Managing a Large Talent Pool Using Assessment Analytics Within the Context of the National Internship Program

The National Internship Program (NIP) is a nationwide intern-employer connection program implemented by the government of the Republic of Türkiye. Among the program’s aims is to determine the ablest interns and connect them with top employers in a merit-based system. Hence, all applying interns are put through an assessment procedure that determines their level of competence and capability. To be able to develop such a system, the program is designed in three meso-cycles following educational design research, and the assessment procedure of the program is based on assessment analytics. By studying the development cycles of the program, this study aims to achieve three goals: (1) how can assessment analytics be effectively utilized for the purpose of summative assessment, (2) how can assessment analytics be applied within a nationwide scale, and (3) how assessment analytics can be applied in experiential learning contexts. For these aims, the study focuses on the practices for the management of the talent pool of NIP to investigate how data-driven decision-making was supported and competence-based application evaluation was assured. These practices and the program overall were evaluated using satisfaction surveys filled by both students and employers that participated in NIP, and the findings indicated great satisfaction from both parties towards the measurement method, the reliability of the measurement, and the usability of the system.