Browsing by Author "Wilson, Caroline"

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    Bottom-up communication: identifying opportunities and limitations through an exploratory field-based evaluation
    (Springer, 2012) Wilson, Caroline; Irvine, K. N.
    Communication to promote behaviours like energy saving can use significant resources. What is less clear is the comparative value of different approaches available to communicators. While it is generally agreed that ‘bottom-up’ approaches, where individuals are actively involved rather than passive, are preferable to ‘top-down’ authority-led projects, there is a dearth of evidence that verifies why this should be. Additionally, while the literature has examined the mechanics of the different approaches, there has been less attention paid to the associated psychological implications. This paper reports on an exploratory comparative study that examined the effects of six distinct communication activities. The activities used different communication approaches, some participative and others more top-down informational. Two theories, from behavioural studies and communication, were used to identify key variables for consideration in this field-based evaluation. The evaluation aimed to assess not just which activity might be most successful, as this has limited generalisability, but to also gain insight into what psychological impacts might contribute to success. Analysis found support for the general hypothesis that bottom-up approaches have more impact on behaviour change than top-down. The study also identified that, in this instance, the difference in reported behaviour across the activities related partly to the extent to which intentions to change behaviour were implemented. One possible explanation for the difference in reported behaviour change across the activities is that a bottom-up approach may offer a supportive environment where participants can discuss progress with like-minded individuals. A further possible explanation is that despite controlling for intention at an individual level, the pre-existence of strong intentions may have an effect on group success. These suggestive findings point toward the critical need for additional and larger-scale studies. The challenges associated with field-based evaluative research and the role of theory are discussed. The design approach and measures used in this study may be useful to other evaluations that seek to compare different communicative approaches.
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    Can persuasion theory help assess a deliberative communication approach?
    (Heriot-Watt University and the Academy of Marketing., 2013-09-06) Wilson, Caroline; Stuart, Graeme
    Energy efficiency is increasingly being seen as a method to help the UK and the EU meet obligations to reduce carbon emissions. Some of the changes needed to the way we consume energy will be achieved through regulation. Others will require us to choose to behave differently. One way of engaging the consumers of energy in buildings is the provision of information as part of a marketing campaign. What makes information capable of encouraging behaviour change is contextual, according to the communication situation and the interests, cultural expectations and needs of the audience. As such campaigns should be pre-assessed when possible in an ex-ante evaluation. This paper investigates the usefulness of applying a persuasive marketing framework to assess the likely impact of a social marketing campaign desiring to use information as a key component in driving behaviour change. The goal is to see if the framework continues to have utility when applied to a campaign which is not overtly persuasive, but rather adopts a ‘bottom-up communication approach’. Such an approach involves both campaign designers and receivers in a symmetrical process using dialogue, participation and involvement in the process, as opposed to a top-down approach to communication featuring scientific persuasion or instructional transmission of information.
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    Designing communication that changes behaviour.
    (IAPS, 2010-06) Wilson, Caroline; Irvine, K. N.; Mill, Greig
    It has long been acknowledged that changing attitudes and norms can be a successful route to adjusting unsustainable consumption habits in the developed world. What is less clear is how communication campaigns work towards encouraging these changes. This paper details how combining constructs from two well-respected theories, one from the field of social cognition and another from the field of communication study, could deliver enhanced communication effectiveness for those in civil society charged with ensuring the long term viability of their communities. Data were gathered from participants engaged in a range of activities aimed to change environmentally significant behaviours. These activities were organised either by a nonprofit environmental action group which developed out of the Agenda 21 programme, or by the local government body for the area. Both organisations belong to a strategic partnership of individuals and groups whose purpose is to help everyone working or living in their community to achieve a one tonne per capita reduction in the carbon dioxide emissions by 2010/11. The activities were directed at adjusting behaviours associated with consumption in the fields of domestic energy use, food sourcing, travel behaviour or waste. The aim was to investigate the relationship between variables from Petty and Caccioppo’s Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), such as perceptions about a message and its source, and the variables proposed by Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) as being key to behaviour change, such as subjective norms and attitudes. From a communication professional perspective, the ELM adds vital specification to the TPB in explaining behaviour. While communicators need to be mindful of psychological factors influencing the targets of their communication when they devise programmes, they more usually have direct influence over external variables such as message and source. Two questionnaires were used to capture variable constructs for both theories. These were drawn as much as possible from survey items found to have high reliability in previously published research. The first questionnaire was conducted at the time participants took part in an activity. The second was conducted between four and five weeks later and included questions about behaviours since activity. Analysis was conducted using standard multiple regression to test the strength of relationships between the predictor variables listed earlier and the outcome variable of behaviour change. Moderation and mediation analysis were used to investigate the relationships between the predictor variables. This paper reports the findings of this analysis and concludes that the impact of communication and social cognition predictor variables, along with their capacity to modify or mediate the impact of other predictors, provides communications designers with a checklist of issues to consider, and guidance for their relative importance, when designing environmentally significant behaviour change communications.
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    Designing live energy performance feedback for public buildings in Leicester
    (European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, 2013-06) Stuart, Graeme; Wilson, Caroline; Bull, R.; Irvine, K. N.
