한국 대학생들의 단기해외어학연수 경험에 대한 근거이론 기반 연구

Korean college students’ L2 learning experience in a short-term study abroad context: A grounded theory approach

The aim of this study is to explore the college students’ experience in a short-term English study abroad context qualitatively. Reflective journals and follow-up interviews of 11 students were analyzed employing the grounded theory approach. According to the successive procedure of open coding and axial coding, a framework of an organizing scheme was established along with the time flow of the students' experience, and finally a core category emerged. The core category, the central phenomena experienced by the students, was postulated as “building social and cultural capital to be a better-suited global citizen and expanding L2 self identity through motivated investment.” It implies that the emergence of the core category depends on the degree of the participants’ “motivated investment” in their learning goal, such as English proficiency improvement and cultural understanding to be more successful in the global community. As a result of the “motivated investment”, “social and cultural capital” was built in the participants in the sense that they gained meaningful social and cultural assets which could be used to form their identity as a global citizen. Furthermore, they expanded or reconstructed their identity with the enhanced or newly-found traits such as initiative, active and challenging attitudes in a study abroad context.