• Sultan Hamed Hilal Al Ghafri

  Author

The overall aim of this study is to analyze the writing needs of students in the Colleges
of Technology (CTs) in Oman. Within this broad perception, the study endeavored finding out to
what extent the Technical Writing (TW) course materials meet the TW course features and the
students writing needs. It also assessed the students’ writing needs in the CTs in Oman to
investigate the gap between the current practice and the best practice. Five groups of
participants were approached for the purpose of data collection; students, technical writing
teachers, technical departments’ lecturers, CTs graduates and employers. The students writing
needs were analyzed by means of questionnaires, interviews and genre analysis. Data was
analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The triangulation of sources of information and
instruments helped in obtaining a more tangible picture of the students’ actual writing needs.
The study revealed a level of mismatch between the TW course content, delivery and assessment
and the students’ actual writing needs and the TW theory. Almost all the participants agreed on
the importance of making a change in the TW course to suit the students’ writing needs. The
findings of the study provided recommendations to improve teaching practice of the TW course
in the CTs in Oman at the levels of the TW course content, delivery and assessment based on the
conducted needs analysis (NA).

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