A development of an e-learning competency-based English course module for chief flight attendants

Abstract

The study was a descriptive and experimental research aiming at developing an e-Learning competency-based English course for chief flight attendants. The objective of the study were as follows : 1) to investigate the English language needs of chief flight attendants to enable them to work effectively 2) to develop an e-Learning competency-based English course module for chief flight attendants 3) to evaluate the effectiveness of the developed course module and lastly 4) to examine the opinions of the chief flight attendants toward the developed course module. The study consists of two phases: course development and course evaluation. First, needs analysis was conducted using a technique of interviewing 35 key informants, a questionnaire survey with 266 chief flight attendants, and site observations on 9 different flights to expose to the competencies needed. The results disclosed the five competencies needed at the workplace which become the objectives of the developed course. The e-Learning course module was validated by experts and was piloted with a group of learners having the similar characteristics as the subjects in the main study. The course evaluation was conducted by means of both quantitative and qualitative data. The instruments for the experiment were oral/speaking pretest and posttest and the end-of-course evaluation form. The instrument for collecting qualitative data was the end-of-course semi-structured interviews. The main findings for the study revealed that the mean scores of the posttest of the participants were significant higher than those of the pretest scores. The overall participants had positive opinions toward the course.