Instructional Design

Needs Assessment Exercises

Here are some exercises to help make sure you have the basic concepts and can apply them in various ways:

When doing a needs assessment you need to analyze several different factors in each situation. This analysis is best when it is based on data about the situation and about the audience. However, the instructional design point of view can be helpful even with just a quick look. You can look at various situations to determine such things as

  • what should people be doing in this setting? How do you know it is possible?
  • what are they doing now?
  • why (probably) are they not doing it correctly?
  • will instruction of some kind help solve this problem?
  • what data would you need to be more certain of your analysis?

Try analyzing the following situations:

1

Hospital Computerized Patient Management System

2

Auto Mechanics Example

3

Instructional Technology Example

4

Web Page Development Example

5

Basic College Math Example
 


© Albert L. Ingram, Ph.D. Revised: February 13, 2008