TNA problems
There are two equally damaging scenarios.
At one extreme you may have overestimated the learners' skills and knowledge. You therefore pitch your training at too high a level. If you are lucky, the learners will point this out to you and you may be able to think on your feet and do a quick redesign of the training.
However, if you find yourself having to devote a considerable amount of time to bringing the learners' skills and knowledge up to the point at which you thought you would be starting from, you will be unlikely to be able to achieve the final learning objectives in the original timescale.
If you have overestimated the skills of only one or two members of a learning group, it is quite likely that they will not draw your attention to this. Instead they will sit quietly, not wishing to appear foolish in front of their colleagues. In this situation they will learn little and will become demotivated and disinterested.
At the other extreme you may have underestimated the learners' skills and knowledge. You will then find yourself delivering training which covers areas which they already know - "teaching Granny to suck eggs".
Your learners are likely to become quickly disenchanted and possibly aggressive. If this applies to only one or two in a learning group, these learners are likely to switch off and may distract other group members.
From these examples, you can see the importance of really knowing your learners before you start.
Let's take a look now at Estimating ICT competence
