A Study on Educational Tourism: Impacts of Foreign Students on The Perception of Local Turkish Students: Evidence From Northern Cyprus

Abstract

This study investigates the impacts of educational tourism. In this point, the paper aims to
examine the effects of foreign students that are from Middle-East countries and study at
Girne American University (GAU) in North Cyprus on the perception of the domestic
students with respect to islamic countries and communities. In the literature reviewing,
there has been many studies regarding educational tourism and its effects. On the other
hand, it was observed that this impact of foreign students has never been studied by
scholars in the previous investigations, however there are many students who are from
islamic countries and have close relationships between these foreign students and local
students. Specifically, this article explores the changes in perception of local students after
recognizing islamic students. This paper concantrates on the qualitative case study method
that evaluated the perceptions of undergraduate local students and accordingly, the sample
of the study is ten students studying at different faculties of GAU.The data were coded
and classified for generated issues, this study used data analaysis constant comparative
method, known as Grounded Theory Method.Owing to little sample size, evidences were
analized as indicative. Findings showed that there are important effects of Islamic students
on Turkish students in terms of changes of their perceptions regarding Islamic countries.
The effects of Islamic students on Turkish students were centralized on nine major titles;
(a) perceptions about foreign languages in Islamic communities, (b) perceptions about
positive sciences developments in Islamic communities, (c) perceptions about the role of
women in social life in Islamic communities, (d) perceptions about social relations in
Islamic communities, (e) perceptions about dressing styles of people in Islamic
communities, (f) perceptions about individual freedom and human rights in Islamic
communities, (g) perceptions about the effects of religion in social life of Islamic
communities, (h) perception changes about Islamic culture, (i) contibutions of Islamic
students on the learning experience of Turkish students. This study was carried out with
ten students studyingat GAU in North Cyprus. To generalize the findings, the other
universities might be included and the sample size can be increased in the future research
process. The other limitations are specified in the last part of the study.