procedure to conduct need analysis and situation analysis

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A.                Background of the study

Language learning was not a recent in our national education. Since the Linguist Nomchomsky stated that a language can be described or analyzed in to the smallest group or in certain formula like a mathematics, many countries began to study not only their own language but also the other countries’ language as their second language or foreign language.

Actually not only in language teaching but also in all of the teaching knowledge we need to have a syllabus. Our syllabus was used for orientation in our teaching, start from the purpose of teaching, selecting the teaching strategies, methods, technique, media, learning activities, and etc. To designing the syllabus, we need to have a criterion in teaching. A criterion of learning or teaching usually was designed by the official education ministry in curriculum form. Although the curriculum have been designed by the government, we still have an authority in developing based on our priority.

Before developing the curriculum itself, the first step to determine the next step is conducting need analysis and situation analysis. Because by conducting them, we can see and predict what the students’ need and what happen in process of teaching in real time. Fullan (2001) as cited in Pattrick (2007:16) said that “The development of a curriculum is often regarded as a three-phases model of change, initation, implementation, and continuation.” Conducting a needs and situation analysis is one of the step in initation phase.

In this paper, we are going to discuss about procedure in conducting a need analysis and situation analysis. Actually both of the procedures have been almost same, but they have a distinction in what they are analyzed and the result of them. The result of the need analysis is a series information which determined about students need because in need analysis we collect information about what students want in learning. But the result of the situation analysis was an information about the weakness and strengths what the factors which affect in language learning because in situation analysis we analyze those factors for example, societal factors, project factors, and etc.

B.                 Questions of the Study

1.    What is the definition of need and situation analysis in curriculum development?

2.    What is the purpose of conducting need and situation analysis in curriculum development?

3.    How is the procedure to conduct need analysis in curriculum development?

4.    How is the procedure to conduct situation analysis in curriculum development?

5.    How to design the need and situation analysis in curriculum development?

6.    How to make use the information obtained?

C.                Objectives of the study

1.    Definition of need and situation analysis in curriculum development;

2.    The purpose of conducting need and situation analysis in curriculum development;

3.    Procedure to conduct need analysis in curriculum development;

4.    Procedure to conduct situation analysis in curriculum development;

5.    Designing need and situation analysis;

6.    Making use the information obtained.

CHAPTER II

CONTENT

A.                Definition of Need Analysis and Situation Analysis

Roger K. and Fenwick W. E (1979) have defined the needs analysis as a formal process for determining the distance among the reals of output and input and the output and input that we want, then put a series of distances into a priority scale and choose one of them first to be solved. 

Need analysis includes all the activities use to collect information about our students learning needs, wants, wishes, desire etc. The process sometime involves looking at the expectations and requirements of other interested paties such as the teacher, tutor, administrator, financial supporters, and other people who may be impacted by the program. Need analysis can be very formal extensive and time consuming and it can be informal narrowly, focused and quick. Some of resource for conducting a needs analysis may include surveys and questionnaries,test score and interview.

Situation analysis is an analysis of factors in the context of a planned or present curriculum project that is made in order to assess their potential impact on the project. This factors may be political, social, economic or institutional. Situation analysis complements the information gathered during need analysis. It’s sometime considered as a dimention of need analysis and also be regarded as aspect of evaluation.

B.                 The Purpose Of Conducting Need Analysis And Situation Analysis

Before starting to conduct in developing the exist curriculum or redesign the first step which have to do is conducting need analysis and situation analysis first. Because if we conduct it first we can see what the students need. The goal of situation analysis is to identify key factors that might positively or negatively affect the implementation of a curriculum plan.

C.                Procedures For Conducting Needs Analysis

A variety of procedures can be used in conducting needs analysis and the kind of information obtained is often dependent on the type of procedure selected. For example in writing test, when we want to analyze the problem of writing the information could be obtained from the following sources:

a.       Samples of students writing

b.      Test data on student performance

c.       Reports by teachers on typical problems students face

d.      Opinions of experts

e.       Information from students via interviews or questionnaires

f.       Analysis of textbooks teaching academic writing

g.      Survey or related literature.

h.      Examples of writing programs from other institutions

i.        Examples of  writing assignments given to first-year university students

There are some procedures to collecting the data in needs analysis:

a.                  Questionnaires

Some advantages use questionnaires as instruments are relatively easy to prepare, it can used with large number of subjects, the information that is relatively easy to tabulate and analyze, and can be used to elicit information about many different kinds of issues.

b.                  Self-ratings

These consists of scales that students or others use to rate their knowledge or abilities. It is also be included as part of questionnaires. But in this ways the information do not accurate.

c.                   Interviews

An interview is the preliminary stage of designing of a questionnaire. Interview helps designer get sense of topic and issues because interview allow more in-depth exploration of issues than possible with a questionnaire. We can make interview with face to face or over the telephone.

d.                  Meetings

A meetings allows a large amount of information to be collected in a fairly short time. For example, a meeting teacher with the students use “students’ problem in listening comprehension” might generate a wide range of ideas. But, information obtained in this way may be impressionistic and subjective and reflect the ideas of more outspoken members of a group.

e.                   Observation

Observation of learners’ behavior in a target situation is another way of assessing their needs. For example, observing clerks performing their jobs in a bank will enable the observer to arrive at certain conclusions about their language needs. However, people often do not perform well when they are being observed, so this has to be taken into account. In addition, observation is a specialized skill. Knowing how to observe, what to look for, and how to make use of the information obtained generally requires specialized training.

f.                   Collecting learner language samples

Collecting data on how well learners perform on different language tasks (e.g., business letters, interviews, telephone calls) and documenting the typical problems they have is a useful and direct source of information about learners’ language needs. Language samples may be collected through the following means:

- Written or oral tasks: examples of students written or oral work are collected

- Simulations or role plays: students are given simulations to carry out and their performance is observed or recorded.

