A Qualitative Study on Graduate Students’ Feelings and Problems in Turkish ELT Context

Abstract

The present study investigated graduate students’ feelings and problems in the Turkish ELT setting. Purposeful sampling method was chosen in order to have a deeper understanding of their perceptions related to being a graduate student. Attending Master’s and Doctorate Programs in English Language Teaching at different state universities, four MA and four PhD students took part in the study. The data were gathered through semi-structured interviews. A Phenomenological Qualitative Approach was adopted for the study and Inductive Analysis Method was employed for the data analysis. The outcomes of the study yielded that GSs experienced both negative and positive feelings such as “professional satisfaction” “self-confidence”, “excitement”, “indecisiveness”, “pressure”, “lack of satisfaction”, “confusion” during the different periods of their studies. Moreover, “commuting”, “limited time” and “lack of knowledge on research methods” were stated among problems they encountered throughout GE process. It is crucial to discover student’s feelings and problems through the analysis of their causes in English Language Teaching as a specific field. Furthermore, this will shed light on detecting and overcoming the problems other graduate students may encounter in another ELT context.

Keywords

• Graduate Education (GE),Graduate Students (GS),English Language Teaching (ELT),Feelings,Problems,Suggestions

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