Stakeholder Perspectives on the Use of English-Medium Instruction (EMI) in Turkish Universities

Abstract

Today internalization of education has resulted in an almost exclusive dominance of the use of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) in many tertiary educational institutions across the globe. EMI is defined as using English in the teaching of academic subjects in contexts where the mother tongue is not English. A growing body of research exits on the debate regarding the need for EMI. While some studies establish the benefits, some others reveal the threats it constitutes. These inconclusive results call for more in-depth research on the subject, especially in terms of exploring immediate stakeholder perspectives. This survey study was conducted with students, content professors (CPs) and English language instructors (ELIs) of 25 EMI universities in Turkey, and data were collected from 349 participants exploring their perceptions regarding the use of EMI in tertiary education. The study also investigated whether student perceptions change according to their demographic variables including but not limited to gender and disciplines studied. In a similar fashion whether the perceptions of professors and language instructors are shaped by their demographic variables, was also investigated. The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, while the qualitative data were analyzed via content analysis. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.