UBC Dietetics Major
FNH 480 Professional Dietetic Practice III
Educational Needs Assessment Worksheet 2014
Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Team members: E, T, T, G., C
Topic area:
To select, double click box, and select “checked” under “default value”
Group 1: Internship “need to know”
Group 2: Internship research “need to know”
Group 3: Internship “strategies for success”
Group 4: Clinical skill development topic 1 (describe:
Group 5: Critical thinking skill development
Group 6: Counselling skill development
Group 7: Clinical skill development topic 2 (describe:
)
)
Introduction
An educational needs assessment is a systematic approach to studying the state of knowledge,
ability, interest, and/or attitude of a defined audience or group related to a specific subject area.
The purpose is to inform design of educational programs that address audience learning needs
and are delivered in an audience-appropriate manner.
Instructions
1. Complete this worksheet as a team to summarize key findings from your needs assessment.
2. To allow course work to proceed in a timely fashion, for your own use, aim to draft Section
A in the first few days of the course, and Section B for Monday week 2 of the course.
3. Due dates for submission (along with the Educational Program Plan Worksheet):
a) DRAFT VERSION: Tuesday, May 13, 2014 (by midnight) – Label document as “draft” and
upload to instructor-provided assignment group blog, along with a brief introductory post
b) FINAL VERSION: Sunday May 25, 2014 (by midnight) – Label document as “final” and
upload to instructor-provided assignment group blog, along with a brief introductory post
A. NEEDS ASSESSMENT PLAN
1. Define objectives: What do you want to learn from the needs assessment?
- How to define critical thinking
- Where or how students struggle in this area
- Where preceptors feel that interns struggle most with critical thinking
- How to use critical thinking in the dietetics profession
- What information or skills our classmates wish to gain from this topic
- How to plan a media tool that students will actually find useful going into internship
2. What key questions do you need answered in order to complete your needs assessment?
- How do we define or approach critical thinking as a topic?
- How do others (eg. classmates, preceptors, current interns) define critical thinking?
- When, in internship, is critical thinking used?
- Where do interns struggle most with thinking critically?
Document1
A. NEEDS ASSESSMENT PLAN
- What form of tool will be most practical and useful to students entering internship?
3. Describe audience: What are the characteristics of the audience? (including motivations,
learning needs, preferred learning approaches)
 Audience: fourth year dietetics students and future interns
 Motivations:
o They are motivated to improve their critical thinking skills in order to be
better prepared for complex situations that rise during internship
o To be able to independently solve problems (not relying on preceptors for
answers all the time)
 Learning needs: need to improve self-confidence in decision making and problem
solving
 Preferred learning approaches:
o Reflecting on a problem and sharing their opinion with a support group
(fellow interns and preceptors)
o Opportunity to apply critical thinking in practice scenarios
o Printout of a visual tool
4. Determine data
collection approaches:
Details:
To select, double click box, and select
“checked” under “default value”
a)
b)
c)
d)
Document review
Literature review
Searched EMBASE and CINAHL databases
Searched Google Scholar
Searched critical thinking strategies provided by different
universities (UBC, U of T, McGill)
Focus group(s)
Key informant
Advisors - Liz, Karol, Duncan, Sally
interviews
Current interns
(advisor(s), current
Fellow students
interns, fellow
students, others)
e)
Survey(s) (existing
or new)
f)
Other – Personal
Personal communication with current interns
Communication
5. Describe approaches to data analysis
-All relevant research and information received via email was placed in a Dropbox and
shared with group members.
-We took all information gathered from classmates, interns, and advisors and discussed it
among our group; picking out common themes, deciding which topics and strategies would
be most effective for the purpose of our project, and brainstorming how to put the ideas
collected into action.
-The research data collected was looked at by each group member and then a discussion
took place to decide which tools and strategies would be the most practical for our peers
Document1
A. NEEDS ASSESSMENT PLAN
during internship.
6. Role delineation: How will needs assessment tasks be shared amongst your team? What
activities are essential to work on together versus in sub-groups?
- We have divided up contacting our primary contact (Liz DaSilva), current interns, newly
practicing RDs and the librarian so as to spread out the amount of correspondence each
individual is managing.
- We have been working together, thus far, on the needs assessment including gaining topic
focus, brainstorming two or more ideas for a media tool to be presented to the class for
feedback, researching critical thinking in a healthcare setting and so forth.
- We all feel it is important to participate in these initial stages of planning and decisionmaking so that we are all in agreement on how to proceed with the project.
B. NEEDS ASSESSMENT FINDINGS
1. Learning needs: What does your research tell you about the most pressing learning needs
of your audience?
Although critical thinking is used in all areas of internship, after consulting with key
informants, we discovered that the issues surrounding the use of critical thinking were most
prevalent in the area of clinical dietetics. We decided that the most pressing learning need
in relation to critical thinking in internship seems to be the ability to work with many
comorbidities and being able to look at the whole scenario.
2. Potential delivery approaches: What does your needs assessment suggest about suitable
ways of delivering the content, both online (original educational media plus other related
resources) and in the classroom teaching session?
- Necessity of a simple, easy-to-remember tool/decision flow-chart for the process of critical
thinking
- Disease-layering clinical example during the classroom teaching session may be useful to
demonstrate how to use the critical thinking tool - PowToon to illustrate the scenario
- Online forum for interns to post any issues that have come up during internship (i.e.
complex patient cases) - a way of reflecting and receiving feedback from other interns
- We consulted with Duncan to find out if a setting up a forum would be possible. He
informed us that Connect would be the preferred platform for a discussion forum.
- After consultation with Duncan, Karol and the class we determined that a discussion forum
on Connect would not be useful.
3. Audience learning gaps: What gaps exist between current knowledge and required
knowledge of the audience?
According to feedback from Liz and current interns, gaps exist relating to:
- The ability to deal with the layering of comorbidities in one patient
- Being able to prioritize issues within a situation (particularly in the clinical setting)
- The ability to troubleshoot and work with scenarios that have not been encountered
before
- Self confidence relating to the ability to make effective decisions and problem solve
Document1
B. NEEDS ASSESSMENT FINDINGS
4. Audience learning assets: What knowledge, skills, and/or resources does the audience
already have that could assist them to achieve required learning?
- The audience has a good base of foundational knowledge (achieved through course work)
- They have been exposed to different nutritional therapy approaches
- They have experience reflecting on their learning and using reflections to shape future
actions
- They are aware of resources to access peer reviewed information such as PEN and how to
search for information
- They are comfortable seeking out guidance and asking questions from peers
5. Learning resources: What resources already exist that could be adapted or used as is?
What new resources are needed?
- There are many Youtube videos on what critical thinking is, skills for it and how to teach
critical thinking - none specifically for dietetics.
- There is a lot of research on different skills that can be used to develop critical thinking mostly focused in the nursing, medical and physiotherapy fields with very little applying
specifically to dietetics.
- A resource specific for dietetic student interns is needed - that provides a tool or a strategy
for critically thinking through a new or complex problem.
Other notes:
Document1