ESP STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES AND MOTIVATION BEFORE AND AFTER CROATIA JOINED THE ERASMUS PROGRAM

Abstract

Results of our research study conducted before Croatia joined the Erasmus program in 2010 suggested that the experience of internationalization might affect ESP students’ attitudes, learning priorities and motivation. To establish whether generations that participated in academic mobility programs differ from their pre-Erasmus peers, we repeated our original study from 2009: Business and economics students’ attitudes to English, L2 motivation and invested effort were measured using the same questionnaire based on sociolinguistic and L2 motivation research rooted in social psychology. The same attitudes and motivation scales were used to compare the two groups. To ensure comparability, the data from the original and the present study were submitted to Coarsened Exact matching, which resulted in two subsets (N=98 each). T-test and correlational analyses revealed significant differences between the two groups, but the findings somewhat disappointed our previous expectations regarding the impact of university internationalization.