AFS Long-Term Impact Study
From AFSWiki
This academic study, begun in 1980, followed AFS participants and a group of their non-AFS peers for 25 years, in an attempt to measure how AFS changes lives.
One of the study results: 52% of US returnees report that they're fluent in one or more foreign languages (that's over 40% of summer-program returnees, and over 60% of semester- and year-program returnees). 21% of the US control group (the returnees' peers who didn't become AFSers) report the same thing.
For people who speak two or more foreign languages fluently, the effect continues. About 15% of US returnees do -- 10% of summer-program returnees and 20% of sem/year-program returnees. 5.6% of the US control group does.
Prepared by
Bettina Hansel, Ph.D.
Director of Intercultural Education and Research
with
Zhishun Chen, Research Assistant
AFS International
April 2008
