COMPUTER SCIENCE STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION OF ONE-SEMESTER INTERNATIONAL ACADEMIC MOBILITY – A COMPARATIVE POLISH AND KAZAKH STUDY

Many universities from the European Union and Central Asia are cooperating in different educational projects supported by both sides. The students' one-semester academic mobility appears more and more often in these projects. Thus, a research question arises: are Computer Science (CS) students ready for such mobility?

The paper presents the results of research aimed at finding the answer to the research question posed. During the study mainly four hypotheses were tested:
H1. CS students have a positive attitude towards the mobility programme.
H2.CS students want to take part in academic exchanges.
H3. CS students perceive the international exchange programme as an opportunity to gain knowledge and skills, and enhance their future position in the labour market.
H4. Family reasons and a sense of terrorist threat are the primary causes of the students’ lack of desire to travel.

The research was carried out by a questionnaire among CS students of three universities: the Lublin University of Technology (Lublin, Poland), the Khoja Akhmet Yassawi International Kazakh-Turkish University (Turkistan, Kazakhstan), and the Karaganda State Industrial University (Temirtau, Kazakhstan). All of them are regional technical state universities. The studies used the same methodology, survey, and involved approximately 130 Polish and 140 Kazakh undergraduate CS students.

The paper presents the research methodology, study results, and discussion concerning differences between the perception of the problem by the Polish and Kazakh students. In general, Kazakh students have a more positive attitude towards one-way trips than Polish ones. More than 53% of students from Kazakhstan and only 8.5% from Poland indicated willingness to participate in such mobility. The biggest problem with the departure for the Kazakh students is leaving the family, while for Polish - fear of meeting requirements and passing exams.