NEEDS ANALYSIS

Prepared By:

1. Ratih Ayu Astutik (153221187)

2. Muchammad Affandy (153221188)

3. Muhammad Al Bagir (153221189)

4. Riana Dwi Lestari (153221190)

 Outlines

 The purposes of needs analysis

 What are needs?

 The users of needs analysis

 The target population

 Administering the needs analysis

 Procedures for conducting needs analysis

 Designing the needs analysis

 Making use of the information obtained

 What is needs analysis?

 One of the basic assumptions of curriculum development is that a sound ed-

ucational program should be based on an analysis of learners' needs.

 Procedures used to collect information about learners' needs are known as needs
analysis.
 The history of needs analysis

 Needs analysis as a distinct and necessary phase in planning educational programs

emerged in the'1960s as part of the systems approach to curriculum development
and was part of the prevalent philosophy of educational accountability.

(Stuffiebeam, McCormick, Brinkerhoff, and Nelson 1985).

 Needs analysis was introduced into language teaching through the ESP
movement.

 From the l960s, the demand for specialized language programs grew and applied
linguists increasingly began to employ needs analysis procedures in language
teaching.

 By the 1980s, in many parts of the world a "needs-based philosophy" emerged in

language teaching, particularly in relation to ESP and vocationally oriented
program design (Brindley 1984).
 The purposes of needs analysis
 To find out what language skills a learner needs in order to perform a particular
role, such as sales manager, tour guide, or university student.

 To help determine if an existing course adequately addresses the needs of

potential students.

 To determine which students from a group are most in need of training in

particular language skills.

 To identify a change of direction that people in a reference group feel is

important.
 What are needs?

 The term needs is not as straightforward as it might appear, and hence the term is
sometimes used to refer to wants, desires, demands, expectation, motivations,
lacks, constraints, and requirements (Brindley 1984, 28).

 According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987), who advocate a learning-centered

approach in which learners’ learning needs play a vital role. If the analyst, by
means of target situation analysis, tries to find out what learners do with language,
then learning needs analysis will tell us “what the learner needs to do in order to
learn.
 Richards explains that needs are often described in terms of a linguistic
deficiency, that is, as describing the difference between what a learner can
presently do in language and what he/she should be able to do.

 Richards clarify that need is a thing that is constructed and dependent on judgment
and reflects the interest and values of those making such judgment.

 Therefore, the teachers, learners, employers, parents and other stakeholders may
have different views as to what needs are.
 For example, in considering the needs of immigrants, representatives of majority
population may see the immigrants’ needs as achieving cultural and linguistic
assimilation and hence may want a needs analysis to identify the language skills
immigrant require in order to survive, and assimilate into the dominant culture. In
fact, however, those immigrant minorities in English-dominant societies also have
other kinds of needs that might be related to housing, health care, access for
children’s’ school, services, and others.
 In other words it can be concluded that learner’s needs cannot be determined
alone by institution, teachers, parents, or even society, but it is the learners
themselves as the main sources that should be involved in determining their own
learning needs, particularly in language learning needs
 The users of needs analysis
For example, in conducting' a needs analysis to help revise the secondary school English
curriculum in a country, the end users include:

 Curriculum officers in the ministry of education.

 Teachers.

 Learners.

 Writers.

 Testing personnel.

 Staff of tertiary institutions.

 The target population

According to Richards, the target population in a needs analysis refers to the

people about whom information will be collected. For example in conducting a needs
analysis to determine the focus of an English program in public secondary school in
an EFL context, then the target population might include:
 Policymakers  Vocational training specialists

 Ministry of education officials  Parents

 Teachers  Influential individuals and pressure

groups
 Students
 Academic specialists
 Academics
 Community agencies
 Employers
 According to Elley (1984), Actually, there are some factors influenced in
determining the approach of sampling, such as:

 The homogeneity of the population in terms of kinds of skills.

 Attitudes.

 Knowledge being sought or the need to study subgroups within the sample (based
on sex, language groups, or other factors).
 Administering the needs analysis

 Planning a needs analysis involves deciding who will administer the needs
analysis and collect and analyze the results. Needs analyses vary in their scope
and demands, from a survey of a whole school population in a country to a study
of a group of thirty learners in a single institution.

