Educational Needs: Definition, Assessment, and Utilization

Meeting the needs of learners is probably the most persistent 'shibboleth in the rhetoric of adult education program planning and has already begun to appear in the literature concerning lifelong education. Ephemeral articles and substantial textbooks emphasize the necessity for the program planner to assess the needs of his intended learners as a first, if not the first, step in the modern, or for that matter traditional, practice of adult education program planning. The purpose of this paper is to examine the concepts of need and need identification, the process of need assessment as it is perceived by adult educators, and the evidence of the adequacy of need assessment in adult education in terms of participation rates.