Preparing a Questionnaire for ESP Students - Coursework Example

Preparing a Questionnaire for ESP Introduction Petroleum Development of Oman (PDO) is the leading exploration and production company in the Middle East. It is reported to supply more than 90% of the Oman’s crude-oil production and almost all of its natural-gas supply. The Business is owned by the Government of Oman which has a 60% interest, Royal Dutch Shell which has a 34% interest, Total which has a 4% interest and Partex which has a 2% interest. The first economic find of oil was made in 1962, and the first consignment of oil was exported in 1967. PDO has been working in a close alliance with the Omani Government and has the ardent support of his Excellency Sultan Qaboos Bin Said Al Said. PDO and Ministry of Oil and Gas (MOG) have been toiling hard for the past decade or so for the development Omani human resource and a number of technical and vocational ventures have been launched that specifically aim at the development of lower and middle level manpower within the company and in the country at large. The Company’s contribution towards training Omani Citizens has been phenomenal and is a part of the shared vision of an educated and qualified Oman as conceived by his Excellency the Sultan. Importance of training to Employees In the aftermath of the World War II, the race for global market leadership has taken an aggressive outlook. Since the first ever discovery of oil in the Middle East the competition in the region is getting fierce and huge investments are being directed towards the exploitation of the so called ‘Black Gold’—a name once used for Afro-American slaves. Under these circumstances firms are analyzing every nook and corner of their operation and investing millions of dollars on improving their strategies in the pursuit of a competitive advantage. Employees are no longer mere workers but a core human resource which is being greatly invested upon. Trends in employee training have shown an upward shift in the past decade and a huge budget is being spent on it, in the meantime with the advent of increasingly sophisticated technology training is no longer a choice but a need. Omani Government realizes that in order to achieve the conceived goals of development it is significant for the workforce of the most productive sector, Petroleum, to be motivated. And a key aspect of motivation as identified by the experts of Human Resource Management is Employee Training. With this view in mind PDO under the surveillance of the Sultan is making huge monetary investments for reshaping its workforce. Technical expertise has been imported from the Western World to meet this end and importance is being attached to the coaching of the mechanical staff in view of the future prospects. Emphasis on English and IT Training to employees is a growing trend in PDO and worker welfare programs appealing to different employee groups are being introduced consistently. Developments in this context include the Training to Young Omanis (TYO) program for young graduates and the Omani Technician Training Program (OTTP) for field technicians. An interesting aspect that can be highlighted in the above mentioned programs is the emphasis laid on the training in English and IT departments irrespective of the employee rank and needs. PDO recognizes English and IT proficiency as the traits necessary for the 21st Century employee and it therefore emphasizes on training its employees in these courses. Moreover the stress on English Language training can also understood from the fact that English is the global language. It is understood and spoken even in areas where it is not native thus in order to go worldwide it is pre-eminent that PDO’ s workforce should have a solid grasp on the English Language so as to readily communicate with its foreign customers and trainers. In the meantime the lack of technical expertise available in Oman calls for the import of talent from abroad. This would ultimately mean the inflow of foreigners who would be incapable of speaking or understanding the local language. Thus the only way possible to communicate with these professionals and extract technical expertise would be through a dialogue in English, hence training in the language became essential English Language Courses at PDO PDO’s extraction department is its main resource and its training and recruitment is consequently given a greater importance. PDO recognizes the need of developing its technical workforce in order to match the international standards and it has therefore appointed industrial experts from the European countries to train their engineers, technicians and filed workers. Another barrier in the way of training the technical staff was the lack of English proficiency of its extraction staff. To facilitate this need a sound notion of providing English language courses was recently introduced and entry procedures for employees are being formulated to get the program with the least time lapse. Need Analysis The ESP program would be an opportunity open for all technical employees of PDO irrespective of their rank and qualification. Apparently the level of English adeptness would not be identical for all the employees and hence there would be varying individual requirements that will have to be separately addressed. Moreover a requirement analysis would also assist in saving on time as it would help to distinguish between the employees with high, moderate and low skills in English Comprehension. This would further help the organization in providing the students only the required amount of guidance. Having successfully acquired the required knowledge these employees would then move towards the all important technical schooling. With the above objectives in mind a need analysis questionnaire was designed to evaluate the training requirements of each of the employees. Filling out the questionnaire is a prerequisite to employee enrollment in the course. It contains questions that have been carefully drafted to cover all aspects of employee connection with the language in the job setting and also to effectively access to extent to which the employee has command over English. A number of