A Curriculum evaluation through needs analysis: Perceptions of intensive English program graduates at Anadolu University

The present study was conducted to evaluate the effects of curriculumrenewal project started at Anadolu University, Intensive English Program in 2003.The old and renewed curricula of Prep Program were compared based on thestudents? perceptions. The main criterion for the evaluation was the perceivedlanguage needs of the students to follow English-medium content courses at fiveEnglish-medium departments at Anadolu University. In order to compare the twocurricula, first, the language needs of the students in English-medium contentcourses were determined. Then, the two curricula were compared to determinewhether there was a difference between the two curricula in meeting students?language needs.The participants of the study were 135 first year students of five English-medium departments in 2004, and 129 first year students of the same departmentsin 2005.The data were collected by means of a questionnaire. The items in thequestionnaire were constructed based on related questionnaires in literature, classobservations of English-medium content courses and interviews with both English-medium content teachers and first year students of those five departments.The data were analyzed by calculating frequencies, percentages and meanvalues to determine the language needs of the students in English-mediumdepartments and their perceptions on how much those needs were met by the twocurricula.To determine which curriculum met the students? language needs better,two groups of data were compared. First group of data, collected from the firstyear students in May 2004, reflected the students? perceptions of the oldcurriculum. The second group of data, collected from the first year students inMay 2005, reflected the students? perceptions of the renewed curriculum. The twocurricula were compared by using Independent Sample t-Tests.Results revealed that there were a few significant differences between thetwo curricula in terms of meeting the students? language needs. Based on theresults, suggestions are made for the curriculum renewal process.