Know Your Students

Target Audience Analysis is knowing your students; what they already know, why they need this training, what they can relate to, what inspires them, and also what may be too difficult for them at this point.

Imagine delivering a training program for foreign students and during the first lesson you use an American idiom to express an idea, something they may not have heard before.

(ie. "This test will be a piece of cake.")

The result? Frustrated and confused students, wasted time, missed learning objectives, discredit to the instructor knowledge. That is why Target Audience Analysis is not just a first step in instructional design; it is the foundation for everything in the Design phase.

What Is Target Audience Analysis?

In instructional design, Target Audience Analysis (TAA) refers to the process of gathering data about your learners before you build the course. This includes their prior knowledge, learning preferences, job roles, technical skills, motivations, and challenges. Without this information, even the most beautifully designed course may fail to connect.

Robert Gagné (1985), a pioneer in learning theory, emphasized the importance of understanding the learner’s internal state as a precursor to effective instruction. The ADDIE model (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation) starts with "Analysis" for a reason.

Why It Matters

Instructional designers are problem solvers. We don’t just deliver information; we help learners solve problems or change behaviors. To do that, we need to know:

• What they already know (so we don’t bore them)

• What they need to know (so we don’t miss the mark)

• How they learn best (so we don’t lose their attention)

An eLearning module for entry-level retail employees should feel different than one built for experienced engineers in a regulatory industry. And that difference begins with your audience analysis.

What Should You Analyze?

Here are key elements to explore during TAA:

• Demographics: Age, education, language, and cultural background

• Experience Level: Novice vs. expert, and prior knowledge

• Motivation: Intrinsic interest or external rewards

• Learning Environment: Online, in-person, mobile, or hybrid

• Tech Savviness: Can they navigate digital tools confidently?

Use interviews, surveys, learner personas, and existing data from LMS reports or previous evaluations to gather insights.

Tools to Support You

• Learner Personas: Visual profiles that represent common traits of your audience

• Audience Analysis Worksheets: Tools from books like Design for How People Learn by Julie Dirksen

• Stakeholder Interviews: Great for uncovering business needs and learner expectations

Real-World Example

While working on a course for field technicians, an L&D team discovered that many learners were accessing content on their phones while on the job. This insight led to a mobile-first design strategy, using bite-sized microlearning and minimal text and dramatically increasing completion rates and learner satisfaction.

In Closing

Target Audience Analysis isn’t just a checkbox; it’s the compass that keeps your instructional design project on course. As the saying goes, “If you don’t know who you’re designing for, you’re designing for no one.”

References:

• Gagné, R. M. (1985). The Conditions of Learning and Theory of Instruction

• Dirksen, J. (2015). Design for How People Learn

• Branch, R. M. (2009). Instructional Design: The ADDIE Approach