Critical thinking skill is one those higher order thinking skills required for the 21st century work place and life. The 21st century job market requires highly skilled employees, who are competent at thinking in diverse angles, conceptualizing and analyzing data and information for the betterment of the organization. Due to this demand for the competency, higher education institutions are expected to design their programs to develop the skills required for the job market including the highly demanded critical thinking skill. One of the most effective ways of inculcating these skills is providing field experiences to students, where they can articulate the knowledge and skill taught in the educational programs, hence internship programs in tertiary education process provides this opportunity to graduates. The purpose of this study is to assess the moderating role of internship in the relationship between critical thinking skills and employability. This research comprises a cross-sectional quantitative research design and adopted structural equation modeling to examine the data collected from employees who were graduates of several HEIs in Maldives. A sample of 313 graduates (undergraduates and postgraduate diploma) were included in the study. The findings indicated that internship was not a significant moderator in the relationship between critical thinking skills and employability. This study contributed to the current literature by considering the moderating effect of internship in the relationship between critical thinking skills and employability, a variable hitherto not considered in the existing literature.

Graduates, Employability, Internship, Critical thinking skill, Higher Education Institutions