation, the occupation and the interns themselves. The participating students clearly benefited from being able to learn from and with experienced practitioners, including their supervisors, colleagues and each other in an authentic workplace setting.