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Abstract
Having successful recreation programs and satisfied participants can, in part, be attributed to the needs assessment step of recreation programming. Assessing participant needs, a required step of the recreation programming process, is difficult to illustrate in class because potential participants are not readily available to articulate their needs. As a result, many instructors simply introduce the topic and leave the more advanced concepts of needs assessment (e.g., survey design, sample selection, statistical analysis) to be covered in the evaluation or research course. This article demonstrates how implementing a “mock” needs assessment survey can help simulate a “big picture” understanding of it by students enrolled in a recreation programming class. End result is that students gain first-hand experience on how the process works by participating in a needs assessment survey, analyzing the data, and making programmatic recommendations for a future recreation program.