Needs analyses

At CIP, we carry out needs analyses for all our courses and workshops in order to identify as accurately as possible course participants’ needs, wants and expectations. Needs analyses gather information about, for example, participants’ work tasks, strengths and weaknesses in the target language, and their own personal goals for the course.

Research areas

Our research generally follows one of two main strands: research into different needs analysis methods, and the effectiveness of applying these methods in in practice.

The first strand involves projects looking at the different methods available for carrying out needs analyses. The purpose behind doing this is to develop a strategy for selecting the best methods to apply in practice for different kinds of courses and workshops. Thus, we use different needs analyses to gather information for, for example, a one-to-one course compared to those we use when putting together a tailor-made course for a whole department.

The second research strand focuses primarily on refining our needs analyses in order to reflect as accurately as possible what participants need, want and expect to get out of the course they are going to follow. Results are compared to end-of-course evaluations and feed into the subsequent courses and workshops we hold.

An ongoing PhD-project on Danish for international faculty draws on both strands and discusses the role of language competence centres at international universities through a comparison between University of Copenhagen and a German university.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo of Pete Westbrook
Pete Westbrook is an academic language consultant at CIP. You are welcome to contact Pete if you want to know more about our work with needs analyses. You can find more information at Pete's staff profile.