AN EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ON ACTUAL OUTCOMES OF ERASMUS UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

During last decades, a considerable amount of financial and human resources have been devoted to the development and expansion of international mobility programmes in higher education; more than 1.8 million students have taken part in Erasmus-Socrates programme since its inception in 1987. And, moreover, in 1999 the Bologna Declaration specified, as one of its main objectives for 2010, the elimination of barriers to the free mobility of students.

Nevertheless, benefits of international mobility for those who study abroad are usually taken for granted and scarce quantitative research has been undertaken to assess actual outcomes of international mobility programs.

This paper presents the preliminary outcomes of an empirical research undertaken in UCAM, a middle-size Spanish university, on outgoing Erasmus undergraduate students’ personal and academic results. Findings show an important improve in students’ foreign language skills, a very high willingness to transfer abroad for job reasons and a positive perception on the ability of international experience to improve their academic results.