This document provides a summary of a guide to assessing conservation behavior change for visitors of the National Aquarium in Baltimore. It outlines the project scope, methodology, results, and recommendations. The project aimed to evaluate current literature and stakeholder interviews to select appropriate conservation behaviors and assess behavior change strategies. Methods included a literature review and interviews. Key recommendations were to identify barriers through surveys/polls, set criteria for measuring success, and evaluate change through critical incidents and diaries. The limitations included subjective information and limited interview samples.
1. A Guide to Assessing Conservation Behavior
Change for Visitors of the National Aquarium in
Baltimore
Prepared by:
Shareese Williams, Kevin Jones, Ben Crenca,
Tiana Milburn, & Marian de Almeida
5. Agenda
❖ Scope of Project
❖ Methods of Data Collection
❖ Results
❖ Recommendations
❖ Implementation
❖ Limitations
❖ Discussion
6. Scope of the Project
❖ Collect data on conservation behavior change
strategies through evaluation of current literature and
stakeholder interviews
❖ Selecting appropriate conservation behaviors for
change
❖ Assessing effectiveness of behavior change strategies
7. Topics to Address
❖ Identifying barriers to selecting appropriate
conservation change behaviors for the NA
❖ Determining criteria for conservation behavior success
❖ Recommending methods for assessing the success of
conservation change campaigns
8. Methodology
❖ Two methods:
➢ Literature Review
■ Keywords: evaluating change programs, models of
change, barriers to change, etc.
➢ Interviews
■ Three Interviews/meetings in total
9. Results - Interviews
Common Themes
➢ Effective assessments of change strategies
➢ Additional methods for selection
➢ Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
➢ Criteria for success
11. Literature Review Themes: Models of Behavior Change
❖ McKenzie-Mohr’s (2000) Community Based
Social Marketing
❖ Prochaska’s (1986) Transtheoretical Model
13. Literature Review Themes: Selecting Behaviors
❖ To select appropriate conservation behaviors,
behaviors must be:
➢ Nondivisible and end state
➢ Have high impact and high probability
➢ Have low penetration
18. Recommendation Two
❖ Setting criteria of success
➢ Creates benchmarks to determine success
❖ Strengths:
➢ Provides a baseline
❖ Weaknesses:
➢ Needs to be tailored to specific audience and behavior(s).
19. Recommendation Three
❖ Evaluating change through critical incidents
➢ 1 positive and 1 negative experience at the NA
➢ Assess limitations and benefits of exhibits
❖ Strengths:
➢ Good indicator of knowledge and attitudes
❖ Weaknesses:
➢ Misguided information
20. Recommendation Three Cont.
❖ Evaluating change through diaries
➢ Paper or electronic
➢ Nielsen ratings methodology
❖ Strengths:
➢ Insight into post NA visit behavior
❖ Weaknesses:
➢ Subjective, difficult to verify
22. Limitations
❖ Change is dependent on visitors.
❖ Information gathered by surveys/in focus groups is
subjective and may be unverifiable.
❖ Larger interviewee sample would have increased
confidence in opinions presented.
❖ Reviewed literature spanned many sources and topics
unrelated to conservation.
23. Discussion
❖ Benefits of Recommendations:
➢ Visitor profiles and associated barriers
■ Casting a wider net.
■ Insight into perceived barriers for each profile described.
➢ Setting criteria for success
■ Makes goals/expectations salient.
■ Allows for baseline measurement to later compare against results.
24. Discussion cont’d.
➢ Critical Incidents
■ Sense of visitor satisfaction at time of visit.
■ Sets benchmarks.
➢ Diaries
■ Allows for follow-up on behavior change campaign success.
■ Serves as a reminder to engage in conservation behaviors.
25. Discussion cont’d.
❖ Drawbacks of recommendations:
➢ Requires training of staff.
➢ Time/resources needed for focus group
facilitation.
➢ Cost of diary creation/tracking.
➢ Dependent on visitor participation.
26. Resources
AT&T (2013, Apr 12). AT&T Don’t text while driving documentary: AT&T [Video File]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dht-Vy25jPs.
Discovery Channel (2015, Nov 5). Racing extinction: Premieres December 2nd at 9/8c [Video File]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT2kJZxz4G4.
Gardolsenweb (2010, Oct 15). Captain Planet PSA [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dtu1ddm5e0
McKenzie-Mohr, D. (2000). Fostering sustainable behavior through community-based social marketing. American Psychologist,
55, 531-537.
Rakowski, W., Ehrich, B., Goldstein, M. G., Rimer, B. K., Pearlman, D. N., Clark, M. A., ... & Woolverton, H. (1998). Increasing
mammography among women aged 40–74 by use of a stage-matched, tailored intervention. Preventive Medicine, 27, 748-
756.
Notas del editor
We will pose this question to the class and the guests. Ask them how that video clip made them feel.
Which one resonated more with you? One over the other? or both equally? Why?
Once we get answers we can segue into how the discovery channel used this as their conservation behavior change strategy. Judging from the reactions in just a class of 15-20, it seems like it worked. (If no one answers then we can scrap that last sentence and just talk about how this is an example of a behavior change strategy)
Our next segue will be “How can they assess the meaningfulness of this message”
Key topics for the project ( probably can get most of this info from the exec summary)
got to keep it short and succinct
Literature Review
We focused on…..
(After we talk about what we focused on) “Our sources came from academic databases such as Google Scholar, EBSOhost, PsychInfo, PsychArticles
Overall we looked through approximately 80 sources. However we deemed 57 useful when constructing the report.
