Dental Health Students’ Oral Communication Needs: Informing an AI-Supported Theme-Based English E-Book
Keywords:
oral communication practice, English for specific purposes, theme-based instruction, AI-supported learningAbstract
This study investigated dental health students’ oral communication needs to inform the prospective development of an AI-supported, theme-based English e-book. Situated within the Analysis phase of the ADDIE instructional design framework, the needs analysis drew on questionnaire responses from 60 students, semi-structured interviews with eight students, and analysis of existing course documents. Descriptive statistics summarized reported difficulties, learning-material relevance, preferred activities, and perceptions of AI-supported practice; qualitative themes were compared with survey patterns and document evidence. Fear of making mistakes (80%) and low confidence (76.7%) emerged as prominent concerns, while 96.7% reported a need for dental-specific vocabulary. Role-play (83.3%) was the mosHt frequently preferred speaking activity. Interviews and document analysis further suggested a mismatch between general-language materials and anticipated dental communication tasks. These findings identify priorities for a proposed e-book combining discipline-specific themes, scaffolded dialogue, role-play, and optional voice-based AI rehearsal. The study did not design, develop, implement, or evaluate the proposed e-book; therefore, the findings support instructional planning rather than claims of product effectiveness.
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