An educational need is something individuals should learn for their own good, for the good of their organization or profession, or for the good of society. A need represents a gap between an individual's current level and some desired level of knowledge, skills, or attitudes. These questions may well be addressed in a needs assessment. Regardless of how they are addressed, these questions are useful in decision making about how a presentation should be tailored to the intended audience. These questions are a useful tool for programmers in helping speakers focus their planning and instruction.
Learning outcomes have three distinguishing characteristics.
The specified action by the learners must be observable. The specified action by the learners must be measurable. The specified action must be done by the learners. The ultimate test when writing a learning outcome is whether or not the action taken by the participants can be assessed. If not, the outcome probably does net meet all three of the characteristics.