Assessment of academic English language needs of Iranian post-graduate students of psychology

Abstract

Needs analysis, as an important phase in curriculum development and course design, has received scant attention in Iranian English for Academic Purposes (EAP) education. Similarly, no systematic empirical study has addressed the status of EAP programs for post-graduate psychology (PgP) students. Hence, this study aimed to investigate target academic English language needs of PgP students, their abilities in performing discipline-related EAP tasks, and their general English Proficiency (gEP). Participants included 343 PgP students, 13 EAP instructors, and 22 content teachers from 7 major Iranian universities. To achieve triangulation, data were collected through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and observations. The findings highlighted several skills and subskills of academic English as highly important for PgP students. Moreover, some mismatches were found regarding the participants’ perceptions about students’ abilities in different language skills/sub-skills as well as in their gEP levels. Furthermore, we probed participants’ viewpoints regarding the amount of EAP instruction in post-graduate curriculum, the degree of effectiveness of general English (gE) and EAP courses in bA education, their preference for EAP teachers (i.e., either ElT instructors or content teachers), language skill priorities in EAP courses, and major challenges in EAP education in Iran. Some implications and suggestions for further research are presented