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Shirin Abadikhah

Shirin Abadikhah

Academic rank: Assistant Professor
ORCID:
Education: PhD.
ScopusId:
Faculty: Department of literature
Address: Department of English Language and Literature; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences; University of Mazandaran; Shahid Beheshti Street 47415 P.O Box 416; Babolsar; Iran.
Phone: 01135302673

Research

Title
Assessing the perceived language needs of Iranian university students: A case study
Type
FinishedProject
Keywords
Language Needs, EAP, ESP, Language Need Situations, Needs analysis, undergraduate/ postgraduate students
Year
2017
Researchers Shirin Abadikhah ، Masoome Valipour

Abstract

Needs analysis is regarded as a crucial step in any educational course design. Considering this issue, the current study attempted to investigate the language needs of undergraduate and graduate students at a state university in Iran. A questionnaire consisting of 49 items was administered to 301 university students of which 164 students were in B.A, 70 students in M.A. and 65 students in PhD levels. The participants were requested to identify the frequency of situations in which they used English language and felt they need to cover in academic, private and professional situations. Using SPSS software, their responses were computer-coded and analyzed. The results showed that the language needs in the academic situations steadily increased by the increase in the educational level of the students. While the BA participants’ need was related to the private situations, the PhD students frequently expressed need in the academic domain. Furthermore, the results indicated that there were significant differences between the language needs of PhD students with those of the other two groups (BA and MA). In terms of the domains, the analysis indicated that the situations of language needs in academic and professional domains were significantly different among the three educational levels while no meaningful difference among the language needs of the respondents in private domain was observed.