Research Catalog

Title

Needs assessment : trends and a view toward the future / James W. Altschuld, Ryan Watkins, editors.

Publication

San Francisco, California : Jossey-Bass, 2014.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Altschuld, James W.
• Watkins, Ryan

Description

118 pages : illustrations; 23 cm.

Summary

Needs assessments have been a mainstay of evaluation practice and literature for nearly four decades, and recently we have witnessed renewed attention on this "front-end" application of evaluation. Thus, the timing could not better for New Directions for Evaluation to explore multiple practical and theoretical dimensions of needs assessment. For the first time, the journal has focused exclusively on this essential topic for guiding decisions-examining subjects such as the importance of defining needs, implementing assessments in public and private-sector organizations, aligning needs with assets and capacity assessments, conducting international needs assessments, and the impact of technologies on needs assessment methods. We believe that this issue of New Directions is a valuable response to the growing demands on professionals within public and private organizations to conduct useful assessments, ones leading to result that can be applied in decisions. As with evaluations, the methods of needs assessment have become more technologically sophisticated. Yet at the same time, we recognize that the complexity of this work today relates not only to technical features of assessments, but also to how they factor into meaningful change and improvement at the organizational and society levels. Needs assessments have now been applied in many culturally diverse contexts, requiring that assessors be more sensitive, participatory, and adapting to fit changing circumstances. All of this has led to the underlying models of assessment somewhat shifting to a hybrid approach that also looks at assets and capacity for growth in combination with needs. It is therefore propitious and exciting that this issue is now being offered to the evaluation community. Book jacket.

Series Statement

New directions for evaluation ; no. 144

Uniform Title

New directions for evaluation no. 144.

Subject

• Needs assessment
• Needs Assessment

Note

• Includes index.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

A primer on needs assessment: more than 40 years of research and practice / James W. Altschuld, Ryan Watkins -- Needs: defining what you are assessing / Ryan Watkins, Jolanta Kavale -- Needs assessment: the perspective from the public sector / Molly Engle, James W. Altsculd -- Needs assessments in the private sector / John Wedman -- Needs assessments to determine training requirements / Traci Lepicki, Adrienne Boggs -- International perspective: similiarities and differences around the globe / Maurya West Meiers, Ryan Watkins, Kristin Marsh Song -- Needs assessment and asset/capacity building: a promising develpment in practice / James W. Altschuld, Hsin-Ling (Sonya) Huang, Yi-Fang Lee -- A final note about improving needs assessment research and practice / Ryan Watkins, James W. Altschuld.

ISBN

• 1119027691
• 9781119027690

OCLC

• 889522669
• SCSB-11302065

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library