ACTFL National Study Summary

The Berkeley Language Center (BLC) together with the UC Berkeley Arts & Humanities Dean’s Office and the L&S Executive Dean’s Office invites all UC Berkeley undergraduates to participate in a national study. Your participation will help universities and educators align language teaching design with student needs and interests. Whether or not you are enrolled in a language class, we ask that you consider taking a few minutes to fill out this survey.

ACTFL (formerly known as the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) is conducting a national survey to discover why some college students study languages while others don’t. We invite you to participate in this research project by completing a short 10-to-20-minute survey. You will also have the option to sign up for a follow-up focus group once you complete the survey. This website includes the study summary, and the consent form at the start of the survey includes the same information.

Feedback from students is essential to finding out how to support language learning! We thank you for your consideration, and if you have any questions, please contact research@actfl.org

Sincerely,

 Kimberly Vinall, Berkeley Language Center

On behalf of Meg Malone, ACTFL Research

Click the linked block below to access the survey:

ACTFL National Study Summary

Why is this research being conducted?

ACTFL is conducting research to determine why students enrolled in post-secondary institutions do and do not take world languages.

How long will the research last, and what will I need to do?

Students who participate will take a 10-20 minute online survey and have the option to sign up for a subsequent focus group.

Is there any way being in this study could be bad for me?

The risks associated with the study are very minimal. Your participation will be kept confidential. In case of any discomfort or inconvenience incurred when completing the survey, you may decline to answer any questions you do not want to answer.  Also, you may stop participating at any time during the study. Choosing not to complete the study will have no impact on your relationship with anyone at ACTFL, and there are no consequences for not completing it.

Will being in this study help me in any way?

This study will provide a national perspective on why students enrolled in post-secondary education programs do and do not take languages and provide general guidance to post-secondary institutions on curricular offerings.

What happens if I do not want to be in this research?

Participation is completely voluntary. You can decide whether to participate or not to participate. Your alternative to participating in this survey is to not participate.

Who can I talk to?

If you have questions, concerns, or complaints, or think the research has hurt you, you may reach out to the principal investigator, Meg Malone: mmalone@actfl.org.This(link sends e-mail) project has been reviewed and approved by Heartland Institutional Review Board.

Questions concerning your rights as a participant in this research may be addressed to:

Heartland Institutional Review Board – Ph: 866.618.HIRB – director@heartlandirb.org(link sends e-mail)

What happens if I say yes, but I change my mind later?

Your withdrawal from the study will not be held against you. If you decide to leave the research, contact the principal investigator, Meg Malone: mmalone@actfl.org(link sends e-mail), so that your data and recordings from the focus groups can be discarded. The signed consent form will be erased, and your answers to the questionnaire, data and recordings from the focus groups will be deleted.

For students participating in the general survey

If you choose to participate, the data will be analyzed and shared. We will not collect any personal information about you on the survey and focus group participants will be anonymized.

Full description of the project

ACTFL National Study: Motivations for post-secondary students’ enrollment (and lack of enrollment) in World Languages courses

Recent data (Lusin et al, 2023) shows that world language enrollments in U.S. post-secondary institutions are declining. Conversely, research shows that learning one or more additional language has benefits for a variety of factors from long-term brain health to career growth. Moreover, proficiency in languages other than English is critical to national security and diplomacy; national studies show that such proficiency is similarly essential for businesses. If language study is so instrumental to a functioning society and if there are financial incentives for such proficiency in the workforce, why are enrollments declining?

This national study builds on previous work that explores just that question: why are post-secondary students enrolling-and not enrolling- in world language courses. Murphy et al (2022) explore this question by examining the motivations of 3,200 undergraduate students at a Midwestern University; their study examines the importance of developing proficiency to these students, why students report enrolling or not enrolling in world language courses and factors that would influence students to study languages. Even more recently, Van Gorp et al (2024) examined the same questions at a different Midwestern university. Both studies show that the reasons behind student enrollment decisions are both broad and narrow and that language programs would do well to attend to the needs of students when developing and planning courses. Cinaglia (2024) has similarly investigated the language requirement at colleges and universities. Research is ongoing to examine beliefs at specific post-secondary institutions and even in specific language departments. However, developing a more national understanding of these motivations could help meet the national need for language proficiency in security, diplomacy and business.

Thus, ACTFL is adapting the work of Murphy et al (2022), Van Gorp et al (2024) and others to develop a multi-pronged, national study of this issue. In collaboration with colleagues from three major public and private universities with strong language world language programs, as well as many of the original authors, ACTFL will examine the following research questions:

1.     How highly do undergraduate students value proficiency in world languages, relative to their (1) personal interests, (2) current or intended major, and (3) career plans?

·   How do students define proficiency vis a vis the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 2024?

·   Are there differences between students who studied (in the past) or are currently studying world languages and students who have not studied any world languages and in the value, they place on proficiency in world languages in these three domains?

·   To what extent do students' demographic profiles and study variables impact the value students place on proficiency in world languages in the three different domains?

2.     What are undergraduate students' reasons for enrolling or not enrolling in world language courses?

·   What are undergraduate students' reasons for enrolling in courses in languages other than English?

·   Why do undergraduates continue or stop learning a world language after enrolling?

·   What are undergraduate students' reasons for not ever enrolling in Languages Other Than English (LOTE) courses?

3.     What would make undergraduate students more likely to enroll in world language courses in the future or continue studying a language?

4.     What are students’ beliefs about the general importance of studying a world language?

This study will have three parts. The first part will be a national questionnaire, open to any undergraduate enrolled in a post-secondary institution. Convenience sampling will be used to recruit a large sample representing diverse institutions, geographical regions, and student backgrounds. For the second part, ACTFL offers a separate questionnaire and the resulting data, free of charge, for any post-secondary institution that wishes to participate as a part of the larger study. This approach will both allow an institution to explore ways to make world language study more accessible to more students at their institution and to also allow ACTFL to examine national and regional trends. The third part will involve focus groups with students from across the United States that will provide qualitative insight into survey responses.

Any institution that wishes to administer the questionnaire at their institution should send an email to research@actfl.org. ACTFL will obtain an IRB and add researchers to the study and release institutional-specific data to the recipient named on the IRB. ACTFL will have access to all data, including the general study and each institution-specific study and will use the results for publication on the overall results. Participating researchers must agree to use the data consistent with IRB standard practices and to include the original project team as co-authors on any publication. Foreign Language Annals will have the right of first refusal of any publication.

Cinaglia, C. (2023). University students’ beliefs about the language requirement: Policy as articulated and as perceived. In Language program vitality in the United States: From surviving to thriving in higher education (pp. 141-157). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Lusin, N., Peterson, T., Sulewski, C., & Zafer, R. (2023). Enrollments in languages other than English in US institutions of higher education, Fall 2021. Modern Language Association of America, 1-107.

Murphy, D., Sarac, M., & Sedivy, S. (2022). Why U.S. undergraduate students are (not) studying languages other than English. Second Language Research & Practice, 3(1), 1–33. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/69866

Van Gorp, K., Uebel, E. H., Kronenberg, F. A., & Murphy, D. (2024). How important is studying languages for undergraduate students and why (not) study languages?. Foreign Language Annals, 57(4), 900-920.