Assessing Needs in Continuing Education

Book excerpt: In order to develop effective education programs for adult learners, it is necessary first to determine what the needs of those learners are. In this book, Donna S. Queeney offers step-by-step guidance on using needs assessment to design high-quality programs in continuing education settings. She identifies the factors to be considered in planning and conducting a needs assessment, such as the educational setting and characteristics of learners, and she tells how to determine the scope, target population, and level of complexity for an assessment.Queeney details specific needs assessment methods—such as self-reporting of needs and supervisor evaluations—that can be implemented with minimal experience and resources. She explains how to design surveys, questionnaires, and interviews that will motivate people to respond. And she describes how to integrate needs assessment into an organization to make it an ongoing asset to operations.