International student exchange – motives, benefits and barriers of participation

Erasmus mobility is one of the most important manifestations of internationalization of education in Europe. The aim of the study is to ascertain the participants’ motives and the benefits coming from this international exchange of students as well as to diversify the results with regard to gender. The article, in its theoretical part, characterizes the concept of internationalization of education, describes the factors motivating for educational mobility, the benefits and the barriers of participation. The empirical part contains own researches carried out on a group of 125 students from Polish and foreign universities, using the CAWI (Computer-Assisted Web Interview) tool. It turns out that the main motivators to participate in student international education mobility is, among women, desire to travel as well as development of language skills. Men are mainly motivated by having fun and good time. Regardless of the research results it can be noticed that, generally, employers are more likely to decide to hire people who participated in and international student exchange, and the risk of long-term unemployment among graduates with international experience is lower by half than among graduates without such international experience. On the other hand, internationalization of education involves risks, including commercial profits, academic colonization and difficulties in providing high-quality education.