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If you’re an e-learning course developer, you know how important it is that your training matches your subject’s needs. But, if you skip conducting a needs assessment analysis prior to designing your coursework, you’ll cost yourself time and money in the long run. Developing the wrong content, too little content, or too much content can derail your training efforts and set back your progress in achieving your training goals.
Here are 5 reasons you need to conduct a needs assessment survey tool before finalizing your content development outline for your e-learning course.
1) To Keep the Learning Outcomes in Mind
It’s easy to lose sight of the desired learning goals when in the midst of developing content, especially if it’s robust or technical content. You need to keep the learning outcomes in mind during all stages of design of your e-learning course. You can use the “backward design” method of developing your course by focusing on your learner’s expectations and benefits upon finishing the course.
2) To Teach the Right People the Right Skills
e-learning courses are rarely a “one size fits all” program. For example, would you design the same course for your sales acquisition team and sales maintenance team. While there may very well be some content overlap between these two groups, the outcome and learning goals of each are entirely different. Online survey software can help you design the needs of these two groups.
3) To Stave Off Band-Aid Training
Oftentimes, training is developed and conducted haphazardly when an issue or problem surfaces. This panic training can be conducted swiftly upon an urgent or critical need, and can cause the training content to overlook the learning objectives. A needs assessment survey conducted prior to developing a eLearning course can minimize or eliminate the need for band-aid training later on.
4) To Identify Training Priorities
If some of your training organization needs are of low priority, your efforts would be better served addressing needs that are high importance, and of greater value and impact. Your well-designed needs assessment survey can help you determine which needs are high value and which are relatively low importance on your organization's eLearning course development totem pole.
5) To Identify Opportunities for Growth
If your employees are performing well enough, you may be inclined to leave well enough alone. However, by doing so, you can potentially lose out on growth opportunities. Having a growth mindset when developing your learning course can help to propel your organization forward and help your company gain more of a competitive edge.
The bottom line is this: A needs assessment survey is an essential diagnostic tool to have in your e-learning course tool box. It helps you get the most from your training resources, and helps you focus on what’s most important to develop in your organization.
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