Ababio, B. T. (2009). Identifying Students’ Background and Needs for Effective Teaching at the University of Cape Coast. Drumspeak: International Journal of Research in the Humanities, 2, 1-27.

has been cited by the following article:

• TITLE: A Needs Analysis of Undergraduate Students of Communicative Skills: The Case of Tertiary Institutions in Ghana

  AUTHORS: Philip Arthur Gborsong, Joseph B. A. Afful, Wincharles Coker, Osei Yaw Akoto, Rita Twumasi, Araba Baiden

  KEYWORDS: Needs Analysis, Communicative Skills, University Student, University of Cape Coast

  JOURNAL NAME: Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, Vol.5 No.5, September 18, 2015

  ABSTRACT: For over three decades now, research on undergraduate student pedagogy has shifted focus from an error analysis tradition to an emphasis on learner needs. As part of this shift, we examined the needs of students who offered Communicative Skills in an English-medium university in Ghana, and whether their needs were discipline-specific. Data were collected from two hundred and forty students and twenty lecturers, using a two-pronged sampling method. Major results showed a great need for grammar and writing skills among students, though they held that note taking and note making skills, outlining and skimming be expunged from the programme. The study also indicated that although teachers of Communicative Skills preferred a variationist approach, the reverse was the case among their students. Surprisingly, while students desired to be exposed to modern skills such as CV and Proposal writing, their instructors, on the other hand, were of the view that paragraph and essay development were not so useful. The study, thus, resonates with proclivities for further interventionist methods, specialist instructor (re)training and future research in undergraduate student writing.