Needs Assessment Basics

Completing the Data Collection Plan

To continue developing the data collection plan, the needs assessor identifies a potential data collection method for each data source and lists these potential methods in the “Potential Data Collection Methods” column of the plan.

When the data collection plan is complete to this point, it may appear in some cases that the data source and the data collection method are one and the same. This happens most often when referring to extant data. For example, if you are going to analyze data on absenteeism from the HR department, the item in the data source column will say something like “extant data on absenteeism from HR.” The corresponding item in the potential data collection method column should say “analysis ...