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Learner needs are important—but, in the context of learning businesses, learner wants are just as important. Correctly satisfying these needs and wants requires figuring out what to offer—not by assuming or guessing what’s needed in the market but by following processes and systems that yield the data to prove it.

In this third installment in our seven-part series focused on learning science for learning businesses, we explain why performing market and needs assessments are critical steps in effectively applying learning science because, to be able to apply learning science to specific content, we have to know what that content is. We also discuss the Market Insight Matrix, a tool we created that treats assessment as a process rather than an event.

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Market Assessment Versus Needs Assessment

[00:21 ] – Market assessments and needs assessments are related but different.

• A needs assessment is a process for identifying gaps between current conditions and desired conditions and then addressing those gaps. In the case of learning businesses, those needs are usually tied to content that individuals need in order to know or do something.

• A market assessment (sometimes called a market analysis) analyzes a learning business’s assets and activities to determine strengths and weaknesses and a learning business should do to best position its brand to take advantage of its market and audience.

We think of market assessment as more organizationally focused and needs assessment as more learner-focused or product-focused. A market assessment is about understanding the profession, field, or industry your learning business serves; knowing the other options learners in that space have; and determining how you can best support excellence in that profession, field, or industry through the products and services that you offer.

A needs assessment is about understanding learner needs and learning gaps so you can design and offer specific learning opportunities that will help close those gaps. Needs assessment and market assessment overlap, of course. You need to understand how your learners perceive their needs and therefore how they’re going to perceive your products and make sure that you’re developing the right products and positioning them in the right way in the market.

We also think of market assessment as addressing the question of “What will people buy?” and needs assessment as addressing the question “What positive impact will we create for the learner?” The two questions are—or at least should be—completely related, but learning businesses often emphasize one over the other, focusing, for example, on what they think learners need versus what will actually sell or vice versa.

When you are focused on what learner needs, you are going to ask questions about the challenges and opportunities the learners—or their employers—are currently facing; work to identify the specific knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors needed to address those challenges and opportunities; and then determine the learning experiences that will help produce the needed knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors.

When you are focused on market assessment, you are concerned about how large the market is, the other options learners have in the market, what their buying behaviors are, how price-sensitive they are, and how aware they are of your offerings.

Perception matters in both cases. You have to understand how members of the audience you aim to reach perceive their context and their specific needs. You’ll either need to align with those perceptions or determine ways that you can influence those perceptions to attract learners to the experiences you offer.

You do the market assessment and needs assessment to understand the current situation and perception. That doesn’t mean you have to accept that status quo as the “right” or only way to do things. You can work to influence and change perceptions. That’s arguably a harder tack to take, but it’s also one that can really stand you out from competitors, and it’s a tack that can really allow you to influence and change the field, profession, or industry you serve for the better.

Celisa Steele

With those descriptions in mind, let’s turn to the relationship between these kinds of assessment and learning science. Why do we include market and needs assessments in a discussion of learning science?

Assessment’s Relationship with Learning Science

[04:54 ] – To answer that question, let’s revisit at how we defined learning science in episode one of this series. Learning science is an interdisciplinary field devoted to better understanding how learning happens and then applying that understanding to creating and improving instructional methods, curricula, learning environments, and more. The curricula, learning environments, and materials that get developed involve specific content.

In order to apply learning science in context—i.e., in order to apply learning science to specific content—we have to know what that content is. Market assessment and needs assessment are how we determine what that content is. Just as learning science focuses on getting verifiable evidence of which learning approaches work best, these kinds of assessments allow us to determine the content not by assuming or guessing what’s needed in the market but by following processes and systems that help us ensure the content is what learners need.

The idea of systems and processes is critical because, ideally, you want to leave as little of this to chance as you can. That’s a key reason we’re talking about market and needs assessment as part of a conversation about learning science: There are scientific ways to go about them.

Jeff Cobb

That may seem obvious, but we often see situations where learning businesses have not been scientific, where they have not really followed systems and processes to assess their market and learner needs. But the lack of system or process is at the root of the whole “We built it, and they didn’t come” problem we hear about so often.

We keep using the word process because assessment should be something that takes place over time. That doesn’t mean there’s not value in taking snapshots in time, like you would with a typical needs assessment survey, for example. It just means you shouldn’t rely solely on that—you need to have methods in place of observing and engaging with prospective learners over time to get a truer sense of their situation, their challenges and problems, and how they behave.

In addition to treating assessment as a process rather than a snapshot in time, you should also bring a scientific mindset to