Motivational Factors Influencing Academic Staff Participation in Erasmus+ Staff Mobility for Teaching Assignments (STA)

Purpose: This study examines the motivational factors shaping academic staff participation in the Erasmus+ Staff Mobility for Teaching Assignments program through a qualitative inquiry conducted at a public university in Türkiye. Method: Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with academic staff who had previously participated in the program and were analyzed in MAXQDA using reflexive thematic analysis. The analysis focused on how participants described the personal, institutional, and structural conditions shaping their mobility decisions. Findings: The findings show that participants primarily associated participation with establishing and sustaining international academic collaborations, acquiring and sharing international experience, enriching teaching practices, and broadening their international outlook. Institutional facilitation, procedural clarity, and supportive organizational conditions also appeared among the factors encouraging participation. On the constraining side, foreign language anxiety emerged as the most prominent barrier in participants’ accounts, alongside concerns related to limited career recognition, financial constraints, cultural adaptation, and family responsibilities. Conclusion: The study concludes that academic staff motivation in Erasmus+ STA should be understood as a multidimensional configuration shaped by the intersection of personal academic aspirations and institutional internationalization conditions. Within this context, staff mobility functions as a context-sensitive mechanism for knowledge circulation, partnership building, and pedagogical transfer in higher education.