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interactions. This is because qualitative researchers tend to use a non-positivist model of reality Silverman, 2005; Alwasilah, 2008.
Qualitative research tends to be an effort to generate descriptions and situational interpretations of phenomena that the researcher can offer colleagues,
students, and others for modifying their own understandings of phenomena Stake, 2010. These techniques allow researchers to share in the understandings
and perceptions of others and to explore how people structure and give meaning to their daily lives.
Therefore, as Nunan 1993 says, the data involved in qualitative research studies are likely to be in forms of words, pictures, charts, diagram, and so on
instead of numerical ones. This does not mean that qualitative research cannot contain numerical data at all. Sometimes numerical data can be in qualitative
research such as frequency and percentage Emilia, 2000.
3.2 Site and Participants
The data were taken from a state vocational school and a private vocational school in Kuningan that become the pilot project schools for
conducting 2013 Curriculum. The participants were 40 students of vocational school majoring economics and business and the English teachers who have been
teaching EFL for at least 5 years. The reason to choose this site is because these schools are still trying out this 2013 curriculum. Some of them even planned to
implement this 2013 curriculum in the future due to the effectiveness of this curriculum.
3.3 Data Collection
The instruments which were used are questionnaire and interview. As Richards 2001 and Graves 2000 remark, questionnaires are essential
instruments to gather information about students’ needs and context. Having this in fact, a students’ profile survey was applied to elementary graders in order to
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inquire about their preferences, interests and socio-cultural environment. Graves 2002 stated that the data collection procedures of the qualitative method
involved setting the boundaries for the study, which lead to classify the participants in specific area, collecting information through observation, and
establishing the protocol for recording information. Interview is also needed in order to cover in depth elaboration Punch, 2001.
3.3.1 Questionnaire
The data taken from questionnaire are structured and open-ended questions. It gathered the data on students’ needs of English in target situation. Taking all the
criteria mentioned into account, several versions of the students’ profile survey
were created with the intention of designing a suitable instrument that helped this research to gather information about specific characteristics of learners such as
their attitude toward English, elements of access to information they have at home, artistic activities, music, TV program and places as suggested by
Hutchinson and Waters 1987. On the other side, before applying the latest version of the students’ profile survey, two other versions were implemented in
order to confirm its reliability. The final version of
the students’ profile survey consists of twenty questions with multiple answers where students have to either choose different
options or rank their answers into some categories: a lot, more or less, little or nothing. Two parts formed the questionnaire a
re students’ self-assessment in language skills and their opinions about teaching materials, methods, and
assessment. In the self-assessment section, students addressed how much school paid attention to skills, vocabulary and grammar teaching. The second section
elicited students’ opinions about teaching materials, teaching methods and the school’s assessment system.
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3.3.2 Interview
Interview was used as instrument in collecting data from vocational school teachers. This was chosen to gain information from English teachers of vocational
school in Kuningan in relation to the research questions. The semi-structured interviews were used in this study because they allow for standardized but in-
depth probing of and elaboration on the original response. It enables one to follow a line of inquiry Punch, 2001. The questions were prepared in advanced based
on the theme being investigated. Interview is an interaction between two people, with the interviewer and the interviewee Kvale, 1996. Thus, interview plays a
significant role in qualitative research because interview allows the researcher “to check the accuracy of
– to verify or refute – the impressions she had gained through observat
ions” Fraenkel and Wallen, 2012. Most of the interviews were conducted in Bahasa Indonesia. Nevertheless there were a number of occasions
whereby English was used as the respective respondents felt more comfortable using the language.
3.3.3 Document analysis
Document analysis is derived from historical methods which are essentially concerned with the problems of selection and evaluation of evidence.
Such methods were first developed by von Ranke and have influenced the form of all academic report writing Evans 2000: 18; Barzun and Graff 1992: 5. In some
projects documentary analysis will be used to supplement information obtained by other methods, as for instance when the reliability of evidence gathered from
interviews or questionnaires is checked. On the other hand, it will be the central or even exclusive method of
research. It will be particularly useful when access to the subjects of research is difficult or impossible, as in the case where a longitudinal study is undertaken and
staff members no longer belong to the organization being investigated. The lack of access to research subjects may be frustrating, but documentary analysis of
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files and records can prove to be an extremely valuable alternative source of data Johnson 1984: 23.
The documentary analysis included in this study was English for economics and business syllabus. It is a teacher syllabus which consists of thirty
six meetings of first and second semester in a year. This method of data collection was useful to support data gained from questionnaire and interviews.
3.4 Data Analysis Framework
Data analysis comprised data from interview and questionnaire. The data gathered from the questionnaires were analyzed by counting the percentage of the
participants’ choices dealing with the statements about learning English for vocational school students majoring economics and business. The questionnaires
can be seen in appendix 1. Based on the data collected from the questionnaire, the researcher considered that deeper and detailed analysis is still needed. Therefore,
the researcher also conducted the interview. The interview was used to validate data from other data sources. It was
also used in relation to triangulate the data given by each group of respondent. There are ten questions addressed to the English teachers of vocational school in
Kuningan. The questions should be relevant to the central theme of the research guided by the theory. Regarding questions in interviews, there is one thing that
needs a mention that is that researcher often avoid leading question, with the reason that the answer to the leading question is not detailed. This is not quite
appropriate as leading question is not detailed. This is not quite appropriate as leading questions, especially in qualitative research, are important, as suggested
by Fraenkel and Wallen 2012. The data taken from interviewing English teachers of vocational school
were analyzed qualitatively. There were three steps in interview data analysis. The first step was transcribing the interview recording. Each interview which took
approximately 20 minutes, were audio-tapped and then transcribed by the
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interview as soon as possible, as suggested by Osborne and Freyberd 1985. Immediate transcription allowed the interviewers to improve technique of asking
questions for the next interview. The second was selecting the significant data related to the research problems from the transcription. The third step was
interpreting the significant data to address research questions. English for economics and business syllabus was analysed in relation to
the research questions. The syllabus revealed the data whether or not the syllabus used has met the students’ needs of ESP class.
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CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
This chapter presents two sections: section 5.1 concludes the present study in line with the formulated research problems; and section 5.2 draws some
recommendations to those who involved in ESP classes and those who are interested in conducting further study.
5.1. Conclusion
This study has investigated the needs analysis and course design including the required English learning materials and suitable English learning activity for
economics and business school students of vocational school. Then, the findings, as a set of conclusions, are drawn as follows:
a. From Questionnaire Based on data collected through questionnaires which were delivered to
forty students, it was found that listening and speaking skills are the first priority in teaching English which is closely followed by writing and reading. In terms of
language components, most students said their grammar is weak and they also thought that their vocabulary was weak. Regarding the required learning
materials, written media and visual media pictures, diagram, etc help students learn easier and it seems the students’ expectation on the teaching learning aid
will have been provided well in English for economics and business class. In relation to suitable learning activity, a majority of the students preferred
mix English and Indonesian as the medium language in delivering the materials. It indicates that English teachers used Bahasa Indonesia to some extent in delivering
the materials. Most students also thought that they would learn English better in a big group under teacher supervision. In addition, they need to have more hours to
learn English in the classroom.
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