Question

Define needs assessment in your own words. Describe how needs assessments aid public administrators in the process of addressing social problems through program evaluation. Define systematic program evaluation. Explain why program evaluation is both necessary and challenging.

Answer 1

A needs assessment is a process used by organizations to determine priorities, make organizational improvements, or allocate resources. It involves determining the needs, or gaps, between where the organization envisions itself in the future and the organization's current state. You then develop a plan of action to address the needs (or closing the gaps) to bring the organization closer to its desired future state.

The preparation and successful execution of plans to meet the defined goals often requires public officials and managers to analyze the need for social problems to be addressed, to recognize the specific problem and to examine the community's disadvantages and vulnerability to impacts of the question. The qualitative analysis of the question can be calculated by statistical tools such as' census' and questionnaire surveys. It is possible to evaluate the collected data using appropriate tools, such as regression, dispersion, etc. For the sake of policy implementation, a document may be drawn up to analyze the data. The systematic program evaluation aims to identify the program objectives, the need, in the wake of the program's pre-determined targets and the sustainability thereof, to evaluate or evaluate targets to address the present and future' needs.' Data collected haphazardly can not be useful for any evaluation of scientific programs.

For example, the lack of adequate coordination between planners and plan implementors could lead in many areas of program evaluation to unsatisfactory communication on the targets of the planned systematic evaluation, resulting in delays in the achievement of its' end objective.' Infrastructure deficits, inadequate financing and power-driven roadblocks are all problems that must be tackled before a systematical project assessment is carried out. It becomes easier to pubic institutions, but somewhat less in the privately-owned sector because, unlike the welfare-oriented public sector, the private sector works on a profit-based basis.