Mastering the Instructional Design Process

Chapter TwoConducting a Needs Assessment

In this chapter, we define terms associated with needs assessment, describe how to distinguish between a learning and a performance problem, describe essential steps in developing needs assessment plans, review typical problems likely to arise during needs assessment, suggest ways of overcoming these problems, explain how to identify instructional and noninstructional problems based on needs assessment results, identify approaches to estimating costs and benefits of possible solutions, describe the preparation and dissemination of a needs assessment report, provide a simple case study highlighting important issues in needs assessment, offer advice on judging and justifying needs assessment, address ...