questions were formulated and evaluated before approving the final set. This final set was then tested to estimate their degree of relevance and appropriateness to the situation. Before going on to the draft of questionnaires and discussing the rationale and objective behind each of the questions a brief overview to the aptness of a questionnaire in the case on hand, the issues encountered during the questionnaire design and type of questions in the final draft would be provided in the following paragraphs. ESP Questionnaire A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents. Although they are often designed for statistical analysis of the responses, but they can even be utilized for evaluating qualitative and opinion as in the case on hand. Why was Questionnaire chosen as a mode of analyzing the need? The selection of questionnaires as the mode for collecting the employee related data was governed by the fact that it has many advantages over some other types of surveys. Questionnaires are usually cheap. This was an important aspect of consideration for the PDO management as it needed to make sure that procedure should be cost-effective so as to help them achieve maximum economies of scale. Moreover such feedback forms do not require as much effort from the questioner as verbal or telephone surveys, neither do they ask a great deal the respondent as guidance to question filling is clear and step-by-step. On the other hand questionnaires often have standardized answers that make data compilation and evaluation a simple task. However, such standardized answers may even frustrate the respondent in some cases. Questionnaires are at times also sharply limited by the fact that respondents must be able to read the questions and respond to them. Thus, for some demographic groups conducting a survey by questionnaire may not be practical but in the case on hand analysis through the use of questionnaires was the best option available with the given scenario of obtaining opinions from a large number of employees, moreover it also fits the cost-related objectives pursued by the company. Issues attached with the construction of Questionnaires Questionnaires are an inexpensive way to collect from a potentially huge number of respondents. In the pretext of the case they are the only way to reach the employees, which are large enough to allow statistical analysis. Designing a good questionnaire was critical to the success of the need analysis phase. Inappropriate questions, incorrect ordering of questions, incorrect scaling, or bad questionnaire format could have made the survey valueless hence special care was taken in the design of this questionnaire and it was tested on a pilot sample to check their impressions and to confirm that the questions accurately captured their opinions. Questionnaire construction was a three step process: Identifying the Objectives of the survey Determining the Sampling Group Writing the Questionnaire The objective of the survey and the description of the sample group were provided by the PDO administration consequently the imperative job was to design a questionnaire, which involved a number of issues that had to be addressed. It was crucial to design a questionnaire that would fit the frame of reference of all the three classes of employees who would respond i.e. the engineers, the technicians and the filed workers. In this regard a number of questions had to be revisited and edited in order to fit the individual requirements. Another issue was related to the difference in the background of each of the employees, as it has an astounding effect on the interpretation of the questions. Determining the type of scale, index, or typology to be used was another important matter to be tackled with the distinctive population on hand. Selection of the type of questions (close, multiple-choice, open) was also a matter of importance with regards to the context of the situation and the capability of the respondents. It was imperative to avoid leading questions in order to avoid biasness in the results obtained. It was important to use non-technical and simple words to avoid confusion and ambiguity in understanding any of the questions. Effort was made to keep the meaning clear. Ambiguous words, equivocal sentence structures and negatives could have caused misunderstanding, possibly invalidating questionnaire results. Categories in answers needed to be mutually exclusive in order to make life easy for the respondent and to avoid the situation where an employee would find himself in more than one category. An appropriate writing style, concise, clear, accurate and conversational to the target audience was adopted. Questionnaires were administered by the research staff and self-administered by the respondents to avoid unneeded questions as they are an expense to the researcher and unwelcome imposition to the respondents. All questions were specifically drafted to conform to the objective of the need analysis. Type of Questions In general there are two types of questions, closed ended and open ended, both of which were utilized in designing the questionnaire on hand. Open ended questions are those that ask for unprompted views. In other words, there are no predetermined set of answers, and the respondent has the liberty to answer however he desires. Open ended questions are best for seeking subjective data, as the case on hand or when the range of responses is not tightly defined. Most of the part of this questionnaire depends on responses of questions belonging to the open format questions. Closed ended questions usually take the form of a multiple-choice question. They are easy for the respondent to answer and also less time consuming as he/she has options to choose from and hence will no have to spend time thinking of an appropriate response. A few questions in the form comprise of this format but a greater portion is dedicated to the open ended questions due to the presence of subjective data. Questionnaire 1. What is your native Language? Rationale: the above stated question would help the organization access the cultural implications attached to learning English. 