This chapter depicts the research design of the study, including the recruitment of participants, the design of instruments, and the procedures of data collection and analysis. Twenty-seven participants from the fields of international trade,
manufacturing, and finance were first interviewed to ascertain the English skills required for their jobs. Based on the interview findings, a needs-analysis
questionnaire was designed. Six out of the 27 participants were recruited as domain experts for the pilot study to validate the needs-analysis questionnaire adopted in the study. The needs-analysis questionnaire was administered to another 143 participants in order to obtain comprehensive information about the tasks required at work and the English needs in the workplace.
In order to obtain information about the EBP classes in Taiwan, 10 EBP
instructors from eight public and private general universities in Taiwan were recruited for semi-structured interviews. In the following part, the participants, the instruments, the data collection procedures, and the methods for data analysis are described in a more detailed manner.
Participants
Two major groups of participants were involved in this study: (i) 170 business professionals, including employers and employees, from the fields of international trade, manufacturing, and finance, and (ii) 10 EBP instructors from public and private general universities. The distribution and the selection of the participants are further explained in the following sections.
Business Professionals from the Three Sectors
Twenty-seven business professionals were recruited to participate in in-depth, semi-structured interviews for the researcher to collect information on the tasks which require English use in their workplace, difficulties they faced in their spoken and written communication in English, and the English skills they wanted to enhance.
These 27 participants were selected according to two stages of sampling, convenience sampling and purposive sampling. First, the researcher consulted the special issue
2011 Top 1000 Listed Companies of Greater China of CommonWealth Magazine, the premier business periodical in Taiwan, to find the candidate companies. Candidate companies were selected based on proximity and willingness to participate. The researcher initially approached 30 companies via email. The email inquired whether the companies were engaged with international entities on a daily basis, whether English was used with said interactions, and whether the employees in the 30
companies were willing to participate. Three companies reported that English was not used as they did not interact with international entities. Thus, the researcher further contacted the employees from the remaining 27 companies to look for potential participants, and expected to find one participant to represent each company.
Subsequently, purposive sampling was utilized to select participants based on three criteria-- professional fields, job positions, and English needs in the workplace.
Among these 27 participants, six were from the field of international trade; eight worked in the manufacturing field as sales representatives; 13 were from the financial field, including 11 working at banks, one in the securities, and one in an insurance company. Moreover, the participants represent a wide swathe of the three sectors, as only one participant per company was interviewed. In this manner, a comprehensive
picture of the three sectors was expected to emerge from the data collected from 27 companies.
In addition to those sectors, job positions and job duties are also factors that influence their English needs according to previous studies. Therefore, these participants were selected based on the following background characteristics. With respect to the positions, among the six participants from the international trade field, one participant ran his own company, another one was a sales manager, three were sales representatives, and the other one was a sales assistant. Among the eight participants from the manufacturing field, two were project managers, two sales managers, three sales representatives, and one a sales assistant. Among the 13
participants from the financial field, six of them were supervisors. Two of them were managers of an entire branch bank, another two were managers of human resources departments, and the other two were managers of the financial investment department.
The other seven participants from the financial field were one intern, one insurance specialist, one human resources staff, one teller, one collector, and two financial analysts.
The 27 business professionals, one participant per company, met the four criteria:
1. They were from the fields of international trade, manufacturing, and finance;
2. They used English daily;
3. They interact with international entities;
4. They were willing to participate.
The profiles of the 27 business professionals, including gender, professional fields, work experiences, and affiliated departments, are shown in Table 1. They are introduced in the alphabetical order of their pseudonyms.2
Table 1
The 27 participating business professionals profiles Name Gender Professional field Experience
in years Department
Owen M 23 Human Resources
Patrick M 8 Human Resources
Quentin M 20 Corporate Finance
Robert M 20 Securities
Rachel F 2 Corporate Finance
Phoebe F 10 Corporate Finance
Stephanie F 6 Personal Finance
Ted M 2 Human Resources
Ulysses M 1 Insurance
Una F 4 Legal
Vicky F
Finance
1 Overseas Business
In order to obtain a more extensive picture of English use in the workplace, a needs-analysis questionnaire designed according to the interview results was distributed to another 143 participants working in the above three fields. These 143 employees were recommended by the 27 interviewees and the friends of the
questionnaire respondents. Thus, the questionnaire respondents were recruited via chain referral sampling. The reason that the researcher adopted chain referral sampling rather than random sampling was to maintain the high return rate of the questionnaires. The descriptive statistics for these 143 respondents will be described in Chapter Four, including gender, age, education, work experience, the self-reported English proficiency, and their perception towards the importance of English in the business workplaces. The business professionals in this study serve two roles. On the one hand, they are the domain experts; on the other hand, they are English learners all their life.
