Week 1 - Making the case for your course / case study

1 - Frame your problem 

Write a prompt that describes what initiated the need for an investigation. Think about your prompt as a crime scene, and your goal (as an investigator) is to find out what happened. A useful prompt is easy to describe to stakeholders with whom you will be working. 

• While talking to a paint contractor, you discover that paint contractors are having major issues with employ recruitment, training, and retention (RTR) as they struggle with keeping up with demand for their services.  As a result, they are forced to turn away customers (costing money). 

2 - Formulate a research question 

• Why is there such a big problem for paint contractors with recruiting, retraining, and retaining new employees?
• What are the underlying causes of the problem?  

3 - Choose your instruments 

• job task analysis
• determine the tasks that employees need to be able to perform. 
• How? (methods for finding out) 
• Surveys are sent to current employees who provide feedback about what they do every day, about current training needs, discontent if any 
• Managers are interviewed about the problem of RTR as they see it and how they've tried to address the problem (why isn't it working?) 

4 - perform your assessment 

• choose methods for collecting data / assessing data 
• survey
• employees / trainees 
• what are you doing now for training 
• what obstacles are getting in the way of you learning more
• what incentives would you need to continue training as a painter 
• managers 
• what is the problem with recruiting, training, retaining 
• what steps have you taken before now to address this problem (why haven't they worked)
• interviews 
• managers 
• what is the problem with recruiting, training, retaining 
• what steps have you taken before now to address this problem (why haven't they worked)

• be prepared to share process with others (to validate it) 

5 - create a needs statement 

• A course about ______________ should exist because [the target audience] are not  ___________________.
• A course about domestic interiors painting should exist because [young people, trainees] are not  getting sufficient training nor enough incentives to pursue training .. to stay employed. 

• use canvas to help prepare this case 
• analysis canvas template 

• Brown, A. and Green, T. (2019) The Essentials of Instructional Design. 4th edn. Taylor and Francis. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/2193934/the-essentials-of-instructional-design-pdf (Accessed: 14 September 2021).
• Mager, R. F., & Pipe, P. (1997). Analyzing Performance Problems: Or, You Really Oughta Wanna (3 ed.): Center for Effective Performance.
• Rossett, A. (1995). Needs assessment. In G. Anglin (Ed.), Instructional technology: Past, present, and future (2nd ed.) (pp. 183–196). Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited.

Case Study - Study group chat | Bad customer feedback

• Why are interactions between customer support representatives and customers resulting in negative reviews? 
• What initiated the sudden negative trend compared to previous reports? 
• look for / identify patterns in the type of negative feedback from customers 
• quality / characteristics of negative feedback
• key topics / subtopics identified 
• frequency 
• level of disdain 
• compared with negative feedback previous to the increase 
• look for correlations
• when did this start to happen 
• what changes were made internally that occured around the same time as the start of this 
• what changes were occuring externally that occured around the same time as the start of this (competitor changes, social issues etc.) 
• survey staff close to the issues to collect their views on what the underlying causes might be 
• tools that could be used 
• data analysis (SPSS?) 
• follow up survey with different types of customers 
• frequent customers 
• new customers 
• follow up focus groups (based on findings of survey)