Conducting a Needs Assessment

1. Conducting a Needs Assessment Presented by: Tabitha E. Foreman, M.Ed., President Grossman and Associates, LLC Educational Consultants

2. What is the best thing? • Turn to someone not from your school and tell them about something exceptional that is happening at your school.

3. How did you know? • How did you decide? • Was it your opinion? • Do you have data to support your opinion? • Would other people from your school have said the same thing? • Would other people from your school agree with you?

4. Goals for today’s workshop • To provide you with information to enable you to conduct a quality needs assessment that will maximize existing resources, improve what works, discard what doesn’t, and uncover the met and unmet needs of your students, parents, teachers, and school community.

5. Why do a needs assessment? • They are essential to quality program development and program improvement • Unless systematic needs assessments are conducted, precious resources are wasted addressing problems that do not exist (Schuh, J., & Upcraft, L., 2001).

6. What is a needs assessment? • “Needs assessment is the process of obtaining and analyzing information to determine the current status and service needs of a defined population and/or geographic area” (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 1999). • A needs assessment can be described as a process for identifying the knowledge and skills necessary for achieving organizational goals (Brinkerhof & Gill, 1994). • A needs assessment is a method of finding out the nature and extent of performance problems and how they can be solved (Molenda, Pershing, & Reigeluth, 1996). • A needs assessment is a process for pinpointing reasons for gaps in performance or a method for identifying new and future performance needs (Gupta, 1999). • In general, a needs assessment is a systematic approach to identifying social problems, determining their extent, and accurately defining the target population to be served and the nature of their service needs (Rossi, P. H., Freeman, H. E., & Lipsey, Mark, W. L., 1998).

7. Benefits of conducting a needs assessment • “A needs assessment can be a powerful tool used to assign priority to service needs and develop strategies to address them.” • To generate ideas and document perceptions about various issues • To collect information to support likely alternatives (decision making) • To estimate relative acceptability of various alternatives (identifies potentially controversial issues) • To select the most acceptable program from the alternatives • To determine whether or needs are being met (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 1999, Schuh, J., & Upcraft, L., 2001)

8. When done well… • A needs assessment provides: • A description of what is currently occuring • An inventory of existing resources • A gap analysis of met and unmet needs within targeted populations • Results that can be used to set priorities, program plan, and can also be used for planning and decision-making

9. Met and Unmet Needs • A met need is one that is currently being addressed through the use of existing resources. • A unmet need is one that is not being addressed through the use of existing resources.

10. Met needs are. . . • Available • Appropriate • Accessible

11. Unmet needs are. . . • Not available • Are available, but are not appropriate or are inaccessible • Often expressed as demands when they are recognized

12. What is a need? • It is the “gap” between a present state of “what is” and a desired end state “what should be” (Witkin, B.R., & Altschund, J.W., 1995) • The need is the problem or the concern • Needs are: “anything essential for a satisfactory mode of existence or level of performance” (Scriven, M., 1999) • The focus of a needs assessment are NEEDS NOT WANTS

13. Student needs • Assessing student needs is the process of determining the presence or absence of the factors and conditions, resources, services, and learning opportunities that students need in order to meet their education goals and objectives within the context of a school’s mission (Upcraft,L., & Schuh, J., 1996).

14. Designing a needs assessment • Determine the purpose • Determine the objective(s) • Identify resources that are available • Understand and agree upon the roles and responsibilities • Determine the questions to be answered • Develop the methodology for collecting and analyzing the data • Establish a timeline and a workplan (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 1999)

15. What is the focus? • Focus on the ends to be attained, rather than the means. This means we must know where we want to go (Witkin, B.R., & Altschuld, J.W., 1995). • Schools should narrow their focus and use their assets to advance their mission, rather than to broaden their focus and dilute what they do best (Witkin, B.R., & Altschuld, J.W., 1995).

