Needs analysis March 2014 | Page 7

PROCESSING THE NEEDS ANALYSIS DATA When conclusions are ready, it’s time to set objectives. Seedhouse, P. (1995) sets up two kinds of objectives: a main aim to cater for the stated psychological needs and subsidiary objectives derived from the main aim. Among the gathered information we can find the different motivations and preferred methods of learning that can help the learning provider to set up clear and relevant objectives. After conducting the different instruments for needs analysis, it’s necessary to set up a stage where the collected data will be processed in different ways to reach a final outcome. According to Wynne, R. (N.d.), the first thing we must do with the collected data is toanalyze it. It means, to find common responses, priorities, inconsistencies in the responses or numerical values of relevance in order to have organized and classified the data for the interpretation stage. Furthermore, the teacher must reflect upon the results and set conclusions on the main findings about learners’ needs. Seedhouse, P. (1995) proposed in his study to define the learners’ target speech community. Taking into account these conclusions, it’s also important to analyze any learning material applied during a course or likely to be implemented, so that the teacher realizes if it accomplishes with the learners’ motivations and needs. Unfortunately, many of our current activities or materials are developed taking into account the contents and objectives set by the schools or government policies, but definitely the concept of learners’ needs hasn’t been considered when planning them. Therefore, these objectives will help be the base to develop learning materials, syllabuses and teaching strategies. “This way, the course content is going to be