An investigation into motivation of engineering students and lecturers toward English-medium instruction at tertiary level in Turkey

This study aims at revealing motivational variations of university students who study in Engineering Faculty toward English-Medium Instruction (EMI). Another aim of the study is to deeply investigate the opinions and experiences of university lecturers who teach in the same faculty about EMI. As to data collection tools, a likert-type questionnaire was adapted for the first phase of the study. Consistency between items in the questionnaire prepared for the university students was taken into consideration and accordingly, the questionnaire was mainly developed in the light of Dörnyei's (1994) framework for foreign language learning motivation. Data from the questionnaires were analyzed with SPSS (Version 23.0). For the analyses of quantitative data, mean and standard deviation scores via "Descriptive Statistics" were used and MANOVA test was utilized via "Inferential Statistics". MANOVA test was applied to see whether there was a significant difference between the results of questionnaires administered to first, second, third and fourth year students separately. The other data collection tool was semi-structured interviews prepared in accordance with the items in the questionnaire. With students, interviews were conducted by means of focus group interviews whereas lecturers were interviewed individually. Qualitative data obtained from interviews were analyzed with the help of inductive content analysis method. The results highlighted that there was not a significant difference between first, second, third and fourth year mechanical engineering students' motivation toward EMI; yet, it was found out that the first year students were slightly more motivated toward EMI when compared to second, third and fourth year students. In relation to the types of motivation, it can be said that the most motivating reasons were linked to instrumental motivation. As for the results of interviews with lecturers, it was explored that lecturers' motivations toward EMI differed positively or negatively depending upon the various reasons. Keywords:English-medium instruction, motivation, university students and lecturers