Participants

Participants of the present study were all members of the Hungarian ethnic minority group in Transcarpathia, one of the Western regions of Ukraine. Each of them was a learner of a secondary school where Hungarian was the language of instruction. Every learner was studying in the 10^th or 11^th forms of the school. However, only learners from the 11^th form were included in the final study.

The learners aged between 16 and 18. This age group was chosen for the following two reasons. First, they have been studying Ukrainian for 8 to 10 years. Similarly, the majority of the participants studied English for six years, however there were learners who entered the secondary school involved in the research only in the tenth form, therefore was incorporated in mainstream English language teaching and had no opportunity to go on with the foreign language studies s/he started earlier, that were usually French or German. Consequently, these learners based their English-related experiences on the three years they were exposed to learning it. Second, the learners were on the point of leaving their school and continuing their studies or starting their first job. Based on the above named two reasons respondents were supposed to have a crystallized construct of both Ukrainian and English language motivation.

Figure 4. The demographic situation of Transcarpathian Hungarians (Molnár & Molnár, 2005, p. 28).

To select the target group of participants for the present study, a multi-stage sampling procedure was applied. The proportion of Hungarians as compared to the ratio of Ukrainians in a given area served as a guiding principle when designing the sampling procedure. First, the number of districts where Hungarians live were identified (See Figure 4. The demographic situation of Transcarpathian Hungarians).

Next, on the basis of Molnár and Molnár’s (2005) interpretation of data of the 2001 national census in Ukraine, three adequate areas were identified within the Hungarian populated part of Transcarpathia. The area covering the Vynohradivskyy (Виноградівський район), Berehivskyy (Берегівський район) and Uzhhorodskyy (Ужгородський район) districts contain settlements where the ratio of Hungarians is 25% and above: this area formed the first group. The ratio of Hungarians is between 10 and 25% in the Mukachivskyy district (Мукачівський район) and therefore this area formed the second group. The third group included the territory involving

Hustskyy (Хустський район), Tyachivskyy (Тячівський район) and Rakhivskyy districts (Рахівський район), where Hungarians form 1 to 10% of the population.

The number of participants in each group changed in proportion with the ratio of Hungarians living in the area (Table 10. Distribution of participants in each questionnaire survey). Within each of the three groups the schools were chosen on the basis of convenience sampling. This sampling procedure was chosen because it was hypothesized that there is a variance in the motivational disposition among learner cohorts belonging to the three groups.

Table 10. Distribution of Participants in each Questionnaire Survey.

Pilot study

Study#1 N=147

Study#2 N=211

Study#3 N=219 Group 1* (Including Berevhiskyy, Vynohradivksyy and Uzhhorodskyy

District and the town of Berehovo)

102 100 100 183

Group 2** (Including the District of Mukachevo and the town of Uzhhorod)

- 32 96 17

Group 3*** (Including Tyachivkyy, Khustskyy and Rakhivskyy District and the town of Tyachiv)

- 15 15 19

Note. The proportion of Hungarians in the area is *25%< ; **10-25%; and ***1-10%.

During the questionnaire validation phase the instrument was piloted on 102 respondents.

At the time of the data collection the respondents were studying in the tenth form of an urban Hungarian secondary school. The respondents of the pilot study, similarly to target respondents, were studying both English and Ukrainian. The process of the study was summarized by Henkel (2007).

After the instrument was validated and piloted it was given to 147 secondary school learners studying in the tenth and eleventh form of Hungarian secondary schools. The data collected during this phase of the research process were analyzed in Study #1. Participants of the first study also learnt the named two languages.

The second wave of the data collection procedure involved 211 participants. Respondents of the study were all studying Ukrainian but they varied regarding the foreign language they had to learn at school, i.e. some of the learners learnt English, while others German and still others,

French as an obligatory school subject. The outcomes discussed only Ukrainian language-related issues, as motives for studying Ukrainian were the main foci of the study. The results are detailed under the heading Study #2. Pilot study data and data for Study #1 and Study #2 were collected in spring 2007.

In spite of the fact that data for the two studies were collected simultaneously, they cannot be merged. First, because of the difference between the languages they examine, i.e. the first study examines both Ukrainian and English, whereas the second study investigates only Ukrainian language motivation. Second, the there was a difference between the number of respondents involved in the two studies and it was also supposed to be a point of difference in terms of the findings obtained.

The reason for collecting data in 2007 was connected with the fact that the 2006/2007 academic year was the second year when a specific curriculum prepared specially for Hungarian minority learners of Ukrainian was ratified by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (Melnyik & Csernicskó, 2010). Thus, it was hypothesized that the principles of the curriculum were put into practice therefore might have affected to some extent learners’ disposition towards Ukrainian language studies.

There were 219 participants of the third questionnaire study that involved nine secondary schools. The third wave of data collection in spring 2009 was also connected with a governmental statute that was adopted in 2008 by Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (Csernicskó, 2011b). The Statute #480 made an attempt to ‘ukrainianize’ the sphere of higher education. It made Ukrainian language entrance exams obligatory and urged the Ukrainian-only medium of instruction at the tertiary level. Thus, at the time of data collection school-leavers already knew that Ukrainian language knowledge is the key to higher education. It was assumed that this sharp change in the educational system affected their motivation construct, i.e. their motivation to learn the state language.

To sum, the very first data collection was a pilot study and served validation purposes.

The second phase, i.e. Study #1 similarly to the pilot study examined both English and Ukrainian language motivation. The third stage in the data collection procedure, i.e. Study #2, focused only on Ukrainian and helped in understanding learners’ state language motivation construct in a more detailed way. The fourth and last wave of data collection, Study #3, helped to draw conclusions firmly grounded in findings of previous research projects with reference to both English and Ukrainian. Besides, findings of each questionnaire study actively contributed to the development of an interview study that will also be described below.