Catherine M. Sleezer

A Practical Guide to Needs Assessment, Third Edition For fifteen years, A Practical Guide to Needs Assessment has been the go-to text for those who are seeking useful, systematic approaches to needs assessment. Needs assessment is the first step in training, performance improvement, and community development projects. This thoroughly revised and updated edition contains a treasury of resources including a toolkit of ready-to-use templates and job aids that you can customize for your own use. Illustrative case studies and tips show how to assess needs for individuals, teams, organizations, government agencies, and communities. This book combines a how-to text and reference tool for trainers, performance improvement professionals, and students. Managers and community leaders use it to get to the root of their learning and performance problems, make effective decisions, and obtain support for their most pressing issues. Updates to the third edition include: Links to online resources, including a needs assessment book that you can download for free, ethical guidelines, and vendors who assess individual, group and organizational needs.A new chapter on the complex needs assessment approach with new toolkit forms.A summary of the recent advances in our knowledge about learning, training, and performance that you can use to quickly prepare for client meetings.Guidelines on workforce surveys, such as employee engagement surveys.An Instructor’s Guide that contains discussion questions, assessments materials, and new exercises for each chapter. You can use this book to quickly access up-to-date information on the fundamentals of needs assessment including current models, theories, and resources. You can also learn how to manage and report a needs assessment project and access professional ethical guidelines. Learn five approaches to needs assessment: knowledge and skills analysis, job and task analysis, competency-based needs assessment, strategic needs assessment, and complex needs assessment.

The book, Evaluator Competencies: Standards for the Practice of Evaluation, details the development and validation of evaluator competencies by the International Board of Standards for Training, Performance, and Instruction (ibstpi). Developing an understanding of the ibstpi Evaluator Competencies may not be sufficient for individuals to determine how to improve their, or their colleagues', competencies. This Fieldbook provides additional information, resources, and tools to assist those who want to improve their own competencies or those who want to help other individuals improve. Thus, the goals for the present companion volume are: • To provide additional practical information in each of the four evaluator domains (i.e., professional foundations, planning and designing the evaluation, implementing the evaluation plan, and managing the evaluation). • To present practical tools and resources that support specific evaluator competencies, whether as an internal or an external evaluator. • To offer practical insights on the evaluator competencies from experienced evaluators. • To provide practical evaluation exercises and resources that can be used with undergraduate and graduate courses.

The book, Evaluator Competencies: Standards for the Practice of Evaluation, details the development and validation of evaluator competencies by the International Board of Standards for Training, Performance, and Instruction (ibstpi). Developing an understanding of the ibstpi Evaluator Competencies may not be sufficient for individuals to determine how to improve their, or their colleagues', competencies. This Fieldbook provides additional information, resources, and tools to assist those who want to improve their own competencies or those who want to help other individuals improve. Thus, the goals for the present companion volume are: • To provide additional practical information in each of the four evaluator domains (i.e., professional foundations, planning and designing the evaluation, implementing the evaluation plan, and managing the evaluation). • To present practical tools and resources that support specific evaluator competencies, whether as an internal or an external evaluator. • To offer practical insights on the evaluator competencies from experienced evaluators. • To provide practical evaluation exercises and resources that can be used with undergraduate and graduate courses.