Written by Patti Shank PhD, CPT
It may not reflect all of the chat2lrn moderator opinions.
Audience analysis is part of the need analysis process during instructional design. The purpose of audience analysis is to help us understand who we are dealing with (including the organizational system) and how to serve them most effectively.
What Happens During Audience Analysis?
Some of the things considered during audience analysis:
- Target audience: Who is the target (primary) audience and any secondary audiences? What are their expectations and needs? What problems are they experiencing? What is their level of experience? How much will they participate? How much time do they have? How will we respond, with instructional and non-instructional interventions?
- Environment analysis: The entire environment people operate in. Leadership, learning, performance, business, competitive, work, tools, the entire system…
- Instructional analysis: What tasks are needed to learn? Do people all know the same thing? How quickly does the information change? Is this declarative or procedural information? Is this information that people need to memorize?
- Technical analysis: Does this involve technology? Hardware/software? Will it be changing? How does it tie into company infrastructure? Who will deal with the hardware and software? Does the audience have the ability and capacity to deal with the technology and keep up with it? Who will build and maintain it?
Why Should We Perform Audience Analysis?
In “The Science of Training and Development in Organizations: What Matters in Practice,” Eduardo Salas and his fellow authors proclaim that “decisions about what to train, how to train, and how to implement and evaluate training should be informed by the best information science has to offer.”
I write about the critical nature of needs analysis for good training outcomes, according to Salas and fellow authors research in my ATD Science of Learning Blog article, Science of Learning 101: The Latest Research on Needs Analysis and Learning Climate (https://www.td.org/Publications/Blogs/Science-of-Learning-Blog/2015/07/Science-of-Learning-101-the-Latest-Research-on-Needs-Analysis-and-Learning-Climate).
Below is Table 2 from the Salas paper (http://psi.sagepub.com/content/13/2/74.full.pdf+html?ijkey=g8tvuLmoeZfN2&keytype=ref&siteid=sppsi), which shows that needs analysis is the key factor for maximizing training outcomes before training.
Below, Table 3 of the paper, the needs analysis items that are most critical are clarified.
The very first item, Conduct training needs analysis, includes (emphasis is mine):
Determine what needs to be trained, who needs to be trained, and what type of organizational system you are dealing with.