دراسة لاعتقادات طلاب الجامعة الأميركيّة في بيروت والجامعة اللبنانيّة الدوليّة ومواقفهم تجاه اللغة العربيّة

Abstract

The dissertation presents the results of a field study, with quantitative and qualitative aspects, that received participants from the student populations of the American University of Beirut and the Lebanese International University. The study took as its goals to better understand the behavior of students as it pertains to Arabic Language by means of their beliefs and attitudes, and to understand the relationships between these beliefs and attitudes considering the theory of Planned Behavior. To realize this goal, the study included a theoretical aspect focused on the concepts of “beliefs” and “attitudes” as determinants of behavior and a practical aspect represented by analysis of the results of a survey. The latter concludes that four constructs related to beliefs tie directly to student attitudes: language importance, the nature of the language, learning and mastery, and previous experience learning the language. The study also shows that the last two constructs have direct impact on student behavior towards their language in a manner which sheds light on, and is better understood in terms of theory of Planned Behavior. These two constructs are, at the same time, among the constructs which received the lowest scores among students. This offers a model of the relationship between beliefs and attitudes of students towards Arabic on the one hand, and their behavior on the other.