Alternate models of needs assessment: Selecting the right one for your organization

Abstract

Needs assessment seems intuitively attractive to planners. Virtually all authors recommend that needs assessment be the first step in any organizational or human resource development intervention. Planners sensibly recognize the importance of building a foundation grounded in data-based needs, and see data produced by needs assessment as justifying organizational planning and accountability. They also see the usefulness of needs assessments for obtaining and allocating resources for projects. In their best use, needs assessments ensure that resources (Inputs) and methods (Processes) deliver useful results, that their value-added can be demonstrated. Unfortunately, the wide and varied usage of the term need often spurs heated discussions that can hinder the usefulness of so-called needs assessments. Unfortunately, just about any approach to finding direction gets called needs assessment, thus leaving in question what the technique really includes and what it can do and deliver.In the past three decades, dozens of models for needs assessment have been suggested and implemented with varying success (Watkins, Leigh, Platt, and Kaufman, 1998). The proliferation of models, however, has also been accompanied by conflicting usage of key terminology by proponents of the differing models. Due to this ambiguity, needs assessment can now mean, in the popular lexicon, nearly anything for both theorists and practitioners alike. It is perhaps a bit like Alice at the Mad Hatter' s tea party, where "words mean anything I want them to, nothing more and nothing less." So that the models we provide here can be considered from a common perspective, we offer a precise and holistic definition of need and needs assessment:Needs assessment is the formal process of identifying needs as gaps between current and desired results, placing those needs in priority order based on

From Felt Need to Actual Need: A Multi-method Multi-sample Approach to Needs Assessment

“…This meant identifying the skills that would provide the largest payback per developmental dollar. This is consistent with the assertion of Leigh et al (2000) that needs assessments must do more than just identify the performance gaps. The assessment must also prioritize the needs, so that each development dollar is invested wisely.…”

“…It identifies those managerial behaviors that will benefit most from a training or non-training performance improvement solution (Sleezer, 1992). A great deal has been written about the importance of conducting managerial development needs assessment before deciding on a specific developmental solution (Berger, 1993;Leigh, Watkins, Platt, & Kaufman, 2000;Moore & Dutton, 1978;Wexley & Latham, 1981;Mitchell, 1984;Smith, Delahaye, & Gates, 1986). Graham and Mihal (1986) argue that a needs assessment is one of the fundamental prerequisites to an effective managerial develop-ment solution whether the solution is a training effort or a non-training intervention.…”

Competency-based Training Needs Assessment Model

“…In this regard, a number of studies have emphasized the three-step model of TNA, namely the Organizational, Job and Person (OJP) Analysis (Goldstein et al, 1991;Leigh et al, 2000;McGhee and Thayer, 1961;Rummler and Brache, 1995;Taylor, O'Driscoll and Binning, 1998). The OJP model considers an integration of the analysis at all these levels which would be supported adequately by the competency framework designed for the organization (Eerde, 2008).…”

Assessing and evaluating: Differentiating perspectives

“…To satisfy the uncertainty presented by viewing needs and wants from this evaluation perspective, needs assessments prevalently rely on a results-discrepancy definition of needs (for a comparison of needs assessment approaches, see Leigh, Watkins, Platt, & Kaufman, 2000). Needs, for the needs assessor, are thus pragmatically defined as gaps between current and required results (Kaufman, 2000(Kaufman, , 1998(Kaufman, , 1992, permitting wants to encompass the full range of desirable solutions.…”