EBP Instructors from Eight Universities
Ten English instructors, who teach various courses of Business English, from eight universities in different geographical areas of Taiwan were also recruited to participate in in-depth interviews to explore their English curricula design and
implementation. Eight universities were chosen according to two criteria, the business school ranking and geographical distribution. The researcher consulted the special issue 2011 The Best Universities and Colleges in Taiwan of Global Views Monthly, a leading business magazine which conducts annual Taiwanese university evaluations.
In order to include universities in the eastern and central Taiwan, the researcher opted for the top 15 in the list. The final list now includes four universities in northern
Taiwan, two in southern Taiwan, and one each in central and eastern Taiwan. One to two EBP instructors from the above universities were invited to participate in the interviews. These 10 EBP instructors, four males and six females, were all
experienced instructors, having taught Business English classes for 3 to 30 years. In addition, five of them had worked in companies and served as sales or marketing representatives before they started to teach, whereas the other five started teaching right after their graduate studies. Table 2 lists the profiles of the 10 EBP instructors, including their names, gender, the geographical location of the affiliated school, the teaching experiences on EBP courses, and the business-related work experience.
Table 2
The 10 participating EBP instructors
Instructors Gender
Alice F 10 Marketing specialist
Bruce M 3 Sales manager
Colin M 3 None
Ingrid F 3 Sales assistant
Jessica F
Southern Taiwan
8 None
Instruments
Two main instruments were adopted in this study: (i) semi-structured interviews for both business professionals and college EBP instructors and (ii) a needs-analysis
questionnaire for business professionals in Taiwan. The following description of instruments consists of two parts. The first section describes how the interview questions were formulated and selected for business professionals and college EBP instructors. The second section discusses the design of the needs-analysis
questionnaire. More specifically, the review and modification procedures of this instrument are presented.
Semi-Structured Interviews
Two sets of six interview questions were written: one for business professionals and one for college EBP instructors. Based on responses to the questions, the
researcher pursued certain lines of inquiry further. These 12 questions which were prepared in advance attempted to elicit information about the English language skills needed in the workplace and the skills taught in the EBP courses. The questions were based on the tripartite categorization of needs defined by Hutchinson and Waters (1987)-- necessities, lacks, and wants. The rationale for the interview questions for business professionals and EBP instructors is explained in the following sections.
Regarding the business professionals, the first set of questions
explain your daily working schedule in detail? What do you do on a typical day from
arriving warm-up questions. It
is expected that the interviewees would report their working days and thus provide a context for detailed follow-up inquiry.
The following set of questions
first question, what tasks require English? Do you
intended to ascertain the role English played at work and to collect the tasks that required English use. It is expected that the questions would lead the interviewees into
a dialogue with the researcher that would identify what tasks need to be performed in English, who the interviewees deal with in these tasks, when English is used, where these tasks requiring in English are performed, why these tasks require English, and how these tasks are performed in English. These responses connect with Hutchinson
necessities in that the demands of the target situation needs are identified.
The third set of questions
the language characteristics of these tasks? What are th
was intended to elicit linguistic features of the target tasks collected from the second question. It is expected that the questions would lead the interviewees into a dialogue with the researcher that would give further information about the lexis, structures, and communicative functions involved in the target tasks. The responses connect with
necessities as well in that linguistic features and communicative functions are needed to carry out all the target tasks.
The fourth question Can your English ability fulfill the English demands at d to make the interviewees reflect upon their English proficiency.
It is expected to serve as a transition question leading to the investigation of the interviewee lacks.
Similarly, the fifth set of questions
aspects of English abilities do you think that you need most? And what aspects of
English a intended to ascertain the discrepancy
between the target situation necessities and the interviewee It is expected that the questions would lead the interviewees into a dialogue with the researcher that would explicate what target tasks they have difficulty with, as well as who they communicate with in these tasks, when they encounter difficulty, where these
difficult tasks are encountered, why they find the tasks difficult. The responses
connect with of lacks.
The last question for business professionals e your English abilities to meet the English requirement in the workplace, what kind of
English co This was intended to gather the
interviewee s on desired English training. It is expected that the questions would lead the interviewees into a dialogue with the researcher that would reveal their
of wants.
Unlike the questions for business professionals targeted at necessities, lacks, and wants, the following interview questions for the EBP instructors focus on
investigating the necessities and lacks, which are apparent and observable to teachers.
objectives for your business English co explore the
interviewee d outcomes for their teaching. It was expected that the interviewees would explicate the English ability that students were expected to
acquire after the instruction. The res
concepts of necessities and lacks in that the interviewee aching objectives usually aim at preparing crucial English skills for the job market or improve English skills that students lack.
The second interview of your business English
course and what is your rationale for choosing this content
investigate the actual situation in the classes and triangulate the findings with the results collected from the first question. It is expected that the interviewees would explain what kinds of texts and tasks were adopted and how the classes were
conducted.
necessities and lacks in that the content taught in the classes may reflect what the interviewees think is essential for students to meet the requirements in the future workplace.
s of English skills are prioritized.
