Needs Assessment Chart at Work:

Sample Assessment for Materials Design Students

By Prof. Jonathan Acua Solano

Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Twitter: @jonacuso
Post 136

Although you may have not completed a formal Needs Assessment before, many
of the considerations in a Needs Assessment may already be a part of your everyday

1
teaching practice. In this sample Assignment Chart, a Needs Assessment was completed
for a very specific course at the university level: ELT Materials Design and Multimedia.
Over here you can analyze both the learning and performance context for this course and
can describe how those contexts compare to student characteristics and entry abilities at
Universidad Latina, a higher education institution in Costa Rica. Then you will be able to
explore how the characteristics the instructor discovered here in his Needs Assessment
chart inform you about the course design for this class, ELT Materials Design and
Multimedia.

The first of the two charts included on this post is a good summary of what an
instructor will like to achieve to try to get to the courses exit profile. However, it is still
succinct when it comes to the whole instructional/teaching/learning process that is
required to fully complete the educational cycle involved in a hybrid or online teaching
scenario. To really get to the courses exit profile and guarantee that students are really
achieving the learning goals, a second kind of analysis [based on the ADDIE model] is
needed to get to know the whole scope of instruction and the tools that will be required
to develop student competencies in education technology.

Needs Assessment Initial Analysis

Course Instructional Goals Entry Level Abilities Exit Profile
To have student
teachers ready to
design and use
ELT Materials language
Design and activities in class
Multimedia To have a solid Understanding of To incorporate
knowledge in the the four skills in their activities as
creation/design of language learning part of their
EFL activities for Lesson planning lesson planning
language skills training To understand
the theoretical
background for
accurate
language
activities

2
 To prepare
student teachers
to create their
To use Google Knowledge in
own site in
Sites to create an blog design and
Google as an
interactive posting
ePortfolio
ePortfolio that Former training
To promote
can be used with on how to use
autonomous
their current or blogs for
learning among
future students education
students by
creating
interactive tasks
To instruct
students how to
embed
documents,
videos, etc. onto
their ePortfolios
Possible basic To help them
background on develop their
To use multi-
html, movie understanding of
media and
maker, Office, hosting platforms
freeware to
etc. such as youtube,
create/design EFL
Use of freeware Scribd or
material
such as iTunes Slideshare
PDF creation To train students
on how to create
their own
interactive
material in
various free
online platforms

Now that the Instructional Goals initially detected, along with the desired exit
profile for this education technology course, an instructor can fully comprehend the scope
of action required by teachers and learners in a hybrid or online course intended to teach
students the use of technology in language teaching and activity creation. That is why
after completing this questionnaire, what needs to be done to accomplish learning goals
is clearer and put in perspective. This simple but very complete needs assessment can
have one see where data can be collected, the desirable characteristics of learners, and
the implication that this input has in course design.

3
 Implications for
Type of Information Data Source Characteristics Course Design
and Development
Instructional Goals
Possitive
Implications:
o Prior knowledge
in language
Understanding
skills
of the four skills
Course outline: o How activities
To have a solid in language and tasks fit in a
knowledge in learning lesson plan
the Lesson planning o Prior training in
creation/design training blogging
What are the instructional goals of EFL activities Knowledge in platform and use
that need to be accomplished for language in education
blog design and
through the completion of this skills o Limited training
To use Google posting and html usage
course?
Sites to create Former training o Limited
an interactive on how to use knowledge in
ePortfolio that blogs for video production
can be used education o Self-training in
with their Possible basic freeware
current or
background on
future students Negative
To use multi- html, movie Implications:
media and maker, Office, o Lack of
freeware to etc. knowledge in
create/design Use of freeware these areas
EFL material such as iTunes imply the search
for additional
PDF creation
training sources
to have students
catch up with
the class
Ulatina requires
students to create
What does the institution
and design their own
require students to know or be Same as
Course outline EFL activities aiming
able to do when they complete characteristics above
at facilitating their
this course?
work during their
teaching practicum
When becoming full-
time teachers at a
private or public
What do students need to know
school, Ulatina
and be able to do when they get Learning outcomes
English Department wants them to use
a job in this industry or in course outline
technology as part
profession?
of their day-to-day
teaching and
planning

