SURAJWARAN A/L MANGALESWARAN, AZLINA ABDUL AZIZ, HANITA HANIM ISMAIL
DOI: https://doi.org/This paper presents the crucial first stage—the Needs Analysis (NA)—of a larger Design and Development Research (DDR) project. The goal of this analysis was to clearly identify the challenges faced by secondary school students in learning English speaking and to determine the requirements for a new instructional tool. Despite national efforts to improve digital literacy in education, many English as a Second Language (ESL) students in semi-rural areas, such as the Maran district, still report low speaking proficiency and struggle with confidence. This situation calls for a targeted digital resource. Using a mixed-methods approach based on the Hutchinson and Waters (1987) NA model, data was gathered through a questionnaire survey (N=320 Form Four students) and interviews (N=4 English teachers). We assessed four constructs: Problems, Necessity, Wants, and Learning Content Needs. The findings showed that students experience a high level of difficulty in speaking, with an overall mean score of M=4.385 (SD=0.955) for the Problems construct. Correspondingly, students expressed an equally high demand for support, particularly for specific resource features (Learning Content Needs M=4.310, SD=1.077). Teacher feedback confirmed that anxiety and L1 interference were major factors. These empirical results successfully address Research Objective 1 by confirming a significant learning gap and providing the essential, data-driven specifications for designing the subsequent Web-Based Learning Resource (WBLR).
