In this study, we surveyed all undergraduate students at Michigan State University about why (and why not) they enrolled in language courses. Participants in the study were undergraduate students enrolled in the Spring 2020 semester at MSU. In total, 35,863 undergrad students received the survey, and a total of 4,458 responses were able to be analyzed.
This study was a partial replication of a study conducted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dianna Murphy, Director, UW-Madison Language Institute, was the research lead on that study. The survey instrument was developed at UW-Madison in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin Survey Center and with broad input from UW-Madison faculty, staff, and students, as well as from MSU researchers. The overall research concept and design was from the original UW-Madison study; the survey instrument was modified by the MSU researchers to fit our context. In order to be able to compare data/results between the institutions, MSU did a first broad analysis of the data addressing research questions developed by UW-Madison’s team. Since then, MSU has further adapted analysis to our own context.
The article was accepted and will be published in the fall of 2024 in the Foreign Language Annals.