Examining the Motivations of University Students for Educational Mobility

Öz

This study explores the ways in which university students develop and link their reasons for educational mobility to more complex economic or push–pull factors. The scope is limited to educational mobility within Türkiye (mostly between cities) unlike international student mobility. The written answers of 146 undergraduate students from Iğdır University to six open-ended questions (1029 sentence-level sub-units) were analysed based on the framework of Shaffer, Collier and Ruis (2016) and Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA). Coding was performed using a computer-assisted, deterministic lexicon (regular-expression) procedure, without relying on language-model estimation, and student-level binary adjacency vectors were then sphere-normalized, projected using singular value decomposition (SVD), and rendered as an integrated epistemic network by co-registered node placement. The co-registration fit of the node placement is high (Pearson r = 0.832 and 0.972). Group differences were examined using MANOVA and the Mann–Whitney U test. The omnibus MANOVA for gender was not significant (Wilks' λ, p = 0.069); an exploratory, dimension-wise comparison nonetheless indicated a tendency for gender on the first network dimension (Mann–Whitney U = 2868, p = 0.017, rank-biserial r ≈ 0.25). The results show that exam-based placement, economic constraint and compelled/constrained choice are closely linked in the structural core, and that educational mobility is a reflexive, stratified process of meaning making rather than a rational choice.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Educational mobility
• student motivation
• epistemic network analysis
• identity
• higher education

Etik Beyan

Ethics committee approval for this research was obtained from the Iğdır University Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Committee with decision number E-70099424-000-200743 dated 18.12.2025.

Üniversite Öğrencilerinin Eğitim Hareketliliği Motivasyonlarının İncelenmesi

Öz

Bu çalışma, üniversite öğrencilerinin eğitim amacıyla hareket etme nedenlerini nasıl geliştirdiklerini ve bu nedenleri daha karmaşık ekonomik veya itici-çekici faktörlerle nasıl ilişkilendirdiklerini incelemektedir. Çalışmanın kapsamı, uluslararası öğrenci hareketliliğinden farklı olarak, Türkiye içindeki (çoğunlukla şehirler arası) eğitim odaklı hareketlilikle sınırlandırılmıştır. Iğdır Üniversitesi'nde öğrenim gören 146 lisans öğrencisinin altı açık uçlu soruya verdikleri yazılı yanıtlar (1029 cümle düzeyinde alt birim), Shaffer, Collier ve Ruis'in (2016) çerçevesi ve Epistemik Ağ Analizi (ENA) temel alınarak analiz edilmiştir. Kodlama süreci, dil modeli tahminlerine dayanmaksızın, bilgisayar destekli ve belirlenimci bir sözlük (düzenli ifade - regex) prosedürü kullanılarak gerçekleştirilmiştir. Ardından, öğrenci düzeyindeki ikili bitişiklik vektörleri küre normalizasyonuna tabi tutulmuş, tekil değer ayrışması (SVD) ile yansıtılmış ve eş-kayıtlı düğüm yerleşimi ile bütünleşik bir epistemik ağ olarak görselleştirilmiştir. Düğüm yerleşiminin eş-kayıt uyumu oldukça yüksektir (Pearson r=0,832 ve 0,972). MANOVA ve Mann–Whitney U testi kullanılarak yapılan grup karşılaştırmaları, cinsiyete ilişkin bütüncül (omnibus) MANOVA anlamlı değildir (Wilks' λ, p=0,069); yalnızca boyut bazında yapılan keşifsel karşılaştırmada birinci boyutta bir eğilim gözlenmiştir (Mann–Whitney U=2868, p=0,017, rank-biserial r ≈ 0,25). Elde edilen bulgular; sınava dayalı yerleştirme, ekonomik kısıtlar ve zorunlu/kısıtlı tercihlerin ağın yapısal merkezinde birbirine sıkı sıkıya bağlı olduğunu ve eğitim hareketliliğinin rasyonel bir seçimden ziyade, refleksif ve katmanlı bir anlam oluşturma süreci olduğunu ortaya koymaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Eğitim hareketliliği
• öğrenci motivasyonu
• epistemik ağ analizi
• kimlik
• yükseköğretim

Etik Beyan

Etik Kurul Beyanı *Araştırma için Iğdır Ünversitesi Bilimsel Araştırma ve Yayın Etiği Kurulu’ndan 18.12.2025 tarihli ve E-70099424-000-200743 karar sayısı ile etik kurul izni alınmıştır

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