Assessing Needs in Continuing Education


Book Description

In order to develop effective education programs for adult learners, it is necessary first to determine what the needs of those learners are. In this book, Donna S. Queeney offers step-by-step guidance on using needs assessment to design high-quality programs in continuing education settings. She identifies the factors to be considered in planning and conducting a needs assessment, such as the educational setting and characteristics of learners, and she tells how to determine the scope, target population, and level of complexity for an assessment.Queeney details specific needs assessment methods—such as self-reporting of needs and supervisor evaluations—that can be implemented with minimal experience and resources. She explains how to design surveys, questionnaires, and interviews that will motivate people to respond. And she describes how to integrate needs assessment into an organization to make it an ongoing asset to operations.







Evaluation for Continuing Education


Book Description

Evaluation for Continuing Education provides the useful and practical tools necessary to ensure a successful program evaluation. The book presents systematic guidelines aimed at enhancing understanding of evaluation concepts and procedures, and offers manageable ways to selectively include evaluation activities as an integral part of program planning, implementation, and justification. Author Alan Knox reveals that the key to successful evaluations that improve education programs for adults is a basic rationale for why and how. He helps readers select and develop their own rationale throughout the course of the book while suggesting fundamental evaluation concepts and procedures. He shows how to distinguish some program aspect upon which a specific evaluation project will focus-including needs assessment, goals and policies, staffing assessment, materials development, and more-and summarizes examples of evaluation reports that reflect the various types of providers and scales on which evaluations are conducted. Knox offers a particularly wide variety of these examples, enabling readers to reflect on implications for their own evaluations and fashion unique guidelines and procedures that fit their own situations.