I.S.F.D. Nº3 “Dr.

Julio César Avanza” Ascurra, Lucas

Profesorado de Inglés Domenicale, Agustín
INSE III - 2019

Needs analysis

1) Needs analysis (or needs assessment) is a process that focuses on gathering information
from learners about their needs in order to develop a curriculum that satisfies their
demands. It is used for developing tests, materials, teaching activities, evaluation strategies
and even the re-evaluation of a more precise needs assessment.

2) Stufflebeam‘s 4 philosophies:

Discrepancy philosophy: needs are conceived as differences, or discrepancies, between an

expected performance and their current one.

Democratic philosophy: needs are defined as any changes that are desired by a majority of
the group involved. The group not necessarily consist of learners, but also include teachers,
owners of a private, program administrators, etc.

Analytic philosophy: needs are whatever the students will learn next based on what is
already known about them and the learning process involved. This philosophy involves a
set of hierarchical steps involved in the language learning process.

Diagnostic philosophy: needs are whichever skill that may prove harmful for the learner if
it is not present.

3) The three dichotomies that help narrow the choices of what to investigate in needs analysis:

Situation needs versus language needs:

This dichotomy distinguishes two types of information: the program’s human aspects
(which refer to the physical, social and psychological contexts in which learning takes place)
and the target linguistic behaviours, or language needs, that the learners must acquire.

This distinction cannot be clearly defined because both categories are often interrelated.

Objective needs versus subjective needs:

This dichotomy also distinguishes two types of information, based on Brindley’s studies
(1984): objective needs (which are determined on the basis of observable data concerning
the various learning dimensions) and subjective needs (which are related to “wants”,
“desires” and “expectations”).

Linguistic content versus learning processes:

Needs analysis

This dichotomy is evident at the time of dealing with needs in terms of linguistic content or
in terms of learning processes. The former tends to be analysed objectively, from a
language needs point of view, whereas the latter leans towards needs specified from a
situation needs perspective and tend to be more subjectively analysed.

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I.S.F.D. Nº3 “Dr. Julio César Avanza” Ascurra, Lucas
Profesorado de Inglés Domenicale, Agustín
INSE III - 2019
4) In the process of gathering information, different types of questions and instruments
should be considered.

As for questions, Rosset identified five categories used to identify the following:
problems, priorities, abilities, attitudes and solutions.

• PROBLEMS

The purpose of questions associated with this section is to find out those problems that
are being experienced by people under assessment in the target group. Questions of
this type are usually open-ended and exploratory. For instance: What do you think the
most pressing problems are for your language students? (Addressed to language
teachers)

• PRIORITIES

Questions of priority tries to discover which topics, language uses, skills, etc, are
considered most important for the target group to learn. One example would be to ask
questions so as to find out which subskills within a macro skill such as writing are viewed
as most important by the learners, like using correct spelling and punctuation, being
efficient at organizing information, among others.

• ABILITIES

Ability questions focus on the learners themselves in order to determine the abilities of
students at entry. These questions seek either to measure the overall language
proficiency of students or to point out their specific weaknesses. Such information is
highly important for setting the starting point of a teaching program, for instance.

• ATTITUDES

Questions of this category are used to learn about participants’ feelings and attitudes
toward the program. These might include questions addressed to the students on how
much do they like studying “grammar points” instead of language functions such as
“seeking information on the phone”. Another example can be pointed out here, this
time addressing teachers so as to elicit their attitudes: Do you think that students learn
English better and more efficiently by studying grammar points, language functions or a
combination of the two?

• SOLUTIONS

The last type of questions seeks ideas for solutions to perceived problems in terms of
what changes can bring about compromise and resolution. Also, those solutions that
come from within the program will tend to have greater backing and support than those
which are imposed from above or from outside the program.

