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A needs assessment is a systematic process for determining and addressing needs, or "gaps", between current conditions, and desired conditions, or "wants". [1]
Needs assessments can help improve policy or program decisions, individuals, education, training, organizations, communities, or products. [2]
There are three types of need in a needs assessment: perceived need, expressed need and relative need.
Considered the "father of needs assessment", Roger Kaufman developed a model for determining needs defined as a gap in results. [4] Kaufman argued that an actual need can only be identified independent of a proposed solution. According to Kaufman, to conduct a good-quality needs assessment, determine the current results and articulate the desired results; the distance between results is the actual need. Once a need is identified, then a solution can be selected. [5] [6] [7]
Extensive research uses a large number of cases to determine the characteristics of a population, while intensive research examines one or a few cases in depth. [8]
Once the group has identified needs, they then generally turn to intensive needs assessment in order to rank the needs. This part of the research is concerned with examining the depth of the need, and potentially required resources.
A needs chain model is a framework that allows organizations to simultaneously consider the individuals' needs within an organization, and the organization's needs, in order to prioritise resources and identify areas of improvement for the organization. [9]
A needs chain model is composed of aligned horizontal and vertical processes. The horizontal needs are:
Also, it has four vertical factors:
Training needs assessment is an inquiry of training needs within an organization. [12]
There are three levels of training needs assessment:
A community needs assessment [13] can be broadly categorized into three types based on their respective starting points. First, needs assessments which aim to discover weaknesses within the community and create a solution. Second, needs assessments which are structured around, and seek to address a problem facing the community. Third, needs assessments of an organization which serves the community (domestic violence centers, community health clinics, etc.).
Consumer leadership assessment is an assessment of the frequency with which community members use or are likely to use an existing or planned service. [14]
Burke (2005) examined statistics that showed a need within the community of Bayview Hunters Point in order to "identify gaps in service delivery system to create a road map for improving neighborhood conditions by rationalizing the allocation of city dollars to social service programs". [15]
Industrial and organizational psychology "focuses the lens of psychological science on a key aspect of human life, namely, their work lives. In general, the goals of I-O psychology are to better understand and optimize the effectiveness, health, and well-being of both individuals and organizations." It is an applied discipline within psychology and is an international profession. I-O psychology is also known as occupational psychology in the United Kingdom, organisational psychology in Australia and New Zealand, and work and organizational (WO) psychology throughout Europe and Brazil. Industrial, work, and organizational (IWO) psychology is the broader, more global term for the science and profession.
A performance appraisal, also referred to as a performance review, performance evaluation, (career) development discussion, or employee appraisal, sometimes shortened to "PA", is a periodic and systematic process whereby the job performance of an employee is documented and evaluated. This is done after employees are trained about work and settle into their jobs. Performance appraisals are a part of career development and consist of regular reviews of employee performance within organizations.
360-degree feedback is a process through which feedback from an employee's subordinates, peers, colleagues, and supervisor(s), as well as a self-evaluation by the employee themselves is gathered. Such feedback can also include, when relevant, feedback from external sources who interact with the employee, such as customers and suppliers or other interested stakeholders. 360-degree feedback is so named because it solicits feedback regarding an employee's behavior from a variety of points of view. It therefore may be contrasted with "downward feedback", or "upward feedback" delivered to supervisory or management employees by subordinates only.
Educational assessment or educational evaluation is the systematic process of documenting and using empirical data on the knowledge, skill, attitudes, aptitude and beliefs to refine programs and improve student learning. Assessment data can be obtained by examining student work directly to assess the achievement of learning outcomes or it is based on data from which one can make inferences about learning. Assessment is often used interchangeably with test but is not limited to tests. Assessment can focus on the individual learner, the learning community, a course, an academic program, the institution, or the educational system as a whole. The word "assessment" came into use in an educational context after the Second World War.
Program evaluation is a systematic method for collecting, analyzing, and using information to answer questions about projects, policies and programs, particularly about their effectiveness and efficiency.
Andragogy refers to methods and principles used in adult education. The word comes from the Greek ἀνδρ- (andr-), meaning "adult male", and ἀγωγός (agogos), meaning "leader of". Therefore, andragogy literally means "leading men ", whereas "pedagogy" literally means "leading children".
School social work is a specialized area of social work concerned with the psychosocial functioning of students to promote and maintain their health and well-being while assisting students to access their academic potential. The School Social Work Association of America defines school social workers as "trained mental health professionals who can assist with mental health concerns, behavioral concerns, positive behavioral support, academic, and classroom support, consultation with teachers, parents, and administrators as well as provide individual and group counseling/therapy."
Job analysis is a family of procedures to identify the content of a job in terms of the activities it involves in addition to the attributes or requirements necessary to perform those activities. Job analysis provides information to organizations that helps them determine which employees are best fit for specific jobs.
An Individualized Education Program (IEP) is a legal document under United States law that is developed for each public school child in the U.S. who needs special education. It is created through a team of the child's parent(s), the student and district personnel who are knowledgeable about the child's needs. IEPs must be reviewed every year to keep track of the child's educational progress.
Organizational effectiveness is a concept organizations use to gauge how effective they are at reaching intended outcomes. Organizational effectiveness is both a powerful and problematic term. The strength of it is that it may be used to critically evaluate and improve organisational activities. It's problematic since it means various things to different individuals. And there are other alternative methods for measuring organizational performance. Organizational effectiveness embodies the degree to which firms achieve the goals they have decided upon, a question that draws on several different factors. Among those are talent management, leadership development, organization design and structure, design of measurements and scorecards, implementation of change and transformation, deploying smart processes and smart technology to manage the firm's human capital and the formulation of the broader Human Resources agenda.
