In recent days, the examination of the international mobility and activity of teachers has been at the center of researcher attention. Unsurprisingly, the group that by population was significantly larger, student academic movement, received greater scrutiny. For instance, according to the European Commission’s 2007 survey, the examination of the countries of the European Union showed that for every international teacher trip taken on average 16 student trips took place in the given year (European Commission, 2007). Teichler’s (2011) view is that the reason why researching higher education employees may have been pushed to the background was due to the phenomenon that, as long as the internationalization strategies of universities focus more on organizing and supporting student mobility, the academic travels of teachers “evidently” are viewed by institutions as the responsibility of the individual.   

Instructor mobility differs in many ways from that of student, since it is much more complex (Teichler). Thus defining it is not easy at all, it can be approached from several angles depending on its length, purpose, the motivation of the individual, and the relationship with the institution. Its effect and influence on the individual though, and through them on the colleagues, students, their own institution and their teaching, as well as on the economy are undeniable. A research carried out in 2014, based on the almost 5000 instructors’ responses who took part in the Erasmus mobility program, focused on how and to what extent the individual’s participation in mobility programs has an effect on their own, as well as their narrower and wider environment. As a result it was understood that the vast majority of respondents thinks very positively about the experience that international mobility provides them (Brandenburg, 2014).

In our study, we focused on the international mobility activities of instructors in higher education. We examined what effects of restrictive factors can be seen, which make participation in teaching and researching programs abroad more difficult. For this, we used the Central and Eastern European Teachers in Higher Education (CEETHE 2023, N=821) database. First, we were curious as to the differences between fields of study, second, the effects of various demographic factors (e.g. age, family status, children, financial standing, country of origin). Other than these, we attempted to detect the effects of restrictive factors previously discovered in early studies, thus, foreign language knowledge, embeddedness in workplace community, institutional support, the effect of support from direct colleagues, workplace burnout, or the balance between private life and work. 

The goal of the study is, with the secondary analysis of the Central and Eastern European Teachers in Higher Education database, to examine the factors that obstruct university teachers from their education- and research-oriented mobility abroad. This question is actual because, though internationalization is the flagship area of higher education and many studies prove that instructor mobility has a positive effect on student mobility, still, the scrutiny of factors that promote or prevent instructor mobility falls far behind the examination of student mobility, or the analysis of the condition of foreign students studying at institutions from different aspects (like studying difficulties, cultural adaptations, language learning, etc.). Our study, therefore, focuses on the teachers.

Our surveys were dispatched in online form, with the permission of the institution head, in the spring of 2023, on 2 or 3 occasions to each teacher from the examined institutions, thus ensuring the probability sampling. In Hungary, the institutions of two disadvantaged regions, the Northern Great Plains Region and the South Transdanube Region, were examined. In the case of cross-border institutions, our aim was first the minority Hungarian institutions; here too we sent a survey to every teacher in the language of the majority. In our study, we used the full database of the Central and Eastern European Teachers in Higher Education (CEETHE 2023), in this way - though due to variation in the items it was limited - we could compare the mobility of teachers working in the universities of five countries. In our sample, therefore, Hungarian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovakian, and Ukrainian university and college teachers were used, specifically 853. After data cleaning that number dropped to 821. Our fundamental question was, what sort of differences appear between a participant in teacher or researcher mobility, and one who does not participate. We viewed those who answered in the affirmative to the question: “did you participate or not in the teacher/researcher mobility program?” as mobile teachers, and those who answered in the negative as immobile teachers. It is important to draw attention to the fact that the question did not have a time constraint, in other words, As explanatory variables we examined the demographic background variables (age, gender, country of origin), as well as the disciplines, the ranks and academic degrees. Furthermore, within the boundaries that were drawn by the database, we studied whether the factors that are usually mentioned by special literature as inhibiting obstacles for academic mobility, show significant connection to instructors’ (im)mobility. Examining these factors we created indices. During our research we used the chi-square test, and variance analysis.

Like student mobility, instructor mobility showed significant differences regarding field of study: fewer medical and healthcare instructors are involved in endeavors abroad. This result was unexpected and surprising, since most international students in Hungarian higher education choose these faculties and majors. Not to mention that these are “hard” fields, easily translated into English, with Latin (the basis of medical terminology) being the international mediator language. Still, instructors struggle to take advantage of other mobility opportunities (guest teaching and guest research) while balancing the pressure of attending conferences, publishing, and fulfilling their physician duties. About demographics, age, gender and country of origin heavily affected whether or not the instructor had been internationally active. Leaders in this were older Slovakian and Romanian men. To measure foreign language knowledge we used a special index containing international publishing and conference attendance. Here we confirmed, mobile instructors had higher values than immobile. Perhaps, those mobile were braver to publish internationally or collaborate in research projects with colleague acquaintances met during previous mobility engagements. Being embedded into the institutional climate and the relationship with the colleagues is of major help in getting hold of information. Thus, when the connection between mobility, and the degree and level of interaction with the colleagues was discovered, it was no surprise. That aforementioned high index value among mobile instructors shows greater communication with colleagues, resulting in relevant information reaching them sooner (about international academic opportunities as well). This is somewhat contradicted by greater satisfaction among immobile instructors with the extent of support coming from co-workers and lesser among mobile ones. We were not able to detect the supporting influence of the higher educational institution, or the effect of the destroyed balance of work and private life, and that of workplace burnout.

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