2. What are your professional responsibilities?1 Rationale: This is an extremely important question in the context of the need analysis as it would allow the organization to determine the extent of training that would be required. As the ranks would be ascended the technical training that will follow the ESP program would have greater complexity and would accordingly require a superior command on the English language. 3. How many languages are you equipped and do you think they will help you in the context of the course? Rationale: Though the question in itself has no relevance to the language being discussed, but its significance stems from the fact that it will help PDO management evaluate the employee’s adaptability with novel languages and would then help them decide on the course level in which the individual should be enrolled. 4. How often is English utilized in your organizational setting, and why do you feel the need of taking a course in it? Rationale: The response to this question would provide a dual advantage as the organization will be able to determine the changes if any that are required in the internal environment of the organization to promote English communication. Secondly it would also help them determine the level of motivation of the employee in taking up the subject. 5. What is your qualification? a. Masters b. Bachelors c. A-levels d. O-levels e. None of the above. Please mention _______________ Rationale: This is general question that will assist PDO management decide on the course level to enroll the individual. It may even result in the rejection of the application if he is found to have sufficed qualification. 6. Have you graduated from an English medium school? a. Yes b. No Rationale: An employee educated under the English system would by all means be better than a person who has passed out from an Arabic medium. 7. What difficulty level do you attach to English learning? a. Very Difficult b. Hard c. Moderate d. Easy Rationale: The question above would be asked to check employees motivation level and to determine whether or not initial counseling is required for him/her. 8. Have you ever been to a foreign country where English is the native language? How did you communicate there? Rationale: This is one aspect that is attached the most importance. A person who has visited a foreign country and communicated there will be better off as compared to those who haven’t and will therefore require minimal training. 9. Have you taken any English courses previously? a. Yes b. No 10. If Yes, is Question No. 9, give details about the course you enrolled in and its outcomes? Rationale: Information about the courses previously enrolled would assist the organization is deciding which areas would the person need training 11. Do you have a reading habit? a. Yes b. No 12. If yes, please give detail about the type of material you read and whether it contains any English versions? Rationale: Reading is the key to learning any language, a person with learning skills would tend to master a quickly and would be ready to enroll in technical training fairly easily. This would help PDO draft the list of employees who would be available for the initial Technical Schooling classes. 13. Do you think that being a multi-linguist would help you in you career? How Rationale: Will help check employee’s motivation as motivation is the key to learning 14. What type of an instructor would you prefer? Rationale: To help employees to work in a friendlier environment and to encourage them there opinion needs to be taken regarding the type of person they would prefer learning from. 15. How long did it take to complete the form? Rationale: To assess the difficulty level attached to the form and to make any changes for future programs. Long-term objectives towards conducting ESP and other Training Programs As mentioned in the beginning of the report ESP and other various training programs including the OTTP and the TYO are a part of the shared goal of the Omani Government and the PDO which primarily aims at developing internationally acclaimed technical expertise within the country. Currently the country has vast reserves of oil to extract but it is lacking the required amount of professionals to help force the conceived trends of development. Hence the key aim sheltering the import of technical experts from abroad is to develop industrial proficiency to an extent that the Oman Petroleum can challenge the world market large. In order to do this training in English is a necessity as by influence of country’s culture and language supremacy most of its population feels discouraged from learning English. Omani government recognizes the significance of being equipped with the language to facilitate the envisaged goals and it is thus concentrating a great deal on such curriculums. Moreover with the ground resources, that is petroleum, to their exposure the Omani government feels that its manpower will be able to acquire greater practical knowledge once accustomed to the technical theory. With this notion in mind the government intends to export superior technical expertise, rather than importing, to foreign countries ten years down the line. Bibliography 1. Questionnaire Design. 1997. [Online]. [Accessed 14th July 2007] Available from World Wide Web: 2. PDO Home. 2007. [Online]. [Accessed 14th July 2007] Available from World Wide Web: 3. Galloway, A. 1997. Questionnaire Design And Analysis Kite [Accessed 14th July 2007] Available from World Wide Web: 4. Riyami, N. 2006, PDO and MOG join forces to boost training for Omani technicians [Online]. [Accessed 14th July 2007] Available from World Wide Web: 5. Baumeister, R. & Leary, M. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin 117, 497-529. 6. Leung, W.(2007). How to Design a Questionnaire. [Online]. [Accessed 14th July 2007] Available from World Wide Web: 7. Al-Hinayi, G. (2004). PDO trains young Omanis from interior communities [Online]. [Accessed 14th July 2007] Available from World Wide Web: 8. ICTB (2007). ICTB: Pre-Course Questionnaire [Online]. [Accessed 14th July 2007] Available from World Wide Web: 9. Flannery. W.J., (1990). Importance of Training.[Online]. [Accessed 14th July 2007] Available from World Wide Web: Read More