NEEDS ANALYSIS

NEEDS ANALYSIS

1. it refers to the systematic collection and analysis of all subjcetive and objective information necessary to define and validate defensible curriculum purposes that satisfy the language learning requirements of students within the context of particular institutions that influence the learning situation.

   • Making basic decitions about Needs Analysis
     • Who will be involvedin NA?
       • Target group
         • people about whom information will be ultimately gathered (students, teachers and administrators)
       • audience
         • people who will eventually be required to act upon the analysis (teachers-aides, program administrators)
       • needs analysts
         • persons responsible for conducting the needs analysis
       • resource group
         • people who may serve as sources of information about the target group (parents, financial sponsors, proffesors)
     • what type of information should be gathered?
       • Four philosophies of needs analysis
         • discrepancy
           • needs are viewed as differences between a desire performance from the students and what they are actually doing. gather info about what is needed to change Ss permoance based on the observed difference
         • democratic
           • A need is defined as any change that is desire by a majority of the group involved
         • analytic
           • A need is whatever the students will naturally learn next based on what is known about them and the learning processes involved
         • diagnostic
           • proposes that a need id anything that would prove harmful if it was missing
       • which points of views should be taken?
         • situacional needs vs language needs
           • This distinguishes 2 types of info found in any language program
             • situation needs focuses on human aspects (physical,, so,cial and phychological contexts in which learning takes place)
               • languague needs-information about the target linguistic behaviour that the learners must acquire, Circumstances in which the language will be used
         • objective needs vs subjective needs
           • objective needs: Those needs determined on the basis of clear-cut, observable data gathered about the situation, the learners, the language, that Ss must acquire, their present proficiency.
             • subjective needs: are generally more difficult to determine because they have to do with "wants and desires and explanations"
         • linguistic content vs learning processes
           • Linguistic content: position tends to favor needs analyzed objectively from a language need perspective and spelled out in linguistic terms, wheter they be phonemes, morphemes, grammar structures, case rules, utterances, discourse markers
             • learning process: positions leans toward needs specified from a situation needs perspective: these tent to be subjectively analized needs in the affective domain such as motivation and self-esteem
         • Even when analysis share a philosophy, they can end up generating a long list of needs
           • it is necessary to recognize some needs are more important that others
             • .There are 3 dichotomies that can help narrow the choices of what to investigate in NA
   • gathering information
     • types of questions
       • problems
         • the purpose is identify the problems that are being experienced by the peopleunder assesment in the target group
       • priorities
         • Qs investigate which topics, skills and so on are considered most important for the target group to learn.
       • abilities
         • ability qs focus on the students themselves, usually to determine the abilities of the students at entry. This qs will be answered to measure the lnaguage proficiency of students to diagnose their weaknesses
       • attitudes
         • Aq are created to uncover information about participants' feelings and attitudes toward elements of the program
       • solutions
         • Sqs elicit ideas for solutions to perceived problems in terms of what changes might bring about compromise and resolution
     • types of instruments
       • existing info
         • the purpose of this set of procedures is to utilize any preexisting information that may be available. It can include data sources or external data.
           • record analysis might explore trends in individual programs components
           • systems analysis: it would carried out on a large scale.
           • literature review: mighr lead to information about similar programs and about the language learning needs of Ss
       • test
         • tests can provide information about the general ability levels of the students, specific problems ss might be having with the language etc
       • observations
         • it involves watching an individuals or small number of individuals or a small number of individuals and recording their bihaviours.
       • interviews
         • individual int allow for gathering personal responses and views privately. Group in. the info is not confidencial
       • meetings
         • Partcicipats can accomplish certain tasks. Task might provide useful info about people and program in question
           • Advisory meetings (early stages) are used to inform the staff about what a NA is (purposes, techniques used and benefits
           • Interes group mee.tings are covened to air differences that arises in a program
           • Review meetings are conducted to draw participants into the process of sifting through and analyzing the info gathered from other procedures
       • questionnaries
         • it revels issues and questions that need to be pursued on a broad scale.
           • biodata surveys: are used to elicit facts about the background of each of the participants
           • opinion surveys are designed to uncover opinions and attitudes
           • selfratings requires individuals to rate their own abilities, interest levels, motivation
           • judmental ratings in which they give their evaluation of varios aspects of the program
     • selecting and creating procedures
       • 3 characteristics of sound info-gathering procedure are:
         • Reliability: the consistency with which a procedure obtains information. It must be considered when selecting or creating a procedure of analyzing needs.
         • validity: the degree to which it is measuring what it claims to measure
         • usability: this issue has to do with the degree to which a procedure is practical to use
     • considerations specific to language needs analysis
       • text analysis may help in determining what students will have to read or write
       • discourse analysis: decitions have to be made about the units of analysis to use in studying the date. The units of analysis will in turn reflect the needs analyysts' views of tha nature of language and language learning