Evaluation and integration of available software tools for developing computer-aided writing workbench for young executives

Abstract

As far as writing workbench is concerned, software that caters for the writing needs of local young executives is yet to be developed. While the available software aims to assist native speakers of English with their writing, attempts to find out the needs and requirements of the local executives may be challenging. To this extent, we have yet to find a local study that involves local executives, but to no avail. Thus, the process of determining the local writing requirements is difficult due to limited studies in this area since no comparison with other local studies is possible. The above motivation lends to the objectives of the research which are as follows: (a) to determine the writing needs and requirement of young executives, (b) to evaluate and catalogue available software tools for writing, (c) to develop and customize some of the software tools, and (to) design, develop and evaluate a Computer-Aided Writing Workbench for Young Executives (CAWWYE). The research will attempt to answer the following questions: (a) What are the writing needs and requirements of young executives in education and training, and business sectors? (b) How suitable are the available software tools for writing purposes in these two sectors? (c) What are the strengths and weaknesses of these software tools? (d) What are the software requirements to design and develop CAWWYE? The theoretical framework is based on genre theory (Bhatia, 1993; Swales 1990), Krashen's Input Hypothesis (Krashen, 1981), and constructivism (Vygotsky, 1962). The methodology consists of several steps. The first step is to review literature in this area. The second step consists of two tasks. First, we need to search, use, catalogue and evaluate available software tools. Second, we need to study the writing needs and requirement of young executives working in education and training, and business sectors (e.g. hospitality services, multinational business companies). This is carried out by conducting a questionnaire survey, interviewing key personnel, collecting writing samples, and observing personnel using the computer and available software (if they do) at respective workplace. For the questionnaire survey, the following research design will be implemented: Sample for questionnaire - 250 purposive sampling (50 from education and training, 100 from hospitality services and another 100 from financial institutions). Sample for interview consists of 10 expert informants from each sector. The research sites selected are training centers, hotels and banks in Klang Valley. Research instruments consist of questionnaire and interview protocol of key personnel. Data analysis will consist of descriptive and inferential statistics for questionnaire, emerging themes and patterns for interview analysis and document analysis of writing samples that have been prepared by these young executives. The third step involves selecting suitable software tools. Some of the required software tools are already available. However, some of these software tools may need to be developed. Based on the selection of software tools, the next step is to design, develop and integrate them into a Computer-Aided Writing Workbench for end?? users i.e. the young executives. The last step is to evaluate the prototype. In evaluating the prototype, we intend to request the young executives in training centers, hospitality services and multinational companies to use the prototype during the trial period and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the prototype. The prototype will be refined based on feedback of these executives during the trial period.