A Stakeholder-based Evaluation of Engineering ESP Courses’ Effectiveness

Abstract Investigating stakeholders’ perception about course success has been signified as a useful method for program evaluation. This study focused on evaluating English for Specific Purposes (ESP) programs in engineering departments at Iranian state universities through examining the view of stakeholders. Engineering students (N=100) and ESP practitioners (N=8) participated in interviews and non-participant observations were carried out to achieve a better insight into the actual learning and teaching contexts. Responses showed that some obstacles such as 1) low GE proficiency of students and heterogeneous classes, 2) limited time, 3) ministry decision for making the course elective, 4) students’ low motivation, 5) teachers’ low motivation, 6) inappropriate materials and teaching methods hindered course usefulness and effectiveness from the perspective of the participants. The findings urged the importance of comprehensive needs analysis to resolve the controversies among stakeholders about course objective and contents and to eliminate the mismatches between course objectives and students’ expectations.