Özet:

Purpose: Student attitudes in higher education are one of the indispensable parts of analysing needs for introducing or changing courses offered at higher education institutions. For this purpose, we researched attitudes of students at Libertas International University toward learning foreign languages as part of their study programmes in order to find out whether students recognize the need for learning foreign languages for specific purposes, what they think on the duration and choice of foreign language courses offered within their study programmes, and whether they wish to learn foreign languages not offered within their study programmes’ curricula. With this objective, we set the first hypothesis (H1): Students whose specialization is more oriented toward international markets recognize the need to learn a foreign language as a mandatory part of their curriculum, and the second hypothesis (H2): Those students who assess their knowledge of English at levels B or C (according to CEFR) consider more necessary to learn an additional foreign language within their study programmes. Methodology: A questionnaire was designed and sent out to students, the results of which were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. Results: Both hypotheses were confirmed, showing that students recognize the need to learn foreign languages for specific purposes as part of their study programmes. Those students who chose study programmes oriented toward international markets and business indicate a stronger need to have foreign languages as core courses in their study programmes, and those who are more proficient in English deem necessary to study additional foreign languages as part of their study programmes Conclusion: This research study can serve decision makers for study programme curricula, with the purpose of introducing or changing foreign language for specific purpose courses, and future research could be aimed at grasping the foreign language learning situation at higher education institutions across Croatia, whereby a comparative analysis of foreign language learning at higher education institutions across the European Union would be useful.

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