Needs Assessment - Application

Application

Depending on the scope of the project a needs assessment can be a costly and labor intensive project. A general twelve step process might entail the following:

  1. Confirm the issue and audiences
  2. Establish the planning team
  3. Establish the goals and objectives
  4. Characterize the audience
  5. Conduct information and literature search
  6. Select data collection methods
  7. Determine the sampling scheme
  8. Design and pilot the collection instrument
  9. Gather and report data
  10. Analyze data
  11. Manage data
  12. Synthesize data and create report

In the past 50 years, it has been an essential element of educational planning. Over the past four decades, there has been a proliferation of models for needs assessment with dozens of models to choose from. This is also the same basic process used in business under the term "market research". That is the process used to determine customer needs and wants for products and services. Other terms used somewhat interchangeably to describe this process include needs analysis, market analysis, front end analysis, and discrepancy analysis.

Read more about this topic:  Needs Assessment

Famous quotes containing the word application:

    “There are very few things impossible in themselves; and we do not want means to conquer difficulties so much as application and resolution in the use of means.”
    —François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)

    “If you would be a favourite of your king, address yourself to his weaknesses. An application to his reason will seldom prove very successful.”
    —Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

    “It is known that Whistler when asked how long it took him to paint one of his “nocturnes” answered: “All of my life.” With the same rigor he could have said that all of the centuries that preceded the moment when he painted were necessary. From that correct application of the law of causality it follows that the slightest event presupposes the inconceivable universe and, conversely, that the universe needs even the slightest of events.”
    —Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)