This research focuses on how foreign language requirements impact an undergraduate student’s future career. Several schools have looked into the benefits of foreign language requirements, student motivations in class, and teaching strategies, all to better engage students in foreign language study. A survey was conducted asking a series of Likert scale questions regarding what language participants speak, opinions about learning a language, foreign language requirements to graduate, and future implications of foreign language education. This survey was sent to LEADS Institute Scholars. We specifically wanted to understand how students perceived foreign language requirements and whether it was impacting their enrollment in the College of Arts and Sciences. Many schools have added foreign language requirements to their curriculum and it is our goal to illuminate student motivations and interests toward the subject so better efforts could be made to enroll students in foreign language programs. Twenty-seven students responded to our survey and the vast majority of them were enrolled in Spanish language courses, with few others in French, Chinese, and ASL. Most students understand that foreign language study is beneficial for their future careers as it will aid in communication, cultural competency, and building community. However, when asked about how foreign language impacts the students’ understanding of global relationships most students acknowledged that there was an impact but they were unsure of what that exact impact was. This study can be applied to more students in the future to get a better idea of how it generalizes to the overall population. All of us who conducted this study are taking majors that include foreign language requirements, so this study directly impacts us as well. The research we conducted in general has provided us with an introduction to how research is conducted in humanities and social science fields.
Author(s): Ann Bixel, Hannah Fenner, Nolan Miller, Lillian Shelley, and Savannah Slater
Advisor(s): Carolyn Craig College of Arts and Sciences, Abigail Morgan University Libraries
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