We’re Jim Altschuld, Sonya Hung, and Yi-Fang Lee from The Ohio State University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and National Taiwan Normal University, respectively. We are sharing our observations from being involved in assessing needs for over 50 collective years in regard to conducting more meaningful Needs Assessments.
Surveys with “what is” and “what should be” scales are commonly used for collecting data to assess needs. While they are relatively easy to use to collect data from various stakeholder groups to produce meaningful results, there are challenges. Below are two straightforward ways to enhance them so that the results obtained would thus be more meaningful. Let us elaborate.
Lessons Learned
Subgroup perspectives. In many situations there would be greater understandings of needs by illuminating the perspectives that subgroups have of them rather than solely relying on overall summarized results. In education for example, this means that data would be separated by teachers, administrators, students, parents, the general public, etc. to see if they are similar or disparate. The same thinking would apply to needs assessments related to health, societal problems, and others.
Follow-up procedures. Then, if they differ, why is that the case. Valuable information could be gained by simple follow-up procedures such as interviews, small group sessions, or surveys. Why did they differ? What reasoning underlies the difference? Surely knowledge about the issue would be more in-depth and more meaningful resolution strategies would be considered. Without follow-up information, needs assessors could only speculate about what is causing the difference. They would be guessing as to why unique constituencies think as they do and should provide insight into what is underlying their thought process. This is a little more work for needs assessors, but it seems that the increase in knowledge should be worth the effort.
Just doing the two simple things above could obtain unexpected, more insightful information that might lead to a different story of needs than not doing so.
Other Considerations
In 2022, we published an article in AJE where we raised questions about the quality of data from double scaled instruments. Should they be based upon discrepancies from what is and what should be? Are there other ways to view discrepancies and to structure how information is collected? Are there better options than the common Likert type response choices for recipients? Have needs assessors explained what went into their decisions about what is being asked of survey respondents? In many needs assessments we did not see much of a rationale related to such concerns.
We offered what we thought were alternatives for conducting needs assessments. We don’t know if our views are correct or even reasonable. That is not the argument. What we argue, is that we should be more explicit about what we do and why we do it. That is imperative for the professional practice of needs assessment.
Rad Resource
The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Needs Assessment (NA) TIG Week with our colleagues in the NA AEA Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our NA TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.