Statistical comparison of Greek and Russian students' interest in studying abroad: Results of the pilot study

This paper refers the first results of the pilot study. Students at two foreign universities (the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Moscow, and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece) were asked to fill in our questionnaires. The main goal of this pilot search was to test the understandableness of the questionnaire and to perform some first simple statistical testing. The aim of the whole project is to make a representative survey in the chosen European countries, at some of our partner universities, to detect the main criteria of students' interest in studying abroad, in the Czech Republic, and at our university, namely. The data were powerful enough to confirm the mostly expected results, despite the small number of observations in this pilot survey. The main results are, that students intend to study abroad; that the main reasons of the study stay abroad are to improve their language skills and to get better education; that the main barrier are the financial costs of the study stay abroad. Differences between the sub-groups of students were tested, also.