Page 29 - Educational Technology A Primer for the 21st Century

16 1 Introduction to Educational Technology
1.2.1 Needs Assessment

How to begin planning support for a new course in formal and informal logic for
high school students? Let us suppose that you, the educational technologist in the
role of instructional designer, are at the initial planning meeting for this effort, along
with a logic teacher, a school administrator, and a system specialist. The admin-
istrator begins by stating the mandate—namely, create a new course on formal and
informal logic and implement it using the school’s learning management system,
since the course will be conducted entirely online anytime in the student’s last two
years, at the students’ pace, and required for graduation.
The logic teacher is excited that the subject is receiving such special treatment.
You are concerned, however, about the rationale and motivation for the course. You
ask, “Who decided that this should be done? How was the need determined? What
problem are we trying to solve?” The administrator is prepared and offers the results
of a study of graduates and their successes and failures over a five-year period. The
administrator called this an exploratory effort to find out how well graduates were
doing. As it happened, the study showed that of the 73% of graduates who went
directly to college, 57% of them dropped out during the first two years. Surveys
suggested that most of those who dropped out felt unprepared for the rigors of
college. Follow-up interviews suggested that the lack of preparation involved the
challenges of thinking critically and logically required in many of the college
courses. You respond by saying that it was wise to conduct that study, which is one
kind of needs assessment. The study in effect identifies a gap in high school
education. Those in the room readily agree that this gap exists and that it should be
addressed.
This example shows a progression from a symptom (high school students
entering college drop out at a high rate) to a problem (a gap in preparing high
school students to think critically and logically) to a need (address that gap with a
new course aimed at developing general reasoning skills). A needs assessment is a
way to identify symptoms and likely underlying causes resulting in a clear and
coherent statement of the problem to be addressed. It is important to spend time and
effort in determining the problem and associated need to avoid unnecessary rework
or solving the wrong problem. The remaining life-cycle aspects will be addressed in
turn, as this discussion is intended to be introductory and notional. Special
emphasis has been placed on needs assessment as that is a critical first step.

1.2.2 Requirements and Feasibility Analysis

Once the problem and need have been identified, the goal or goals of the effort can
be identified. These goals also form the basis for determining the degree to which
the effort is succeeding once a solution is developed and deployed. It is now
possible to begin considering solution approaches and a solution. This can and
should be done with the desired goals in mind, as that is how the solution will be