Turkish university students’ perceptions about English Medium Instruction: exploring year group, gender and university type as variables

In Turkey, as in much of the rest of the non-Anglophone world, universities are offering an increasing number of courses through English Medium Instruction (EMI) rather than through the medium of the first language (L1) of the majority of the population. Previous research has explored teacher and student perceptions and attitudes towards EMI and the challenges they face. Less attention has been given to institutional variables such as year of study, private or state universities and to students’ gender. We report on a large-scale study of university students in Turkey who were about to embark or had already embarked on an undergraduate programme taught through the medium of English. Our sample of 989 students from 18 universities reported significant differences in terms of year of study, university type and gender. We situate these findings both in the Turkish educational context and call for deeper investigations into these variables in other and different socio-economic and cultural contexts