4

Type of Information
Performance Context Characteristics
Where will students use the
skills and knowledge taught in
this course?
Under what conditions will
students need to apply the skills
and knowledge taught in this
course?
Will the students use the skills
and knowledge taught in this
course individually or in teams
in the performance context?
Learning Context Characteristics
What equipment or technology
will be available for the course?
To what extend is the learning
context like the performance
context for the course content?
General Student Characteristics
What age are your students?
What types of occupations or
hobbies do your students have?
What cultural backgrounds do
your students have?
What obligations do students
have outside of your course?
What expectations do students
have for the course?
How do students feel about the
content area?
How do students feel about
taking an online course?
Implications for
Data Source Characteristics Course Design
and Development
All these technological competencies will be used in language
teaching scenarios in public or private high schools or adult
education, from their lesson plan to the execution of the plan in
class
To start with, competencies acquired in this course will initially be
used in their teaching practicum [before their graduation] and later
on in their daily teaching practice
The idea behind this course is that learners can use this knowledge
individually since theyll work with their own groups, but there is no
reason why they can embark themselves in joint ventures with
colleagues.
Data Source
English Department If needed, labs
Instructors In my experience, it is a replica of what
experience students will face in the real world
Data Source
Mostly young adults, ages 18 to 25 and
Registrars Office
some over the age of 30
o Most of them are not working though
those who are over 30 have a job
o Some of them work in call centers
o Just a few hold teaching positions
o Digital learning inclined
Mostly Costa Rican
A few foreign students
Instructors o College responsibilities
Interviews o Some working mothers
o Many work to pay for their tuition
To learn to perform Extrinsic motivation
better in school to learn on their own
Subject-matter can
Confident be used practically in
Instructors lesson planning
interviews
Extrinsic motivation
Excited
to learn on their own
5
 Implications for
Type of Information Data Source Characteristics Course Design
and Development
Student Entry Abilities
o This course will
o Basic use of
What do students know already help them put
Office
about the course content? everything
o Blogs in
together inside
Blogger.Com
their lesson
o Understanding
plans to teach
of lesson
and provide
planning
memorable
o The four skills in
learning
language
experiences to
learning
their students.
o Initially,
o This course is to
believing that
develop
this is just a
competencies to
What misconceptions do paper-based
create
students have about the course materials
Former education interactive
content? production is
technology courses materials, not
overcome when
taken in the major just paper-based
they have to
ones
work online.
o Their prior
o Former blogging training is great
What relevant experiences do
training and schemata that
students have outside of the
basic use of they bring to
course?
htmls class and into
the course.
o With the
constant training
of online tools
Do your students have the
and our LMS at
necessary technology skills to o YES!
Ulatina, students
take an online course?
are ready to
take the next
step.

There are indeed lots of challenges in trying to teach this course and have great
learning results with students, but there must be ways to palliate them. A Needs
Assessment can for sure define the steps to follow to create and design online or hybrid
learning instruction for ones students and a good way to mitigate challenges or obstacles
is to use ones former experience in the F2F classroom. These former experiences can

6
help the instructor to visualize what the usual problem areas are to create media that can
help students understand what is needed from them more vividly.

Laureate Education. (2013). Hybrid & Blended Learning: Module 5, Content Design.
Retrieved on 2014, April 5 from http://global.laureate.net/portal.aspx#!home/faculty

Linkedin Corporation. (2014). SlideShare. http://www.slideshare.net/?ss

Scribd Inc. (2014). http://es.scribd.com/

YouTube, LLC. (2014). https://www.youtube.com/

Pronunciation BIN-02 Pronunciation 1

Development BIN-06 Pronunciation 2
BIN-04 Reading Skills 1 Reading Skills
BIN-08 Reading Skills 2 Development
TEFL Daily
ELT Daily
English Language Teaching Journal
Curated Topics Online
Phonemics Daily
The Linguists: Linguistics News
Jonathans Learning Attic