Needs assessment basics

1. HRE Design Workshop
Learning needs assessment

2. Equitas - International Centre for Human Rights Education
What is a learning needs assessment?
 This type of evaluation is conducted before developing a
training event to:
o ensure that the training meets the needs of participants
o verify our assumptions regarding the participants’ needs,
perceptions, and attitudes towards learning
o make the best use of resources available (time, people,
facilities, materials)

3. Equitas - International Centre for Human Rights Education
What you need to know…
• Target audience’s demographic information
• Pervious knowledge, skills and attitudes
• The human right context in which the training event will take
place
• The gaps in knowledge, skills and attitudes that you want to
bridge

4. 1.Read– In many cases, you do not need to conduct new research to uncover the information,
you merely need to find existing research. What documents are already available? Read
anything that might provide useful insights into the content or the learners: reports, plans,
policies, user’s guides, other training programs
2.Talk– Conduct formal interviews with as many people who have information to share as
possible. Typically, these people include stakeholders, such as the sponsor, SMEs and
prospective learners.
3.Ask the learners– Use pre-training questionnaire to establish knowledge, skills and attitudes
of the learner
•Tips.
– When conducting a needs assessment, you ultimately want to triangulate information.
Instead of relying on one source for all your information, youi want to collect
information from a variety of sources, at least three.
– Make sure you validate that information you collect or the assumptions you made are
correct
Equitas - International Centre for Human Rights Education
How will you get the information?