Week 5 - Needs Assesment

I crawled out of bed to attend this lecture today. Thanks to the sweets and the Mamee titbits did i somewhat managed to stay alert...

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The lecture today talked about conducting a needs assessment, and to determine whether or not a need for instruction should be developed.

The discrepancy model offers a pragmatic , systematic approach to a wide variety of evaluation needs. It emphasizes on self evaluation and a systematic programe improvement.

We have to first analyze a situation carefully in order to determine what can be carried out to improve or support the learning process.

i.e. The two case situations that were given to us during lectures today... the taxi driver case...

In this scenario, we have to first make use of the 3-face model to first ask ourselves if the problem faced by the taxi companies are caused by a lack of learning. If it is caused by a lack of learning, then we have to ask ourselves if there are instructions already given.

If instructions HAVE been given and the problem still persists, then we will make use of the discrepancy model to do a self evaluation and find out what the gaps are, and how we can close the gaps to rectify the problem.

One particular example i can think of would be with regards to Starhub's customer service. I had friends working there as telephone operators during the semester break last year. AND basically , they are given a whole set of instructions as to what to do, and how to react towards ridiculous customers, what not to say, and what to say, etc.

One day, i decided to call up Starhub because they have over charged me on my mobile bills. Instead of being polite like every customer service operator should be, the girl on the phone started being horribly rude and seemed to indirectly put the blame on me for the extra charges. I insisted on speaking to her superior after that and he confirmed that further action would be taken against that new staff.

In this case, we can make use of the discrepancy model to evaluate why this is happening.

1. Instructions have been given. Why is this problem still happening?
2. Is the onus on the customer service operator or was it also the customer's fault?
3. If it is the customer service operator's fault, then what can be done to rectify the problem?
4. Should the learning process be redesigned?

I'm not sure if i'm correct by using this example. So if anyone's reading this and you think there's a problem, do let me know :)