 Sometimes a team of personnel is assembled specifically for the purpose of doing

the analysis; at other times two or three interested teachers may be the only ones
involved.
 For example, in a needs analysis of the language needs of non-English-
background students studying at a New Zealand university, the following were
involved:

a) the research team made up of two academics and a research assistant.

b) colleagues in different departments who discussed the project and reviewed

sample questionnaires.

c) students who piloted the questionnaire.

d) academic staff of the university who administered some of the questionnaires.

e) secretarial support involved in preparing questionnaires and tabulating data.

 Procedures for conducting needs analysis

 There are a variety of procedures can be used for conducting needs analysis and
the kind of information obtained is often dependent on the type of procedure
selected. Therefore, the use of a triangular approach (collecting information from
two or more source) is advisable to get very comprehensive and sufficient
information.

 Many different sources of information should be sought.

 For example, in conducting needs analysis of the writing problems
encountered by foreign students enrolled in American universities then
information could be obtained from many sources, such as from samples of
students writing, test data on students’ performance, reports by teachers
on typical problems students, opinion of experts, information from students’
via interviews and questionnaires, and so forth.
 Procedures for collecting information during a needs analysis can be
selected from among the following:
1. Questionnaires 4. Meeting
2. Self-ratings 5. Observation
3. Interviews 6. Analysis of available information
 Designing the needs analysis

 Designing a needs analysis involves choosing from among various procedures

above and selecting those that are likely to give a comprehensive view of learners’
needs and that represent the interests of the different stakeholders involved.

 It is important to make sure that needs analysis does not produce information
overloaded. Therefore the reason for collecting should be stated clearly to ensure
that only information that will actually be used is collected.

 The step by step procedures can be followed in investigating the learners’ needs
are:
The sixteen procedures are commonly used for larger-scale needs analysis, among
other:

1. Literature survey.

2. Analysis of a wide range of survey questionnaires.

3. Contact with others who had conducted similar surveys.

4. Interviews with teachers to determine goals.

5. Identification of participating departments.

6. Presentation of project proposal to participating departments and identification of
liaison person in each department.

7. Development of a pilot student and staff questio.nnaire.

8. Review of the questionnaires by colleagues.

9. Piloting of the questionnaires.

10.Selection of staff and students subjects.

11. Developing a schedule for collecting data.

12. Administration of questionnaires.

13. Follow-up interviews with selected participants.

14. Tabulation of responses.

15. Analysis of responses.

16. Writing up of report and recommendations

 While for smaller-scale needs analysis such as that of a teacher or group of teacher
assessing the needs of new groups of students in a language program, the
procedures might consist of:

1. Initial questionnaire. 4. Meetings with other teachers.

2. Follow-up individual and groups interview. 5. Ongoing classroom

observation.

3. Meetings with students. 6. Tests.

 Making use of the information obtained

 The data obtained from data collection process usually summarized in the form of
ranked lists of different kinds. Therefore, more analysis and research would be
needed to further understanding what is implied by each answer, before the
information obtained could be used in course planning.

 It is so important since there is no direct application of the information obtained

from needs analysis.

 In fact, there might be a number of different points of view emerged as to what

should be changed, for example:
1. Learners’ view : more support for learning needed and reduction of the amount of
material they had to study.

2. Academic’s view : better preparation for tertiary studies needed in terms of

reading and writing skills.

3. Employers’ view : better preparation for employment required in terms of basic

communication skills.

4. Teachers’ view : better grasp of grammar needed by learners.

 From the case above, it is also important to remember that

1. Because needs are not objective facts but subjective.

2. The interpretation of information from a larger variety of sources.

3. A great deal of consultation is needed with the various stakeholders to ensure that
the conclusions drawn from a needs analysis are appropriate and relevant.
 Finally, the findings should be reported by using various formats in forms of:

1. A full written document.

2. A short summary document.

3. A meeting.

4. A group discussion.

5. A newsletter.