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Needs analysis

As regards the different instruments that can be used to gather needs analysis
information, several types may be mentioned based on the role of the analysts (passive
observation or active drawing of information from the participants of a program):

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I.S.F.D. Nº3 “Dr. Julio César Avanza” Ascurra, Lucas
Profesorado de Inglés Domenicale, Agustín
INSE III - 2019
✓ EXISTING INFORMATION

The purpose of this set of procedures Is to use any pre-existing information that may be
available. This can include data sources in a program (like files or records about new and
past students, teacher evaluations, etc) or external data sources (such as library
resources for instance), yet it is important to understand that there are different ways
to analyse such records.

In the case of internal data sources, a simple record analysis might explore
trends in individual components of a program, like materials selection, profits,
enrolment or students’ evaluation of teaching to name a few. A more complex analysis
would be similar but it’d be carried out on a larger scale – here, different components
and subcomponents would be analysed and defined together, rather than as separate
parts of the program.

As for external data sources, depending on the particular case, there are
different ways in which these can be analysed, like conducting a literature review of
library resources such as books, journals and newsletters in hopes of finding information
about other programs.

✓ TESTS

Whether the purpose of measurement is proficiency, placement, diagnosis or

achievement, tests can provide information about the ability levels of the students,
about specific problems that students may be having with the target language, and
about their achievements in previous programs.

✓ OBSERVATIONS

This category of instrumentation usually involves watching an individual or a small group

of individuals and recording the behaviours that occur. The behaviours to look for will
be language and classroom behaviours, which will be noted down in informal notes or
more formally as an ethnographic study. The later might turn out to be a case study if
the linguistic characteristics or behaviours of a certain individual (or several) were
recorded.

However, if the individual involved was also the investigator, self-observations

might take the form of a diary study (this can occur when linguists record their feelings
and thoughts as they go through the process of learning a language, for instance).

Behaviour observation is a more formal procedure as checklists are usually

developed to investigate particular verbal behaviour or actions. These checklists are
then applied to the observation process, which makes the study an interactional one.

The last type of procedure, the inventory, is used to record a count of objects
(like stating how many of each book a language program has) or to account for objects
on a checklist of what is expected to be present (for example, a “good” program should
Needs analysis

have one classroom per 35 students, one teacher for every 100 students, two textbooks
per student, and so on).

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I.S.F.D. Nº3 “Dr. Julio César Avanza” Ascurra, Lucas
Profesorado de Inglés Domenicale, Agustín
INSE III - 2019
✓ INTERVIEWS

Individual interviews allow for gathering personal responses and views privately. This
can in turn lead to insights into the “real” opinions of the participants involved. The
problem is that interviews are time consuming; and as such, they may be best used to
explore what issues and questions should be pursued in a later interview using more
formal procedures such as questionnaires, for instance.

Group interviews, on the other hand, might appear to be a solution to the time problem,
but it is important to understand that the information given in such an interview is not
confidential.

✓ MEETINGS

Meetings are structured in a way that may allow the participants accomplish certain
tasks (group interviews, in contrast, may help the needs analyst to gather information
from the group). Observing the process of the group while it is meeting and trying to
accomplish a task may provide useful information about the people and program in
question.

The Delphi technique is a meeting, or series of meetings, in which the task to be

performed is reaching a consensus. This can be used to help teachers build a consensus
on the goals and objectives of the curriculum, to name an example.

Another instance of meetings are advisory meetings, which can be set up in the
early stages of a needs analysis to inform the faculty about what a needs analysis is: its
purposes, the techniques used, and also the benefits to be gained. These may be
conducted by specialists from outside the program or by the needs analysts themselves,
who will be personally involved in the process. The teachers in a program are also more
likely to be cooperative if they are included in the process.

Interest group meetings mean to air differences that arise in a program. These
differences in views may be between individuals or large groups within the program.
The goal of these group meetings is to resolve the differences through consensus or
compromise.

Finally, review meetings are conducted to draw participants into the process of
going through and analysing the information gathered from other procedures. This form
of meeting can facilitate many types of needs analysis decision making. For instance,
decisions can be made about what information to include, what to exclude, how to deal
with conflicting information, and so on. Review meetings can also prove to be quite
valuable as they allow the needs analysts to add to add to the “labour pool” (for analysis,
synthesis, and decision making) and help to foster a sense of involvement in the needs
analysis.

