Need Analysis

Output description:

Need analysis overview

O1 Research summary and conclusions.

Having in mind priorities of supporting the production and adaptation of Open Educational Resources in diverse European languages and contributing to the modernisation of Europe´s Higher Education systems as outlined in the 2011 EU Modernisation Agenda and in order to meet this challenging situation, partners closely related to Higher Education from different European countries decided to implement research to verify the state-of-the art for students and healthcare professionals.

Before the research took place, language training departments of Higher Education centres identified in a general way the lack of adequate training material to satisfy demands of students and professional from the area of healthcare, not only in the field of English language but also in the field of related intercultural competences.

For deeper analysis and to prepare sound decisions for the design of the HELP learning programme the European partnership prepared two surveys: Survey for students and healthcare professionals and Survey for teachers carried out with SurveyMoz. The questionnaires to provide public, reusable, transferable and modifiable material for third parties to guarantee the impact in the sphere of Higher Education and other interested parties are available here: for professionals and students and teachers. The chosen questionnaire design allows to reuse and transfer of the analyse tools to easily assess the state-of-art concerning medical education in any other healthcare Higher Education organisation as well as to detect in an efficient way gaps and needs for improvement related to media, content and didactical approach. 

 The objective of this intellectual output is to present the results and on the other hand to provide guidelines and tools that other Higher Education institutions could use in order to collect relevant information for the further development of Higher Education syllabus and learning settings in the area of Medical English. The provided tools can be easily adapted to other specific situations. Another aim of O1 – Research was to disseminate information about the HELP project among Higher Education institutions, professionals with connection to the field of healthcare, other interested parties and general public, to attract their attention to the issues tackled in the project and to the possible solutions.

Data was gathered based on desk and field research, on questionnaires and structured interviews. The questionnaires are available here: for professionals and students and teachers. All target sectors were included – hospital and senior care, medical tourism. Competences needs assessment will focus on practical linguistic and intercultural needs but might include also general communication and cooperation skills. Partners collected the data and prepared them for national reports to send to all partners. The output leader structured and presented results in a overview and an O1 Research summary and conclusions.

This report is public but not designed for publication as it is considered as an interim product for the partners to use for further work. Nevertheless, parts of it that are interesting for a wider audience – good practise and also gaps in foreign language and intercultural competences can be condensed and presented to the professionally interested audience, stake holders and associated partners. Partners will decide this for sections that are interesting for their national audience.