Descriptive and inferential statistical analysis of expectations and needs of engineering students and graduates: a case study at the University of West Bohemia

• Published in: Language learning in higher education (Berlin, Germany) Vol. 12; no. 2; pp. 477 - 494
• Main Authors: Wróblewski, Bartłomiej, Petrenko, Olesya
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin De Gruyter 26.10.2022; De Gruyter Mouton; Walter de Gruyter GmbH
• Subjects: Academic English; Case Studies; College students; Comparative Analysis; Course Descriptions; Czech language; Employer Attitudes; Engineering Education; English for mechanical engineering; English for Special Purposes; English for specific purposes; Expectation; Foreign Countries; graduates’ needs; Hypotheses; Misconceptions; needs analysis; Needs assessment; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; Statistical analysis; Student Needs; students’ expectations; Undergraduate Students; Work Environment; Czech Republic; Bohemia
• ISSN: 2191-611X; 2191-6128
• DOI: 10.1515/cercles-2022-2057

A good command of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) among Czech engineers seems to be of crucial importance since the engineering field has been developing rapidly and the Czech labour market is becoming increasingly international ( ). The authors of this article, who supervise the ESP courses offered to the students of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (FST) at the University of West Bohemia (UWB) in Pilsen (Czech Republic), attempt to meet the changing needs of the engineering field by conducting needs analyses among students, university graduates and prospective employers, and keeping their ESP courses’ syllabi up-to-date and relevant to their engineering students. This paper presents a comparative analysis of a questionnaire that was distributed in the year 2021 among UWB engineering students and graduates. Having analysed the responses that dealt with graduates’ needs and students’ expectations of using ESP in a workplace, the authors noticed several discrepancies between the answers they received from the students and those they received from the graduates. Based on the analysis, a hypothesis that current students sometimes have misconceptions about their future work life has been formulated. To confirm this hypothesis, in the next stage of the research, selected students and graduates are to be interviewed to gather additional information. The authors also wish to examine this hypothesis by having prospective engineering employers reply to the same survey questions.