Examining Student Satisfaction Levels With a Foreign Language Course: Mixed Method Research

Abstract

In this study examining whether university students' satisfaction levels with foreign language courses and their satisfaction levels differ by several variables (gender, education type, department, and grade point average), a sequential explanatory, a mixed-methods design was used. While 398 students recruited by using a simple random sampling method participated in the quantitative component of the study, 12 students recruited by using the maximum diversity sampling method -a purposeful sampling method- participated in the qualitative study. "Personal Information Form" and the "Foreign Language Course Satisfaction Scale - FLCSS" developed by Taşgın and Korucuk (2018) and the "Semi-Structured Interview Form" were used as data collection tools. As the data did not meet the parametric test assumptions, Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis tests, which are nonparametric methods, were used in quantitative data analysis. The quantitative data analyses showed that the curriculum and instructor sub-dimensions of the FLCSS and the entire scale were in the high-level "positive" value range. Additionally, it was found that the student satisfaction level on the physical environment sub-dimension of FLCSS is in the "medium" range. On the other hand, while there are statistically significant differences between students' foreign language course satisfaction levels and various variables (education type, department, and grade point average), no statistically significant difference was found between the gender variable and satisfaction levels. It was found that the qualitative data obtained supported the quantitative data of the study.