The vocabulary learning strategy use of international students in the academic context in EMI programmes at Hungarian universities: a questionnaire study

The acquisition of English vocabulary items related to the academic context, which involve both the so-called academic vocabulary and the field-specific technical vocabulary, is crucial for university students in programmes with English as a medium of instruction (EMI). The use of vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs), especially the types that require active information manipulation, is an individual difference factor in language learning that was found to characterize proficient learners with high vocabulary size. This finding indicates the importance of VLS use in the academic context as well and provides relevance to conduct research about the VLS preferences of international students with diverse backgrounds in EMI programmes at Hungarian universities. The aims of the study are to check the reliability of an adaptation of a recent questionnaire about academic VLS use across different cultural, linguistic, and educational backgrounds, to explore the VLS use of international students in the academic context in Hungary, and the impact that gender, educational level, educational field, region of origin, and previous instruction in VLS use in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses have on it. The study consisted of an initial piloting phase with 5 participants and a main data collection with 390 participants with diverse educational and geographical-cultural backgrounds, who were administered the adapted questionnaire that was modified after the initial piloting. The adapted questionnaire demonstrated acceptable to good reliability (most scales α ≥ 0.70; lowest subscale α = 0.588); and the participants were found to apply dictionary use and inferencing/guessing with the highest frequency. Few differences were found; however, the results indicate that previous VLS instruction in EAP and ESP courses has a slightly stronger impact on VLS use than the other variables. These findings call the attention of stakeholders to the need for more EAP and ESP learning opportunities for international students in programmes with EMI, with explicit instruction in VLSs that could contribute to success in their studies.