educational needs assessment

I have to do one yearly and the last 2 years I've done it through an online survey such as survey monkey. It's nice because it tabulates all the results for you so it's easy to see what your high need areas are.

Online survey is a great idea because it reduces the work required to tabulate results for analysis. Be sure to include questions designed to get information about 'preferences' (self-study, classroom, time of day, etc) and enough demographics (job title, years of experience, shift, department) that will enable you to make sense of the results. Otherwise all you will have is a laundry list of individual preferences -- not very useful at all.

Please do not forget that organizational "needs" should be your highest priority. Talk with Risk Management, Quality Improvement and Nurse Leaders to find out:

1. Defined needs - these are areas where skill gaps have already been identified

2. Anticipated needs - organizational changes that will need to be supported with education

Find out what your budget is - how much can you spend on equipment, supplies, etc.

Staff members are participants but your real 'customer' is organizational leadership - they authorize your salary & budget. Your work will ultimately be evaluated in terms of the value it produces for the organization. Many clinical educators fail to adopt this strategic perspective and end up with a load of frustration. Develop a formal education plan - including how you are going to measure outcomes - and get your boss to sign off on it. Then, update the plan each year as part of the budget planning cycle.

Thank you for the reply! Great to have this input!:)