16. Key questions a needs assessment answers • What are the practices, attitudes, or beliefs of the target population? • To what extent is the target population receiving services? • What are the barriers to accessing or using services available as perceived by the target population? • What programs, strategies, or interventions work best with the targeted population? • What related resources and services are available, accessible, and appropriate for the targeted population? (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 1999)

17. Types of data • Primary data • Original data that you collect and analyze (report cards, portfolios)

18. Types of data • Secondary data • Information that was collected by someone else, but which you can analyze or re-analyze (standardized test scores)

19. Types of data • Qualitative data • Data presented in a narrative form that cannot be expressed numerically (interviews, teacher comments on student behavior)

20. Types of data • Quantitative data • Data presented in numerical terms (test scores)

21. Tools for a needs assessment • Secondary data • Looking at what you already have • Focus groups • Interviews • Forums or public meetings • Surveys • Questionnaires • Observations

22. Ways of Assessing Need • Eyes and Ears • Systematic classroom and school observations • Official records • Review of teacher and student work • Third-party review • Written open-ended survey • Check and rank list surveys

23. Ways of Assessing Need • Delphi Technique • problem statement • reproduction of comments • computation of average and frequency • re-rank

24. How do I pick the right methodology? • Ask: • What information is already available? • What new information is needed? • How can it be collected efficiently given time and financial constraints? • How will the needs assessment process be coordinated and monitored? • How will quality control be maintained? • How will the data be analyzed? • When, how, and in what form will the results be presented? • What efforts are needed to promote acceptance of the needs assessment results? • Staff and community “buy-in”

25. Models Combining Assessment and Planning • Force Field Analysis • PDSA • Strategic Planning

26. Force Field Analysis • Force Field Analysis • What should be • What is • Gap between should and is • Restraining forces that impede forward movement • Driving forces that assist in forward movement • Select restraining forces that are both important and capable of being weakened • What actions will weaken • Select driving forces that are important and capable of being strengthened • What actions will strengthen

27. Force Field Analysis

28. Force Field Analysis Continued • Integrate and sequence actions to create a comprehensive action plan for moving the current state of affairs to the desired state. • Include evaluation • Include timeline for implementation and evaluation

29. PDSA • Planning, Doing, Studying, and Acting

30. PDSA

31. Strategic Planning • Conduct external analysis (what is in the external environment?) • Conduct internal analysis (what is in the internal environment?) • State objectives (tied to the mission) • Develop and analyze alternative strategies (teams work to develop and then compare) • Design action plans based on analysis from the alternative strategies

32. Strategic Planning • Identify common beliefs • Identify vision (what should be in the future) • Identify mission (summary of purpose, based on beliefs and vision, becomes focus for all remaining phases) • Formulate policies (ground rules that apply to remaining phases of the planning process, the content of the strategic plan, and its implementation)

33. Remember • The value and necessity of broad-based participation by stakeholders (quiets some skeptics) • Importance of team work that is meaningful and not “ceremonial” • Choose the appropriate means of gathering information • Recognize the core values of the school • That the school’s mission and vision should guide the process • If you don’t have a well-articulated, widely adopted mission and vision, this process (as almost everything you do) will not be as successful as you want and will diminish the effort you put into this needs assessment and any program you decide to undertake!

34. Other things to remember • Needs assessment is a participatory process; it is not done to people • Needs assessments are political activities (definition of politics). Priorities derived maybe contrary to “what we always do.” “We’ve been doing it this way for years” “We’ve been doing it like this since Mr. Jefferson was the principal”

35. More things to remember • People will resist your “new idea” “Every year they come up with something else.” (teacher’s experiences with “new things” and their “short shelf-life” “it will get worse before it gets better”-Ray McNulty) • People will resist and resent the needs assessment process for various reasons “Another survey, they didn’t do anything differently when we filled out the other one.” THIS ISN’T GOING TO WORK!

36. Finally • Needs assessments should look for facts • Needs assessments should be flexible • Merely collecting data is NOT a needs assessment • Information is NOT power if you don’t use it • Surveying people and then not doing anything with the information makes people resent the process and resent you for not taking action.

37. The process • Pre-assessment-exploration • What is our focus? • Who are the stakeholders? • Does our focus coincide with our mission and vision? • Assessment-data gathering • What type of data do we already have? • How will we collect the data? • Roles and responsibilities-who does what and WHEN? • What data are we missing? • How should it be collected? • Post-assessment-utilization and ACTION • What did we learn about our school community?