Revealing stakeholders’ perspectives on educational language policy in higher education through Q-methodology

Abstract

Qatar University is currently at a crossroads, having to respond to competing institutional, national, and international language policy issues. This paper aims to reveal how Qatar University's internal and external stakeholders perceive the future directions of the university's language in education policy. In particular, through Q-methodology, we attempt to uncover social perspectives on three educational language policy options, proposed to the university's higher administration, by the strategic planning team, to respond to pressing linguistic needs and priorities. The aim is to initiate and support a more-informed discussion about language in education policy at Qatar University. Results indicate strong agreement among the various perspectives taken by the university's stakeholders regarding the need for a language in education policy that seeks to manage the relationship between Arabic and English in a parallel way.

The significance of Q-methodology as an innovative method for the investigation of affective variables in second language acquisition

“…Overall, this research contributed to the heated discussion about the advantages of the present state of multilingualism in academic settings. Alkhateeb et al (2020) used the Q method to show how Qatar University's local and foreign stakeholders viewed the prospects of the language policy of university in the curriculum.…”

“… Alkhateeb et al (2020) used the Q method to show how Qatar University’s local and foreign stakeholders viewed the prospects of the language policy of university in the curriculum. These researchers used the Q method to discover social attitudes to three academic language policy alternatives, suggested to the higher administration of the university, by a technical organizing team, to meet the strong language-related needs.…”

Core competencies for the global workplace: A cross-cultural and skill-based simulation project in accounting

“…This involves looking at each emerging factor array separately to examine the Q-items that are given the highest ranking (+3) and the lowest ranking (−3) as well as those that ranked higher in that factor than any other factor and those that ranked lower in that factor than any other. This minimises the oversight of items ranked as indifferent (or zero) (Alkhateeb et al, 2020).…”

“…Q allows for the systematic study of human subjectivities, that is, how people conceive their views, beliefs, attitudes, opinions, motives, needs, and values (Watts & Stenner, 2014). Q is a mixed method combining the insights of qualitative with the strengths of quantitative research (Dennis & Goldberg, 1996) as it statistically quantifies people's subjectivity while providing indepth qualitative descriptions (Alkhateeb et al, 2020).…”