Evaluation of foreign students' attitudes and motivations towards learning Turkish

The aim of this research is to determine the attitudes and motivation levels of foreign students towards learning Turkish and to evaluate the results obtained in terms of various variables (gender, age, university, Turkish language proficiency, duration of stay in Turkey, education status of parents, number of Turkish books at home, number of Turkish books read monthly, time spent on the internet in Turkish daily, time spent watching TV in Turkish daily, number of Turkish friends). In addition, TÖMER students were interviewed face to face to examine their attitudes and motivations towards learning Turkish in depth. For this purpose, the research was conducted using the explanatory mixed method, which is one of the mixed method designs in which quantitative and qualitative research methods are used together. Attitude and motivation scales were used to obtain quantitative data; and a semi-structured interview form was used to obtain qualitative data. The participants of the study consist of 324 foreign students studying at TÖMERs at Ağrı İbrahim Çeçen University, Erzurum Atatürk University, Kilis 7 Aralık University, Bitlis Eren University and Gaziantep University in the 2023-2024 academic year. Semi structured interviews were conducted with a total of eleven foreign students, 5 of whom were female and 6 were male. As a result of the research, it was determined that the attitudes and motivations of foreign university students towards learning Turkish as a foreign language were at a medium level and their motivations were at a high level. In addition, it was determined that their attitudes and motivations towards learning Turkish did not show a significant difference according to the variables of gender and parental education level, but they showed a significant difference according to the variables of age, Turkish language proficiency, number of Turkish books at home, number of Turkish books read monthly, time spent on the internet in Turkish daily, watching TV in Turkish daily and number of Turkish friends. However, it was determined that while there was a statistically significant difference in the level of attitudes towards learning Turkish as a foreign language with the variables of the duration of stay in Turkey and the university they study at, there was no statistically significant difference in their motivation levels. According to the qualitative findings of the research, the attitudes and motivations of the students learning Turkish as a foreign language towards learning Turkish were evaluated under the titles of "language skills proficiency", "grammar proficiency" and "difficulty level of Turkish"; their motivations were evaluated under the titles of "ways of learning/developing Turkish" and "benefits of knowing Turkish".