BOOK REPORTof the book “DESIGNING EDUCATION PROJECTS”

1. SOCIO-EDUCATIONAL PROJECT
Book Report: Part I. Needs
Assessment
Carvajal Cajas, Fabiola Germania
Chulde Cabrera, Sandra Valentina
Alvear Zambrano, Roberto Sofomias

2.  WHAT IS A NEEDS ASSESSMENT?
 It is the effort to assess the need for a
project or other activity. An education needs
assessment establishes the need for a
particular project by systematically
examining audience interest and knowledge,
agency mission, authorities and capability,
and the significance of particular
environmental conditions or issues.
 NEEDS ASSESSMENT:
 Identifies and determines the scope of the
social, economic, and environmental
conditions or issues that need improving.
 Gathers information/data about the gap
between the current and desired level of
audience knowledge, attitudes, skills,
aspirations, and behaviors.

3.  Helps confirm or negate assumptions of audience
characteristics and appropriate content; defines goals
and objectives; ensures goals and objectives are
aligned with the agency’s strategic plan and other
planning documents; and identifies stakeholders and
potential collaborators.
 WHY IS NEEDS ASSESSMENT IMPORTANT TO
PROJECT DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION?
 Conducting a needs assessment allows project
managers to take a step back and systematically
consider whether or not there is a gap in existing
services or materials.
 SERVING THE AUDIENCE: Education services are more
targeted and delivery systems are designed better to
reach their intended audiences when founded on
data.

4. SETTING PRIORITIES: A needs assessment helps project
planners to systematically describe the audience impacted by
the issue and their relationships to the issues as well as the
underlying causes.
RE-INVENTING THE WHEEL: A needs assessment will determine
if materials or projects developed elsewhere can be adapted or
adopted to the new situation.

5. RESOURCE ALLOCATION: Administrators
will want documentation to
substantiate decisions about which
proposed projects should be fully
funded, postponed, or rejected.
COALITION BUILDING: Participation can
demystify a project and help ensure
greater buy-in from agency personnel,
partners, and potential audiences. The
needs assessment must be open and
welcoming of ideas and not designed
to validate a pre-determined course of
actions

6. STRATEGIC PLANNING: Needs assessment
focuses project planners’ attention on the
end goal. By mapping out the current
situation systematically, planners have the
data to make decisions about realistic and
meaningful goals.
PLANNING A NEEDS ASSESSMENT
Project team members begin to identify
problems, opportunities, strengths,
challenges, and priorities. The needs
assessment process can be time consuming
and, as with most processes that involve
multiple stakeholders and multifaceted
issues.

7. PLANNING
Steps
1. Set the focus , refine the issues(s) and identify the
stakeholders
2. Establish the planning team
3. Draft a plan for carrying out the needs assessment
4. Use the TOP model to direct data collection efforts
5. Gauge the likelihood of project success through
opportunity assessment
6. Define participants in the needs assessment
7. Design data collection strategies

8. Step 1. Set the focus, refine issue(s) and identify the
stakeholder(s).
 Conditions of SEE (social, economic or environmental)
 Needs assessment is established
 The key stakeholders are identified
 Conducting the needs assessment is secured
 Decision makers (receive the results) are
identified
 Step 2. Established the planning team
 All stakeholders in process get critical thinking which will help to
focus in the needs assessments
 Build credibility inside and outside the agency
 Planning team members
 Expectations and responsibilities should be established early on.

9.  Step 3. Draft a plan for carrying out the needs assessment
Be all inclusive becomes overwhelming
Purpose:
 Help the education coordinator design and appropriate
project
 Planning team
 Determine the scope f needs assessment
 Determine the type, breadth, and depth of information
 Step 4. Use the TOP model to direct data collection efforts
 SEE : how are SEE compared to the desire conditions
 Practice and behaviors: What practices or behaviors must be adopted
to affect the desire SEE
 Knowledge, attitudes, skills, and aspirations: Level to change in KASA
and how to compare the levels.

10.  Step 5. Gauge the likelihood of project success through
opportunity assessment
 Opportunity assessment occurs at the lower four levels:
1. Reaction: Program activities and promotional strategies
2. Participation: participants in the intended program
3. Activities: Activities for audience and its needs
4. Resources: time, staff, expertise, money
 Step 6 Define participants in the needs assessment
• Identify the stakeholders inside and outside
• Types of data needs to be collected and from whom
 Step 7 Design data Collection Strategies
 Identify the proposed participants
 Use key question sin each participant group
 The process matches the participants with an appropriate instrumentCollecting data often takes the project public and requires a new
commitment of funds and others resources

11. Data collection
Step 8 Determine sampling scheme
Step 9. Design and pilot data collection instrument(s)
Step 10. Gather and record data
Step 8 Determine sampling scheme
To draw a sample that accurately reflects (sample must give to the
population an equal chance of being selected)
Error of sample: Size is increase (time and other cost)
Step9 Design and pilot collection instrument (s)
Ask to participate in:
Focus group or complete survey
Decision that need to be made
Design question to be asked and how

12. Step 9. Design and pilot data
collection instrument(s)
 It is designed using the Key questions in steps 4 and 5
 Questions will be answered in a focus group or completing a survey
 What to do with the questions or results will be previously established
 Each step will be articulated in the data collection
 Once the data collection design is done it should be pilot tested
 Pilot testing can help find misleads or misinterpretations
 Planning committee must determine that the instruments are valid and
reliable.

13. Step 10. Gather and record data
 Orchestrating the data gathering process requires substantial planning
and day-today
 You may find a master calendar helpful to plot each point
 The planning team will need to determine who will collect the data
and what will be done with it
 Once data are collected, the data will need to be recorded or entered
into the appropriate format for analysis.
 Survey data will need to be entered into a database.
 Interviews and focus group sessions will need to be transcribed

14. Step 11. Perform data analysis
 The type of data analysis will depend on both the instruments used and
the study questions being answered.
 there is a consistent relationship between the size and/or cost of the
program and the rigor and amount of data gathered
 education coordinators gather data for their needs assessments using:
telephone, face-to-face contact, mail or e-mail, online surveys, mail
surveys.
 Once data are collected, the data will need to be recorded or entered
into the appropriate format for analysis.
 Survey data will need to be entered into a database.
 Interviews and focus group sessions will need to be transcribed

15. Step 12. Determine priorities and identify
potential solutions
 Once the data analysis is completed, the team is finally in the position
to articulate the results in terms of needs
 Then you systematically describe the discrepancy between what is and
what should be.
 education coordinators gather data for their needs assessments using:
telephone, face-to-face contact, mail or e-mail, online surveys, mail
surveys.
 The team must evaluate the list of identified needs and prioritize
them.
 Sork’s Priority Setting Criteria: importance criteria, feasibility
criteria.

16. Step 13. Synthesize information
and create a report
 Administrators will need a report for approving the onset of
the design phase of the project.
 Designing Needs-Based Action Plans: After sorting through
priorities and determining potential solutions or strategies,
the planning team will have considered numerous
alternatives
 When hiring a consultant you need to assess: relevance,
workload, workstyles