- Achievement tests: are tested for their  abilities in different domains of language use.

- Performance tests: students are tested on job-related or task-related behaviors, such as “how well a job interview can be carried out in English.”

g.                  Task analysis

This refers to analysis of the kinds of tasks the learners will have to carry out in English in a future occupational or educational setting and assessment of the linguistic characteristics and demands of the tasks. For example, a hotel employee might have to perform the following tasks in English:

·                           Greet hotel guests.

·                           Inquire about their accommodation needs.

·                           Inform them of accommodation available at the hotel.

·                           Help them make a suitable choice of accommodation.

·                           Handle check-in procedures.

h.                  Case studies

With a case study, a single student or a selected group of students is followed through a relevant work or educational experience in order to determine the characteristics that situation. For example, a newly arrived immigrant might be studied for three months, during which time the student keeps a log of his or her daily language experiences in English, the situations in which the language is used, and the problems he or she encounters.

Although it is generally not possible to generalize from a case study, it provides a very rich source of information that may complement information obtained from other sources.

i.                    Analysis of available information

In any situation where a needs analysis is needed, a large amount of relevant information is generally available in various sources. These include:

·                     Books.

·                     Journal articles.

·                     Reports and surveys.

·                     Records and files.

An analysis of available information is normally the first step in a needs analysis because there are very few problems in language teaching that have not been written about or analyzed somewhere.

D.                Procedure of situation analysis.

Actually both of the procedures have been almost same, but they have a distinction in what they are analyzed and the result of them. The result of the need analysis is a series information which determined about students need because in need analysis we collect information about what students want in learning. But the result of the situation analysis was an information about the weakness and strengths what the factors which affect in language learning because in situation analysis we analyze those factors for example, societal factors, project factors, and etc.

Procedures used in situation analysis are similar to those involved in need analysis, namely;

(a) Consultation with representatives of as many relevant groups as possible, such as parents, students, teachers, administrators, and government officials;

(b) Study and analysis of relevant documents, such as course appraisal documents, government reports, ministry of education guidelines, and policy papers, teaching materials, curriculum documents;

(c) Observation of teachers and students in relevant learning settings; (d) surveys of opinions of relevant parties;

(e) Review of variable literature related to the issue.

E.                 Designing the Needs Analysis and Situation Analysis

Designing a needs analysis involves choosing from among the various options discussed above and selecting those that are likely to give a comprehensive vies of learners’ needs and that represent the interests of the different stakeholders involved. While designing a situation analysis involves selecting the information about the strengths and weakness from each factors which affected in curriculum plan. Decisions have to be made on the practical procedures involved in collecting, organizing, analyzing, and reporting the information collected. It is important to make sure that the needs and situation analysis does not produce an information overload.

F.                 Making use of the information obtained

The results of need analysis will generally consist of information taken from several different sources and summarized in the form of ranked lists of different kinds. For example, it might result in lists of the following kind:

a.       Situations in which English is frequently used.

b.      Situations in which difficulties are encountered.

c.       Comments most often made by people on learners’ performance.

d.      Frequencies with which different transactions are carried out.

e.       Perceived difficulties with different aspects of language use.

f.       Preferences for different kinds of activities in teaching.

g.      Frequencies of errors made in different types of situations or activities.

h.      Common communication problems in different situations.

i.        Suggestions and opinions about different aspects of learners’ problems.

j.        Frequencies of linguistic items or units in different texts or situations.

CHAPTER III

CLOSING

A.                Conclusion

Need analysis includes all the activities use to collect information about our students learning needs, wants, wishes, desire etc. Situation analysis is an analysis of factors in the context of a planned or present curriculum project that is made in order to assess their potential impact on the project. The purpose of need analysis is we can know what the students need. And the purpose of situation analysis is to identify key factors that might positively or negatively affect the implementation of a curriculum plan. Procedure to conduct a need analysis and situation analysis is we can collect the data with questionnaires, self-ratings, interviews, meetings, observation, task analysis, case studies.

B.                 Suggestion

We have realized that in this paper was lack of in everything, but we still hope that this paper can be used for us in educational program, especially in developing and designing the curriculum and syllabus. “No body perfects in the word.” But everyone wants to be perfect. So we hope that you are as a good reader would give us any objective suggestion in order to improve this paper next. For the next writer we also hope that you will be better than this paper.

REFERENCES

Arikunto, Suharsimi and Jabar, Abdul Safruddin. 2009. Evaluasi program pendidikan. Jakarta: PT Bumi Aksara.

Diepenbroek, Patrick Alexander. 2007. Indonesia Senior Secondary School (SMA) Physics Curriculum In Practice. Enschede: University of twente the Natherlands.

Richards, Jack C. 2001. Curriculum development in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.