It is expected that the questions would lead the interviewees into a dialogue with the researcher that would explain the rationale for prioritizing certain skills over the others. These responses also connect with Hutch
necessities and lacks in that the focused English skills may be considered as essential language skills required in the workplace or those that need to be enhanced.
o you primarily
components are emphasized in the EBP classes. It is expected that the question would lead the interviewees into a dialogue with the researcher that would explicate their focus on pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, or culture. These responses also
necessities and lacks in that the focused language components may be regarded as crucial in the workplace, but least acquired by college students.
re adopted in the EBP classes. It is expected that the question would lead the interviewees into a dialogue with the researcher that would explain the criteria of choosing teaching materials---sequential, authentic, language-based, skill-based, or content-based. These responses
necessities in that the tasks in the
teaching materials may show a direct relationship with the tasks required in the workplace.
to ascertain how the interviewees evaluate s rmance. It is expected that the interviewees would report their evaluation tasks and rubrics. These
necessities and lacks in that the evaluation tasks can be compared with the target tasks in the workplace. In
nglish skills may be revealed. These 12
questions were translated into Chinese for the purpose of data collection. The Chinese translation for two sets of interview questions is included respectively in Appendix I and II.
The Needs-Analysis Questionnaire (NAQ)
The following paragraphs describe the construction process of the needs-analysis questionnaire for business professionals in Taiwan. The first section introduces Evans
s-analysis questionnaire and the changes made to create the preliminary version used in the current study. The second section describes the process of review of the needs-analysis questionnaire by domain experts and the changes made to create the final version.
Construction of the preliminary NAQ
The needs analysis questionnaire in this study was created mainly based on the English needs analysis questionnaire in Evans and Green (2003), which investigated the use of English in the post-1997 Hong Kong workplace.Their questionnaire was divided into three sections, with the first section gathering personal information of
respondents and the second section focusing on the roles of Cantonese, written
Chinese and English in the professional workplace. The respondents were given some workplace situations and asked to identify which language was used more in these situations. The third section of the questionnaire investigated the frequency with which a respondent needs to write, read, speak and listen in English for various professional purposes.Thus, a respondent was asked to identify the frequency of writing emails in English first with a six-point Likert scale, from never to always.
Then, he or she was asked to identify the three main purposes to write emails in English in the workplace from a list of pre-designed options.
As the aim of this dissertation is to investigate the use of English in the business workplace in Taiwan, the third section of Evans and is
applicable to the current study. The survey used in this study consists of three parts--background information, the English demands in the workplace, and the needs of English use in the workplace. The first part, background information, includes the respondent n, working experience, the self-reported English proficiency, and the experience of taking English proficiency tests. The second part, the English demands in the workplace, surveys the general perceptions of the
respondents toward the English needs in the workplace and the importance of English toward their current jobs. The third part and the major part of this questionnaire, which is about the needs of English use in the workplace, is divided into three sections, including English oral communication (listening and speaking), English reading, and English writing abilities. In each section of this part, certain tasks, like making a presentation and attending overseas exhibitions, are listed for respondents to indicate how frequent they are required to use English. Secondly, the respondents are asked the degree of difficulty encountered when they are required to complete these
tasks in English. Furthermore, regarding English oral communication and English writing abilities, language functions, such as persuasion and complaint, are provided for respondents to choose the top three mostly used options. The Chinese version of the English Needs Analysis Questionnaire is included in Appendix III. The Needs Analysis Questionnaire is translated into English and included in Appendix IV.
Although the questionnaire adopted in this study was mainly inspired by Evans and Green (2003), the content and the format of the questionnaire have been modified and elaborated to meet the research purpose of this study. For example, Evans and
use, both Cantonese and English, in the workplace of five fields,business services, community/social services, construction/real estate, engineering, and manufacturing, in Hong Kong. The target fields under investigation in this current study are confined to the top three industries in which most business students in Taiwan are employed. In addition, more tasks in the daily work and the communicative purposes were added based on the pilot interview findings with the 27 business professionals.
Review and modification of the preliminary NAQ
The preliminary needs-analysis questionnaire was given to nine domain experts, three of them from the financial field, another three from the manufacturing field, and the other three from the international trade field, to inquire after the validity of and get feedback about the questionnaire. Each participant filled out the questionnaire first, and explained their opinions later during the individual interview. By following the order of questions, the researcher asked if the participants could understand the question items and if more options needed to be added.
Generally speaking, the nine domain experts indicated that the question items in the needs analysis questionnaire covered all the routine tasks in the workplace for their fields. The three main modifications were made according to their suggestions.
First, the six-point Likert scale from Evans and Green (2003) was compressed to five points, and time descriptor labels were replaced with adverb of frequency labels, ranging from never to always. It was originally thought that the time descriptor label, such as once/twice every six months/weeks, etc., would provide specificity. However, six respondents indicated that these time descriptors interfered with their
decision-making. They had to stop and calculate which time descriptor suited them
decision-making. They had to stop and calculate which time descriptor suited them