NO PLAGIARISM Brown (1995) defined needs assessment as “…the systematic collection and analysis of all subjective and objective information necessary to define and validate defensible curriculum purposes that satisfy the learning requirements of students within the context of particular institutions that influence the learning and teaching situation.” When you think about it this could be stated simply as needs assessment is just figuring out what you need to teach and how you can effectively teach it. One begins this process by figuring out what is needed to develop say a course. Questions such as • Who are the students? • How much time do we have for the course? • What skills do the students need by the end of the course? • What is the educational context like? • Will we need new materials? • Who will design the new course? • What is the assessment process? • What are the constraints on the process? Need to be addressed. The right people need to be involved; the right questions need to be asked and the right instruments and analysis needs to be made to interpret the data and then finally the course can be constructed. Who are the right people to involve in the curriculum writing process? Learners? Teachers? Course Designers, Instructional Designers? Administrators? What about community members?
