Lecture 4 - Needs Assessment

Needs assessment is essential to recognise existing learning problems and is an important step under e-learning design. There are three kinds of situations when need assessment is needed: 1) There is a problem with existing instruction; 2) There is something new that learners will need to learn; 3) There is no problem but an evaluation of existing instruction is desired.

The 3 Faces of Needs Assessment

I think that needs assessment is very useful in the analysis stage of learning design. Before the development of any solution, it is definitely important to first identify the problem. The 3 faces of need assessment model is comprehensive in covering the possible situations in which an analysis is required.

If there is a problem in existing instruction, we apply the discrepancy model to track the gap between goals and actual performance. Thereafter, we come up with new objectives to develop new instruction that will compensate for what was lacking in the previous instruction.

If there is a new subject that requires learning, the innovation model will guide the process towards developing a new form of instruction. However in the innovation model, learning goals and objectives are relatively new and untested in comparison to those created in the discrepancy model. Hence, these new goals and objectives created from the innovation model should be subjected to futher evaluation under the discrepancy model.

On the whole, the needs assessment model is a simplistic and straightforward way to identify the immediate problem. However just like any other theoretical models, it may not be sufficient to cover all complexies in real life.