Motivation of engineering students and lecturers toward English medium instruction at tertiary level in Turkey

Abstract

English is an access to a global society according to Normark (2013), which implies studying a specific subject area through English is crucial in today’s educational arena. This is because English is a motive for universities to gain a global status as Coleman (2006) argued. Thus, the focal point of this study is to reveal motivational variations of students and lecturers toward English-Medium Instruction (EMI) because motivation may be an influential factor determining the success of EMI implementations. To this end, the study was designed as a mixed methods research to reach a deeper understanding of the issue. The participants were mechanical engineering students and lecturers at a state university in Turkey. In this regard, a Likert-type questionnaire was adapted to examine what factors had an effect on motivation of participants toward EMI. For the analyses of quantitative data, “Descriptive Statistics†were used to obtain mean and standard deviation scores; and MANOVA test was utilized via “Inferential Statistics†to see whether the year of study was a determinant for the motivation of students. Moreover, focus group interviews were conducted with students whilst lecturers were interviewed individually. Qualitative data obtained from interviews were analyzed using inductive content analysis. The results indicated no significant differences between the first, second, third and fourth year students’ motivation toward EMI; yet, it was found that the first year students were slightly more motivated toward EMI. Further, the most motivating reasons were linked to instrumental motivation and lecturers’ motivations toward EMI differed depending upon numerous reasons.