Exploring Ukrainian Language Competencies Among Hungarian Minority Students: Results from the Komp Project

Abstract

The study presents the first large-scale, competence-based assessment of Ukrainian language proficiency among Hungarian minority students in Transcarpathia, Ukraine. Grounded in contemporary models of competence-based education, the research focuses on applied linguistic skills such as grammar in use, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and listening rather than on declarative knowledge alone, thereby emphasizing functional language use in authentic contexts. The assessment was conducted within the KOMP project in 2024 by the Ferenc Rákóczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian University in Ukraine and involved Grade 6 and Grade 8 students attending Hungarian-medium schools. K-means cluster analysis was employed to identify distinct relative profiles of Ukrainian-language performance within the assessment sample. The findings demonstrate statistically significant associations between Ukrainian-language performance-profile membership and several background variables, including grade level, gender, settlement type, parental education, and reported home language use. Urban students were more strongly represented in the Advanced profile, whereas students from predominantly Hungarian-speaking rural communities were more frequently represented in several lower and middle performance profiles, although the pattern was not uniformly linear across all seven profiles. Gender-related patterns indicate greater variability among male students, whereas female students are more evenly represented across the middle and higher performance profiles. Parental educational attainment is significantly associated with students’ Ukrainian-language performance profiles. Importantly, the results reveal a sociolinguistic paradox: the use of Ukrainian at home does not automatically correspond to higher performance on the assessed Ukrainian-language tasks. Overall, the study highlights the value of combining competence-based assessment with cluster analysis to examine variation in Ukrainian-language performance in minority education contexts and provides an empirical basis for pedagogical planning, targeted intervention, and further longitudinal research.