ADULT EDUCATION NEEDS ASSESSMENT: A COMPARISON OF PROGRAM PLANNING METHODS

The purpose of this study was to investigate the program planning practices associated with Extension Home Economics in Indiana. The objectives of the study included: (1) determining the knowledge of community demographics of homogeneous and heterogeneous planning committees and (2) ascertaining if the programs planned by homogeneous and heterogeneous committees were perceived as equally pertinent to community needs. Four counties with populations between 25,000 and 45,000 each held two program planning meetings, one with a homogeneous committee consisting of white females who were members of Extension Homemaker clubs and one with a heterogeneous committee consisting of males and females, white and non-white, professionals and homemakers. Two counties were randomly selected to be experimental counties with the other two being control counties. In the experimental counties a slide-tape presentation, Studying Your Community, which included information on community demographics, was shown at the meeting. The control counties did not receive the treatment at their meetings. A fifteen-item multiple choice pretest-posttest was administered in all four counties to both types of committees. In addition, all committees were required to select seven program topics to be offered as community education programs. An analysis of variance of the posttest scores indicated that there was no significant difference between the homogeneous and heterogeneous committees\u27 knowledge of community demographics. There was a significant difference in knowledge of community demographics between the experimental counties who viewed the slide-tape presentation and the control counties that did not view it. The program topics chosen by the committees were ranked by randomly selected community leaders. A t-test between control county means indicated that topics from heterogeneous committees received significantly higher rankings than did topics from homogeneous committees. There was no significant difference between means from experimental counties. The results indicate that although homogeneous committees are as knowledgeable of community demographics, unless background information is provided, the program topics they choose for the adult education program are not perceived to be as pertinent to community needs as are those topics which heterogeneous planning committees select