✓ QUESTIONNAIRES
Needs analysis

Sometimes interviews and meetings reveal certain issues and questions that need to be
analysed on a broader scale. For this type of situation, written questionnaires can prove
useful as they are more efficient for gathering information on larger scales.

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I.S.F.D. Nº3 “Dr. Julio César Avanza” Ascurra, Lucas
Profesorado de Inglés Domenicale, Agustín
INSE III - 2019
Based on the purposes that analysts want to accomplish, questionnaires may
vary in type. Biodata surveys, for instance, are used to elicit information about the
background of each of the participants. Such facts can include student’s age, place of
birth, sex, marital status, number of years of language study, among others.

Another example of questionnaires are opinion surveys, which are considerably

more complex than biodata surveys as they are designed to uncover opinions and
attitudes. Questions might be developed to determine what teachers think about the
program, its objectives, the materials, tests, and so on.

Self-ratings may also be useful in the gathering of information. This procedure

requires individuals to rate their own abilities, interest levels and motivations, to name
a few. Self-ratings are particularly helpful for obtaining insights into the self-image of
individuals.

Participants may also be asked to do judgmental ratings, where they give their
evaluation of various aspects of the program (for example, having students judge the
program materials in terms of how useful and/or interesting they are).

Finally, the Q-sort questionnaire combines several of the procedures explained

above as it asks individuals to give their own attitudes, views and opinions and rank
them in terms of importance.

5) Three characteristics must be considered when using any information-gathering

procedures: reliability, validity and usability.

Reliability may be defined as the consistency with which a procedure obtains

information. Any procedure should obtain approximately the same results every time it
is used to measure the same person or object (such is the case of a ruler, for example).
Otherwise, the results become useless or hard to interpret. Thus reliability must be
considered when selecting or creating a procedure for analysing needs. Such reliability
can be checked statistically or by common-sense examination of what happens when
the procedure is used. If the results are the same, or at least quite similar, when used
repeatedly or by different analysts, such consistency is an indication that the procedure
is fairly reliable.

The validity of a procedure can be defined as the degree to which it is measuring

what it says to measure. There are statistical techniques that can be used to study this
section, though at the very least each procedure involved in a needs analysis should be
examined question by question to determine to what degree does it appear to measure
what it claims to be measuring, and to what degree is that measurement appropriate
for the particular needs assessment being conduct. If the answer to either interrogative
is dubious, the procedure should be revised to make it more valid or discard it
altogether.
Needs analysis

Finally, the concept of usability must be considered as in most cases it has to do

with the degree to which a procedure is practical to use. Asking questions like is it easy
to administer, to score and to interpret? In the early stages of a needs analysis can be
extremely helpful for later. Even the most reliable and valid procedures can prove
impractical in some situations.
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I.S.F.D. Nº3 “Dr. Julio César Avanza” Ascurra, Lucas
Profesorado de Inglés Domenicale, Agustín
INSE III - 2019

Analysis of needs assessment instruments:

The three questionnaires given depict a series of differences one from the other.

The first questionnaire, which consists of 11 questions for the English Language course
in Iasi, focuses on subjective needs, that is, it takes into consideration their ‘wants’ and
‘desires’. This is evidenced, for example, in questions number 7 and 8, in which they can
choose the topics they would like to see or the kind of practice they would like to have.
This first questionnaire also focuses more on the learning process than pure linguistic
content. This is evidenced in questions such as number 8, 10 and 11, in which the
students express the different ways in which they feel more comfortable learning. With
the given information, in terms of philosophy this questionnaire may well adhere to a
democratic posture, focusing on the majority of the students’ answers.

The second questionnaire, which consists of 7 questions for the ‘Centre de Langues
Luxembourg’, focuses more on linguistic content

Needs analysis