Interviews
We were able to interview Candice, Heather and Nabila Chami (Social media Strategist), in person, over the phone, and over email
From these interviews we were able to gain insight on…..(List out information)
Main points of interviews and literature search
add in 2 examples of success that is demonstrated by the NA (info came from interviews)
2 examples of how they can grow
We do not need to go through each interview here. Only touch on main points.
More effective assessments came from Candice
2nd point from Candice and Heather (methods currently used are card sorting)
KPI - from nabila...going to inquire about key performance indicators in the presentation. From my understanding, KPIs are used to assess satisfaction with the aquarium, how much are KPIs used for conservation messages or is that included with satisfaction?
The NA has set criteria for success in the forms of email list signups and social media activity. However when speaking to Nabila, she does not consider a like or a favorite a criterion of success.
We gathered that the NA is already has the pieces in place. They want more information and more structure with the process as a whole
“We conducted a literature review on selection strategies for conservation behaviors, criteria used to assess behavior change, and the assessment used to evaluate the effectiveness of conservation behavior change strategies. All five members of the consulting group gathered empirical articles and other pertinent literature to read, summarize, and annotate for the literature review. A variety of academic databases, including Google Scholar, PsycINFO, and PsycARTICLES, EBSCOhost, and Medline were used to include in the review. Key search terms included conservation behavior change, pro-environmental behavior, behavior modification, criteria for selecting behavior, stages of behavior change, evaluating change programs, assessing change over time, models of change, barriers to change, community based social marketing, behavior change tools, monitoring change, change campaigns, criteria for evaluation, individual change factors, and evaluating conservation impact. A pie chart in Appendix A, depicts that 75 works/sources obtained, but only 57 were deemed useful in supporting recommendations for this current project.”
Social marketing derives from the social learning model,
which suggests that individuals will learn from one another through observation and modeling (Bandura, 1971).
Community based social marketing, includes the following steps:
selecting behavior,
identifying barriers to behavior,
designing strategies to reducing barriers,
piloting strategies,
and evaluating change
6 stages
Non-divisible behaviors → those that cannot be broken down into smaller behaviors. They’re distinct, meaning each is specific, having its own barriers and benefits
Ex: adding insulation into a home is a divisible behavior because it can be done in multiple locations in the home, such as the basement or attic.
End state → those that actually produce change with no additional steps.
Ex: the actual installation of energy efficient appliances. The mere purchase of the appliances is the beginning behavior, but the end state is the behavior that is at the end of the behavioral change (i.e., installation).
Impact (how much of an impact the behavior will have on the individual)
Penetration (how many individuals are currently engaging in the behavior)
Probability (the likelihood of individuals adopting the selected behavior).
Lack of knowledge is the first barrier
Two points to know
Knowledge equates to action
Individuals act rationally when reviewing their choices
Knowledge is important, however it does not alone change behavior
Attitude → person’s feeling toward an object, stimulus that directly impacts behavior
attitude can be dissonant to behavior (cognitive dissonance occurs when you believe something however your behavior shows the opposite)
Cognitive dissonance can be used however to elicit behavior change
Motivation → one time vs repeated action?
Focus groups
different from group interviews: do not promote interactions between group members, instead focusing on asking those in attendance for answers to interviewers’ questions
focus groups promote interaction between group members and use the interactions of those members to generate quantitative data
7-10 members
Subjective, but can get a sense of which programs visitors happy with/which programs visitors think help influence conservation
Useful before (pre) and after (post) visits.
Interviews
Used to gather qualitative data. Unstructured or structured
Critical incidents gathers respondents observations of human behavior or a specific experience, in which their opinion is recorded to ascertain the most important of experiences
You can:
identifying information sources (which were the current employees in the organization)
conducting investigative action (in the form of interviews/focus groups with current employees, or literature review)
developing written summaries the critical incidents, analyzing the data gathered, and taking decisive action.
for each recommendation (strengths, drawbacks, define stakeholders’ roles, determine benefits)
Statista (2015) projected that by 2016, there will be over two billion social media accounts worldwide, making it difficult to find an individual who does not have some form of social media.
AT&T used focus groups to select age appropriate messages that would elicit behavior change
Stakeholders involved : Social media team
The benchmarks will stem from the behaviors selected and then the NA can decide what is successful conservation acts for their clientele
For example: If recycling is considered an appropriate behavior, then the NA can work on piloting a change strategy that will be associated with recycling. Research can be done through waste management companies to create a baseline of the community on how many individuals recycle (information can also be obtained through focus groups or interviews). The benchmarks will be set through the collected information and the NA should focus on making the criteria SMART - specific (tailored to recycling), measurable, Achievable (challenging but attainable), realistic, and Time-bound (how many people do you want recycling in the next 4 months? a year?)
Mentioned in the report, Merrill and wright described a plan for obtaining critical incidents
Identify information sources, conduct investigative actions, summarize the findings, and analyze the results
The questions can be as simple as “Can you tell me one positive experience and one negative experience you had at the NA today?”
Information may be about their experience at the NA, and less about conservation strategies
we can even add drawbacks here instead of the slides before
Representative samples are important, however it can sometimes be very difficult to get pariticpation. The need for incentives may come into effect for a majority of the methodologies
Subjective information can be subject to biases. A participant may have stronger than normal feelings towards something or you could have just caught them on a bad day
Literature
obtained from many sources
may not relate to conservation
