1. Text
Testing will be covered in more dept in chapter four. Nevertheless, the issue must also
be addressed here because tests are an indispensable source of information in a needs analysis
(in addition to being an integral part of the curriculum that will result). Whether the purpose
of measurement is proficiency, placement, diagnosis, or achievement, tests can provide a
wealth of information about the general ability levels of the students, about specific problem
that students may be having with the language, and about their achievement in previous
programs. However, as I explain in chapter four, the information gained from tests will be
most useful if the tests are of high quality.
Observation
This category of instrumentation usually involves watching an individual or a small
number of individuals, and recording the behaviors (see all Wright 1983 or Chaudron 1988 for
overviews on classroom observations and research, or Long 1984 for application of
observations to curriculum), which might be recorded in informal notes, or more formally as
an ethnographic study (for more ethnography, see Watson- Gegeo 1988, Johnson & SavilleTroike 1992, and Davis 1992). Such a study might turn out to be a case study if the linguistic
characteristics or behaviors of a selected individual ( or perhaps several native speaking
engineering professors might be studied as part of a needs analysis for English program
catering to university bound nonnative engineering students. If the individual involved was
also the investigator, self observation might take the form of a diary study. This the occurred,
for example, when linguists have recorded their feelings and thoughts as they went through
the process of learning language (for example, Schumann & Schumann 1977; Bailey 1980).
However, it might also be revealing if the students in the language program were asked to do
such introspection. Behavior observation is a more formal procedure in the sense that a
checklist is usually developed to investigate particular verbal behaviors or actions. This
checklist is then applied to the observation process. Such a procedure might be useful in
observing the frequencies of certain language formulas or functions in native speech, or in
investigating any one of numerous other linguistic characteristics. If a checklist or other
recording procedure is applied to the purpose of studying language behaviors as interactions
between people, the study would be turned an interactional one. Consider how interesting it

2. might be to study the need for teachers to correct student’s error. An analysis could be done
by using a checklist to determine the frequency of different type of correction coupled with
notes on how students reacted to each instance of correction. The last type og procedure, the
inventory, is record a count of physical object (as in determining how many of each book a
language program has) or to account for objects on a checklist of a what is expected to be
present (for example, a “good” program should have one classroom per 35 students, one
teacher for every 100 students, two textbooks per student, one junior for every 500 students,
and so forth).while the language aspects of a program should certainly not be overlooked,
neither should the physical constraints of the situation be underestimed. Thus a “simple’
inventory can sometimes be important a need analysis.
Interviews
Interview procedures are a fairly open-ended type of instrumentation. Individual
interviews allow for gathering personal responses and views privately. This confidentially
can, in turn, lead to insights into the “real” opinions of the participants involved.
Unfortunately, interviews are time consuming. As such, interviews may best be used to
explore what issues and questions should be pursued in a later follow up using more
structured procedures such as questionnaires, behavior observations, an so on. Group
interviews might apper to be one way around the time problem, but it is important to
remember that the information given in a group interview is not confidential. For political or
interpersonal reason, it may turn out that the opinions expressed when people are interviewed
in a group situation are different from their views when expressed in individual, confidential
interviews. Indeed, the contrasts in the opinions of people who have been interviewed both
individually and in a group format can themselves prove illuminating.