Seymour Bernard Sarason was Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Yale University, where he taught from 1945 to 1989. He is the author of over forty books and over sixty articles, and he is considered to be one of the most significant American researchers in education, educational psychology, and community psychology. One primary focus of his work was on education reform in the United States. In the 1950s he and George Mandler initiated the research on test anxiety. He founded the Yale Psycho-Educational Clinic in 1961 and was one of the principal leaders in the community psychology movement. In 1974, he proposed psychological sense of community, a central concept in community psychology. Since then, sense of community has become a well-known and commonly used term both in academic and non-academic settings.
Donald L. Kirkpatrick was Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin in the United States and a past president of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD). He is best known for creating a highly influential 'four level' model for training course evaluation, which served as the subject of his Ph.D. dissertation in 1954. Kirkpatrick's ideas were published to a broader audience in 1959 in a series of articles in the US Training and Development Journal, but they are better known from a book he published in 1994 entitled Evaluating Training Programs. Other books that he has written on training evaluation include Transferring Learning to Behavior and Implementing the Four Levels. His work is carried on by his eldest son, Dr. Jim Kirkpatrick, and Wendy Kayser Kirkpatrick, and Vanessa Alzate.
Human performance technology (HPT), also known as human performance improvement (HPI), or human performance assessment (HPA), is a field of study related to process improvement methodologies such as organization development, motivation, instructional technology, human factors, learning, performance support systems, knowledge management, and training. It is focused on improving performance at the societal, organizational, process, and individual performer levels.
Training and development involve improving the effectiveness of organizations and the individuals and teams within them. Training may be viewed as related to immediate changes in organizational effectiveness via organized instruction, while development is related to the progress of longer-term organizational and employee goals. While training and development technically have differing definitions, the two are oftentimes used interchangeably and/or together. Training and development have historically been topics within adult education and applied psychology but have within the last two decades become closely associated with human resources management, talent management, human resources development, instructional design, human factors, and knowledge management.
The American Evaluation Association (AEA) is a professional association for evaluators and those with a professional interest in the field of evaluation, including practitioners, faculty, students, funders, managers, and government decision-makers. As of 2014, AEA has approximately 7057 members from all 50 US states and over 60 other countries.
Roger Kaufman was an American figure in the history of educational technology and performance improvement, as well as in strategic thinking and planning for public and private-sector organizations. Regarded as one of the founding figures of the field, he is referred to as the father of needs assessment.
Differentiated instruction and assessment, also known as differentiated learning or, in education, simply, differentiation, is a framework or philosophy for effective teaching that involves providing all students within their diverse classroom community of learners a range of different avenues for understanding new information in terms of: acquiring content; processing, constructing, or making sense of ideas; and developing teaching materials and assessment measures so that all students within a classroom can learn effectively, regardless of differences in their ability. Differentiated instruction means using different tools, content, and due process in order to successfully reach all individuals. Differentiated instruction, according to Carol Ann Tomlinson, is the process of "ensuring that what a student learns, how he or she learns it, and how the student demonstrates what he or she has learned is a match for that student's readiness level, interests, and preferred mode of learning." According to Boelens et al. (2018), differentiation can be on two different levels: the administration level and the classroom level. The administration level takes the socioeconomic status and gender of students into consideration. At the classroom level, differentiation revolves around content, processing, product, and effects. On the content level, teachers adapt what they are teaching to meet the needs of students. This can mean making content more challenging or simplified for students based on their levels. The process of learning can be differentiated as well. Teachers may choose to teach individually at a time, assign problems to small groups, partners or the whole group depending on the needs of the students. By differentiating product, teachers decide how students will present what they have learned. This may take the form of videos, graphic organizers, photo presentations, writing, and oral presentations. All these take place in a safe classroom environment where students feel respected and valued—effects.
The PRECEDE–PROCEED model is a cost–benefit evaluation framework proposed in 1974 by Lawrence W. Green that can help health program planners, policy makers and other evaluators, analyze situations and design health programs efficiently. It provides a comprehensive structure for assessing health and quality of life needs, and for designing, implementing and evaluating health promotion and other public health programs to meet those needs. One purpose and guiding principle of the PRECEDE–PROCEED model is to direct initial attention to outcomes, rather than inputs. It guides planners through a process that starts with desired outcomes and then works backwards in the causal chain to identify a mix of strategies for achieving those objectives. A fundamental assumption of the model is the active participation of its intended audience — that is, that the participants ("consumers") will take an active part in defining their own problems, establishing their goals and developing their solutions.
Empowerment evaluation (EE) is an evaluation approach designed to help communities monitor and evaluate their own performance. It is used in comprehensive community initiatives as well as small-scale settings and is designed to help groups accomplish their goals. According to David Fetterman, "Empowerment evaluation is the use of evaluation concepts, techniques, and findings to foster improvement and self-determination". An expanded definition is: "Empowerment evaluation is an evaluation approach that aims to increase the likelihood that programs will achieve results by increasing the capacity of program stakeholders to plan, implement, and evaluate their own programs."
Data-driven instruction is an educational approach that relies on information to inform teaching and learning. The idea refers to a method teachers use to improve instruction by looking at the information they have about their students. It takes place within the classroom, compared to data-driven decision making. Data-driven instruction works on two levels. One, it provides teachers the ability to be more responsive to students’ needs, and two, it allows students to be in charge of their own learning. Data-driven instruction can be understood through examination of its history, how it is used in the classroom, its attributes, and examples from teachers using this process.
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