Affiliation:
1. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Abstract
Now more than ever before, health care educators are being challenged to meet the complex and dynamic needs of an expanding health care workforce. Continuing education requirements as well as graduate and undergraduate programs are striving to keep pace with the demands for more highly skilled health care professionals. Likewise, technology and related instructional media have been evolving at an exponential pace. The confluence of these variables requires health care educators to be knowledgeable about the options and tools available to design and deliver instruction using a variety of platforms in more diverse settings. In order to ensure that instruction achieves its intended goals, it is imperative to fully assess the learner characteristics of the target audience. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the rationale for conducting a learner analysis and utilizing learner characteristics in designing effective instruction.