BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN THE STUDENTS AND GRADUATES’ PERSPECTIVES ON THE LEARNERS' NEEDS TO PREPARE THE ENGLISH COURSE MATERIALS

Abstract

The aim of this study was to identify the gap between the students and graduates’ perspectives on the learners’ needs in order to prepare the English course materials. This study investigated their perspectives which focused on the learners’ needs in relation to the language skills (LS) and language content areas (LCA) that should be learned in classes. This research adopted a quantitative method to investigate the learners’ needs. This research also used t-test analysis of Levenes Test for Equality of Variances for determining the gap of perspectives between them. The samples of the study consisted of 30 Computer Engineering students from the 3rd and 5th semester and 10 graduates who have been working at Telkom Akses Company for 2 years or more. The results showed that the significance value for LS and LCA were 0.04 and 0.07. It showed that the two variances were not equal. Therefore, the use of variance to compare the average population (t-test for Equality of Means) in the t-test, should use the equal variance not assumed based. At the equal variance not assumed based, it was obtained that the t value for LS was 2,379 and a significance level of p = 0,039. For LCA, the t value was 3,561 and a significance level of p = 0,001. The results showed that p < 0.05. It meant that there were significant differences in terms of the LS and LCA between the Computer Engineering students and graduates’ perspectives. The level of LS and LCA between them were also fundamentally different.