Needs assessment returns being analyzed

The goal of the four regional technical assistance centers* is to increase postsecondary educational opportunities and ac-cessibility for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. In or-der to determine the state of the art in provision of such ser-vices, the four technical assistance centers have collaborated to conduct a national needs assessment of postsecondary educa-tion institutions. NETAC is coordinating the needs assessment for all four centers by generating the mailing lists, inputting the data, and analyzing the returns. Each center is responsible for distribution of the questionnaires and follow-up with institu-tions not responding to the initial mailing.

Throughout the spring staff members from the four regional centers worked with the Department of Education to develop the questionnaire. After review by the Office of Management and Budget, the questionnaire was distributed in July to more than 10,000 postsecondary institutions throughout the country. The questionnaire seeks to determine if a postsecondary insti-tution provides support services to deaf and hard-of-hearing stu-November dents, the numbers of deaf and hard-of-hearing students being served, areas of needed support and training, and the name and address of a contact responsible for providing support services to deaf and hard-of-hearing students. These data will provide information to each of the centers to help them develop techni-cal assistance programming in their region.

At this writing, data are being returned and entered into the computer for analysis. An initial presentation of the results was shared with technical assistance center directors at the October PEPNet meeting. At that time we reviewed the return rates, estimated the number of students being served, and prioritized the needs for technical assistance articulated by the institutions that returned the questionnaire. Our expectations are that the center directors will be able to use this information to deter-mine the types of technical assistance they must provide in their specific regions. A presentation about the findings will be made at the PEPNet conference in Orlando, Florida in the spring, and NETAC will make a file of the data available to each of the regional centers so they can perform analysis to answer spe-cific questions they have about needs in their regions.

If you have any questions about the needs assessment project, please contact Karen Hopkins at NETAC, KAH9323@rit.edu; 716-475-6493 (voice/TTY); 716-475-7660 (fax).

Jerry Walter is a research associate in the NTID Educational and Career Research department and has been instrumental in planning and implementing the needs assessment project.