Where EDD8500 provides the theoretical foundation of how adults learn, EDD8502 moves directly into the applied design question: how do you create a learning experience that actually addresses an identified need in a specific organizational context, and how do you know whether it worked?
Identifying organizational learning gaps
The design process starts with the right problem
- Needs assessment for adult learning: EDD8502 requires learners to identify a specific learning gap within their organizational context — not a hypothetical gap but a real one, building on the site-based investigation approach from the EdD core sequence. The course connects to established needs assessment models, particularly Kaufman's Organizational Elements Model and its distinction between needs (gaps in results) and wants (preferences that may or may not address actual performance gaps)
- Performance analysis: The course examines how to distinguish learning needs (where the root cause of a performance gap is a deficit in knowledge or skill that instruction can address) from non-learning needs (where the root cause is environmental — inadequate tools, unclear expectations, misaligned incentives — and no amount of training will solve the problem), drawing on Thomas Gilbert's Human Competence framework and its emphasis on environmental supports as often more powerful than individual learning interventions
- Stakeholder input: EDD8502 emphasizes that learning gap identification requires input from multiple perspectives — learners themselves, supervisors, subject-matter experts, and organizational leadership — because each group has different visibility into what the actual gap is and different assumptions about what would constitute adequate performance
Constructing adult learning experiences
The course develops design competencies across the full range of adult learning experience formats — from formal instructional programs to facilitated workshops, mentoring structures, communities of practice, and blended/online learning designs. EDD8502 applies the adult learning principles from EDD8500 to concrete design decisions: how andragogical principles (experience-based, problem-centered, self-directed) translate into specific instructional strategies, how to design for learner motivation and engagement when participation may be mandatory rather than voluntary, and how to accommodate the diverse backgrounds, prior knowledge levels, and learning preferences typical of adult learner groups. The course draws on instructional design frameworks including the ADDIE model (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation) and Wiggins and McTighe's backward design approach (starting with desired outcomes and working backward to learning activities).
Assessment and evaluation methods
EDD8502 covers the design of assessment mechanisms aligned with the learning experience — both formative assessments embedded within the learning process (to guide ongoing instruction and provide learners with feedback) and summative assessments at the conclusion (to determine whether learning objectives were achieved). The course examines Kirkpatrick's four-level evaluation model (reaction, learning, behavior, results) as a framework for evaluating training and educational program effectiveness at progressively deeper levels, including the practical challenges of measuring transfer of learning to workplace performance (Level 3) and organizational impact (Level 4) — where the evidence is most valuable but also most difficult and expensive to collect.
Applying theory to design
The course explicitly connects theoretical knowledge from EDD8500 to design practice — requiring learners to articulate which adult learning theories inform their design decisions and why. EDD8502 treats learning experience design as a theoretically grounded professional practice, not merely a technical skill: design choices about content sequencing, instructional strategies, learner autonomy, and assessment all reflect theoretical assumptions about how learning occurs, and the competent adult education practitioner can both make and defend those choices on theoretical grounds.
EDD8502 assignments include needs assessments, learning experience design projects, assessment rubric development, and evaluation plans
Our doctoral education specialists deliver design-focused academic support for EDD8502.
Get Help With EDD8502
Needs assessment reports, learning experience design projects, assessment mechanism papers, Kirkpatrick evaluation plans.
Place Your OrderView All ServicesRelated courses
Frequently asked questions
This distinction is one of the most practically important concepts EDD8502 covers, because failure to make it is arguably the single most common and most expensive error in organizational learning and development practice — and it occurs routinely in educational organizations as well as corporate settings. The error follows a predictable pattern: an organization identifies a performance problem (student outcomes are below expectations, employees are not following a procedure correctly, a new initiative is not being implemented as intended), attributes the problem to a knowledge or skill deficit (people don't know how to do it), and designs training or instruction to address the presumed knowledge gap. The training is delivered, sometimes at considerable expense in terms of time, money, and opportunity cost, and the original performance problem persists — not because the training was poorly designed, but because the root cause of the performance gap was never actually a deficit in knowledge or skill in the first place. Thomas Gilbert's Human Competence framework, which EDD8502 draws on, demonstrates through extensive analysis of organizational performance that environmental factors — including unclear expectations, inadequate tools and resources, absence of feedback, misaligned incentives, and organizational process barriers — are responsible for the majority of workplace performance problems, while genuine knowledge and skill deficits account for a smaller proportion than most organizations assume. When a teacher is not implementing a new curriculum with fidelity, for example, the root cause may be insufficient training (a learning need), but it may equally be inadequate planning time (an environmental barrier), lack of appropriate materials (a resource issue), unclear expectations about what fidelity actually looks like in practice (a communication issue), an evaluation system that rewards different instructional behaviors than the new curriculum requires (an incentive misalignment), or some combination of these factors — and training alone will not solve environmental problems no matter how well-designed the training is. EDD8502 makes this distinction foundational to the design process because it prevents learners from falling into the assumption that every performance problem has a learning solution, positions needs assessment as an investigative process rather than a formality that precedes a predetermined training intervention, and develops the practitioner's capacity to recommend non-instructional solutions when the evidence points to environmental root causes — a recommendation that requires both analytical skill and professional confidence, since organizations often prefer the familiar response of designing more training over the more difficult work of addressing environmental barriers.