This study investigated the relationship between public school staff development activities perceived as successful and the needs assessment methods (formal and/or informal) used to initiate them. Also studied were characteristics of those staff development activities, including, the method used in evaluating their success, time of day the activity was held, number of sessions, number of contact hours, target population, number of participants, and general content.

Results of the analysis of the questionnaire suggested that formal needs assessment methods are not necessarily a better predictor of success for individual activities than other methods. "More successful" activities were also found to involve more than one session, rather than "one-shot" varieties many times used in staff development.

A questionnaire was developed and sent to federally funded teacher centers operating in the spring of 1982 with 38 chosen for the study sample. Each respondent was asked to identify three "more successful" activities and three "less successful" activities. The questionnaire also solicited information on how it was determined to offer the activity and how the success of the activity was judged.