Introduction

Instructional designers can be assigned to projects at various stages. They may be assigned to work with a faculty member and provide support on an individual class activity or assist with transferring a face-to-face course to an online environment. Other times, they may be involved in a larger scale project that impact a number of courses being offered within an academic program or department.

Regardless of when instructional designers are integrated into a program, the focal point of their work never changes. The learner is the center of everything that they do. To address the needs of their learners and advocate for them accordingly, it is important to ensure that appropriate and sufficient information has been gathered that can inform their instructional design process. This can be accomplished through conducting a needs assessment.

Purpose of a Needs Assessment

The purpose of a needs assessment is to determine the current state of performance and the desired state of performance (Altschuld & Kumar, 2010). The difference between the current and desired states is where the need lies. While the process of conducting a needs assessment can be very cumbersome and time-consuming, many steps can be scalable to meet the demands of instructional design projects in higher education settings. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the process of needs assessment and resources to support instructional designers in gathering the necessary information they need to do their jobs.

When conducting a needs assessment, it is important to gather sufficient data to understand the situation warranting instructional solutions. While a needs assessment identifies an existing gap in performance (or an area for improvement), the purpose of needs analysis is to determine what is contributing to the gap in performance and/or problem being addressed. Understanding what factors are supporting or inhibiting a situation can help the instructional designer identify sustainable solutions that will hopefully eradicate the existing gap in performance.

Overview of Needs Assessment Process

Most needs assessments consist of five steps: identification of a problem, identification of data sources, data collection, data analysis, and recommendations. Each of these steps can be scaled to meet the size of a project an instructional designer in higher education may be working on, as well as the time limitations associated with those projects. Table 1 provides an overview of how an instructional designer may address each of these steps during a needs assessment as depicted by Stefaniak (2021).

Table 1.

Overview of Needs Assessment Process

It is very rare that an instructional designer working in higher education will have the authority to make decisions for an entire design project. These projects often involve collaborating with faculty. Administrators and senior leadership may also be involved in large-scale projects involving the development of new programs or changes to organization infrastructure. Regardless of who may be involved in a project, it is important that every needs assessment project includes individuals who know about the issue, care about the issue, and can help implement any changes that occur as a result of the project (Cavanaugh & Chadwick, 2005).

Asking Questions

An overarching goal of any needs assessment is to identify performance gaps and opportunities for improvement. To make recommendations that can be sustained over an extended period of time, it is important that the instructional designer understands what is causing or contributing to the current state of affairs. By determining what factors are contributing to the current situation, the instructional designer can work with others involved in the project to design and implement solutions directly addressing any gaps in performance.

A common misconception that a lot of instructional designers have about needs assessments is that they take a long time to complete. While larger projects will most likely take weeks or months to complete, other needs assessments can be scaled to be completed quickly. There are lots of ways that needs assessments can be conducted rapidly in a matter of a few meetings or days depending on the project.

Conducting a learner analysis at the beginning of a semester is considered a needs assessment activity. Most of the time, instructional design activities that are presented with the ADDIE framework are limited to focusing on learner analyses (Stefaniak & Sentz, 2020). It is important that instructional designers expand beyond the learner analysis to better understand contextual factors impacting the organizational environment.

This can be accomplished by asking questions regarding resourcing, personnel, and plans for sustainability (see Figure 1). It is most beneficial to the instructional designer to ask as many questions as possible during a needs assessment to ascertain a detailed account of the environment. For purposes of needs assessments conducted in higher education, the environment could be considered the classroom, an academic program within a department, a department, a college, or the university as a whole.

Figure 1.

Factors influencing instructional design decisions

Table 2 provides examples of the various types of questions an instructional design may want to consider asking while working on a needs assessment.

Table 2.

Examples of Questions to Ask During a Needs Assessment

When working as an instructional designer in higher education, it is important to gather enough information to inform what types of non-instructional solutions may be needed to support instructional efforts. Table 3 provides an overview of how an instructional designer may address each of these steps during a needs assessment as depicted by Stefaniak (2021). It provides a sample list of questions an instructional designer may consider when collecting information for projects warranting instructional solutions.

Table 3.

Example of Project Intake Form

Determining Appropriate Data Sources

Once an instructional designer begins identifying questions that will help inform their team in designing appropriate solutions (instructional and non-instructional), it is important to gather data from multiple sources that inform the instructional designer of the current and desired state of affairs and help them approach their design work. Table 4 provides examples of data sources an instructional designer may consider when gathering information.

Table 4.

Data Sources an Instructional Designer May Gather During a Needs Assessment in Higher Education

Suggested Tips When Conducting a Needs Assessment

Regardless of the project that an instructional designer may be assigned to in higher education, the following suggestions should be taken into consideration while planning:

1. Identify appropriate people. Be sure to identify individuals within your organization who are familiar with the project, care about the project, and have the ability and authority to implement any changes that may result from the needs assessment.
2. Develop intake forms for projects. A large majority of instructional design support units at higher education institutions require faculty who are requesting support to fill out a form providing an overview of the project. Intake forms help to ensure that everyone involved with the project has a shared understanding of what the project entails, timelines, and resources needed.
3. Ask WHY! When gathering data sources and asking questions, do not be afraid to ask WHY? When conducting a needs assessment, asking follow-up questions to help understand why a situation is occurring or what is causing a problem in the organization helps the instructional designer mitigate uncertainty.
4. Align Needs Assessment Activities with Given Project Constraints. Every project comes with constraints. It is okay to scale your needs assessment activities based upon the time constraints or resources associated with a project. A needs assessment that an instructional designer may conduct while assisting a faculty member with modifying an existing course will look much different in comparison to supporting a department who wishes to develop a new online degree program.

References

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Altschuld, J.W., & Kumar, D.D. (2010). Needs assessment: An overview. SAGE.

Babcock, A., Lehan, T., & Hussey, H. D. (2019). Mind the gaps: An online learning center's needs assessment. Learning Assistance Review, 24(1), 27-58.

Bolliger, D. U., & Wasilik, O. (2009). Factors influencing faculty satisfaction with online teaching and learning in higher education. Distance education, 30(1), 103-116.

Cavanagh, S., & Chadwick, K. (2005). Health needs assessment: A practice guide. Health Development Agency.

Kaufman, R. & Guerra-Lopez, I. (2013). Needs assessment for organizational success. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.

Lewis, K. O., Baker, R. C., & Britigan, D. H. (2011). Current practices and needs assessment of instructors in an online masters degree in education for healthcare professionals: A first step to the development of quality standards. Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 10(1), 49-61.

Stefaniak, J. (2021). Determining environmental and contextual needs. In J.K. McDonald & R.E. West (Eds.), Design for learning: principles, processes, and praxis. EdTech Books. https://edtechbooks.org/-KjB

Stefaniak, J. (2021). Needs assessment for learning and performance: Theory, process, and practice. Routledge.

Stefaniak, J., & Sentz, J. (2020). The role of needs assessment to validate contextual factors related to user experience design practices. In M. Schmidt, A.A. Tawfik, I. Jahnke, & Y. Earnshaw (Eds.), Learner and User Experience Research: An Introduction for the Field of Learning Design & Technology. EdTech Books. https://edtechbooks.org/-IZHa

Svihla, V. (2020). Problem framing. In J.K. McDonald & R.E. West (Eds.), Design for learning: principles, processes, and praxis. EdTech Books. https://edtechbooks.org/-VTiX

Vafa, S., & Chico, D. E. (2013). A needs assessment for mobile technology use in medical education. International Journal of Medical Education, 4, 230-235. https://doi.org/10.5116/ijme.5259.4a88