Needs Assessment 
Joseph DiBello 
NYIT 
EDIT 690 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Framework 
 
My district's strategic plan consists of four pillars: Principles and content of 21st century 
learning, Coordinated networks of support and targeted instruction, Social emotional 
development and wellness of the whole child, and a Professional culture of learning, 
effective feedback, and growth. This needs assessment will mainly involve two of the four 
pillars: 21st century learning and Professional culture of learning. 
 
Methodology 
 
Multiple surveys will be distributed in order to assess the needs of the school. One will be 
given to administration, another to the instructional staff, and another to a focus group of 
students. These will all overlap and assess some of the same variables.  
 
Instructional Staff Survey 
 
This is the most in depth of the surveys. It will be assessing the following variables: 
Technology Knowledge and time investment 
This series of questions will assess a teachers comfort level with technology. It 
will also assess how much time a teacher has to allocate to learning and 
implementing new technologies. The time questions will be normalized to value 
indicating the number of hours per week. The knowledge questions will be 
scaled using a rating scale from 1-5. 
 
Technology Usage 
These questions will employ a 1-5 rating scale evaluating the number of times 
per week technology is used. These questions will consist of questions 
evaluating how often teachers use technology to augment their lessons, 
technology used for administrative tasks (i.e. grading, classroom management), 
and for professional development 
 
Technology Professional development opportunity 
This variable will assess how the teachers of the district perceive the 
opportunities given to them by their district both educationally and financially. 
This will be calculated using a likert scale for each of the questions. 
 
Student Benefit from Technology 
This variable will assess how the teacher perceives the effect of their 
technology use for the students. This will also be calculated using a likert scale 
for each of the questions. 
 
 
 
Administration Survey 
 
This survey will Assess the following Variables: 
Technology Professional development opportunity 
This variable will assess how the administration perceives the value of the 
professional development the teachers have access to both educationally and 
financially. This will be calculated using a likert scale for each of the questions. 
 
Student Benefit from Technology 
This variable will assess how the administration perceives the effect of the 
teachers’ technology use for the students. This will also be calculated using a 
likert scale for each of the questions. 
 
 
Student Focus Group Survey 
 
This survey will Assess the following Variables: 
Technology Usage 
This variable will assess how often the students feel that their teachers are 
utilizing technology in the classroom. The results will be normalized using a 
scale resulting in a value indicating the number of times a week technology was 
used. 
 
Student Benefit from Technology 
This variable will assess how well the students perceive the technology used in 
the classroom is enhancing learning. This will also be calculated using a likert 
scale for each of the questions. 
 
 
Data Analysis 
 
This survey is designed to find disconnects in the system supporting the two pillars of the 
districts strategic plan. Each educator demographic measured will be compared to each 
variable to find departments, grade levels, and age groups that are more successful than 
others. This will assist in designing professional development in the future. The following 
demographics will be assessed on the educator survey: 
● Age 
● Grade level Taught 
● Department 
● Number of Periods taught per day 
● Number of classrooms used per day 
● Number of classes taught 
● Number of students 
 ● Gender 
● Type of home computer used at home 
 
These relationships will be found using scatter plots and trend line regression analysis to 
find a significant relationship. 

 
Figure 1: S
​ hows the different relationships expected to see when comparing 
demographics to different scores on each of the measured variables. R​2​ values will be 
calculated for each. (ABB Group. 2010) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
To further evaluate where disconnects occur within the current professional development 
structure, each variable will be cross referenced with results from the different surveys. For 
example, a teachers score in S ​ tudent Benefit from Technology ​will be cross referenced to 
the student scores and compared using a single tailed t-test. 
 

 
Figure 2: ​The following figure shows how two overlapping variables will be compared. 
This sample shows that teachers are rating themselves higher than how the students 
are perceiving tech usage. 
 
Evaluation 
A meeting should follow after the data has been analyzed. In this meeting the District 
superintendent, principal, and department heads should meet. Also attending this meeting 
should be a focus group of both students and teachers to help interpret the findings and 
open up a dialogue. The meeting should first identify the similarities and differences 
between scores. The groups should offer up explanations for why and how the disconnect is 
happening. This can then lead the team to design and action plan to fix these disconnects. In 
these action plans the group can use data from the demographic analysis to help focus 
these action plans utilizing the talented professionals already working in the district. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 References 
 
ABB Group (15 July 2010) Scatter Diagram - How do I use it? - Correlation Degrees of 
correlation. Retrieved form: 
https://www.slideshare.net/shrey8916/scatter-diagram-39314392