Abstract
This study aims to investigate the motivations, attitudes, and introspections of Moroccan undergraduate students towards linguistics and cultural studies as a part of their Bachelor of Arts Program at a large public university in Morocco. A total of 100 students (50 studying cultural studies and 50 from a linguistics stream) participated in the study. By applying mixed method research, questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data and introspective essays were used for qualitative data. The results of the study showed that most participants had positive attitudes towards linguistics and cultural studies courses, but literature selection was not welcomed by most participants. The findings also suggest that students’ extra-curricular environment factors such as classmates, teachers’ profiles, and future career embarking significantly contribute to construct positive or negative attitudes as the main motivations behind major choice: linguistics, cultural studies, or literature courses. The study offers pedagogical recommendations that should be taken into account. Decision makers and reform appliers in Morocco need to take into account students’ voices in the selection process of streams to major in.
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Bouhlal, A. (2020). Motivations, Attitudes, and Introspections of Moroccan Undergraduate Students Towards Major Selection. In: Belhiah, H., Zeddari, I., Amrous, N., Bahmad, J., Bejjit, N. (eds) English Language Teaching in Moroccan Higher Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3805-6_8
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