    Buildings represent a huge potential for energy savings, in the UK buildings account for 45 % of energy consumption. Buildings owned and managed by the public sector make up more than 10 % of the EU building stock. In recent years there has been much interest in the use of feedback systems to encourage energy behaviour change but very little literature on the design of feedback systems in the non-domestic setting. The EU “SMARTSPACES” project is developing ICT services using data generated from smart metering systems in public buildings at 11 pilot sites across Europe. The SMARTSPACES system being developed in the Leicester pilot site will provide users with a live, half-hourly comparison of energy (electricity and gas) performance across 20 public buildings. A new indicator of energy performance is proposed. The indicator relates consumption for the current half-hour with the distribution of equivalent historical values. The indicator is robust and unambiguous, reflecting progress in energy saving activity, normalised to each building. The context in which the indicator is presented is also described along with the wider project which is intended to support a change of organisational culture to an active, energy aware community of staff and visitors communicating with energy professionals in the context of ubiquitous building energy performance information.
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    Institutional, social and individual behavioural effects of energy feedback in public buildings across eleven European cities
    (Elsevier, 2017-08-19) Ozawa-Meida, L.; Wilson, Caroline; Fleming, P. D.; Stuart, Graeme; Holland, Carl
    Better understanding of the factors influencing how people use energy in public buildings can help deliver more effective CO2 reduction strategies. This paper describes the institutional, social and individual behavioural effects of communication campaigns in over 500 public buildings in 11 European cities. These campaigns involved engaging with staff to reduce energy use through feedback services based on information from sub hourly meter readings. A summative evaluation was conducted to understand impacts of different information provision in these cities. Qualitative data were gathered through a set of interviews with 40 building professionals at the central or building level. These interviews identified differences in how the energy efficiency communication-based campaigns were implemented at each site and elicited factors to explain how users’ perceptions and understanding changed as a result of the interventions. The evaluation framework helped to identify not only improvements in the delivery of communication-based campaigns, but also the communication factors that impacted on individual behaviour change. The research highlighted the influence of institutional and social effects on individual beliefs and norms. To achieve more effective change in attitudes to reduce use, energy feedback needs to be supported with engagement activities, such as energy coaches, campaigns, and interactive online fora.
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    The role of communication in encouraging sustainable behaviour.
    (De Montfort University, 2011) Wilson, Caroline
    This aim of this thesis is to contribute to the debate about the best approach to engage citizens with sustainable behaviour. It is generally agreed that „bottom-up‟ approaches, where individuals are actively involved, are more effective than „top-down‟ authority-led projects where they have a more passive role. There is, however, a dearth of evidence from comparative evaluations. This thesis examines six distinct communication activities aimed at encouraging individuals to adopt more sustainable behaviours. Each used a different approach, some participative and others more top-down informational. Two questionnaires were used to gather data. The first was conducted at the time of the activity; the second between four and five weeks later and included questions about behaviour change. Variables from Petty and Cacioppo‟s Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), such as perceptions about a message and its source, and variables which Ajzen‟s Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) proposes as being key to behaviour change, such as subjective norms and attitudes, were used to see if these identified any difference in outcome. Findings indicate support for the added value of a bottom-up approach compared to other mechanisms and identify that this may be partly explained by the extent to which such activities offer a more supportive environment for behaviour change to take place. The measures used in this study may be useful to others seeking to evaluate behaviour change communication campaigns or those comparing different communicative approaches.
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    Summative behaviour change evaluation of up-to-date metered energy feedback in European public buildings
    (2016-06) Ozawa-Meida, L.; Wilson, Caroline; Holland, Carl; Fleming, P. D.; Stuart, Graeme
    Energy consumption practices and behaviour are increasingly an important focus of attention, for energy efficiency measures. Such is the demand caused by behaviour at the level of the individual, it may cancel out the benefits of engineering solutions, such as more energy efficient appliances (Adua, 2010). This paper focuses on an evaluation of the SMARTSPACES project and its effect on energy-related behaviour change. The project provided two services: an energy management service (EMS) and an energy decision support service (EDSS). These services were implemented in over 450 public buildings across 11 European cities in 8 European countries (Serbia, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Turkey and United Kingdom). Building professionals (energy managers) primarily used the EMS and building staff used the EDSS. These services intended to inform, support and enable target audiences to use up-to-date metered feedback to reduce energy use in public buildings. The theory of change that underpins the evaluation framework is based in the Elaboration Likelihood Model which aims to understand how communication can influence attitudes and the Theory of Planned Behaviour that examines which attitudes are more likely to predict intentions and behaviours (Wilson, 2014). The paper presents results of ex-ante and ex-post surveys to building staff about their levels of awareness, attitudes, perceived control behaviour and intentions in three selected cities: Bristol, Leicester and Venlo. Outcomes varied across the examined cities depending upon the type of information presented, the level of engagement of users with the energy saving campaigns and the amount of previous energy management work undertaken by buildings’ facilities and energy management professionals.
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    Using theory-based evaluation to assess communications approaches.
    (IEPEC, 2010-06) Wilson, Caroline; Irvine, K. N.; Mill, Greig
    This paper reports on the testing of measures for evaluating different approaches to engaging citizens in projects that encourage them to adopt more sustainable energy use behaviours. It is a central notion of stakeholder theory that ‘bottom-up’ approaches, where individuals are actively involved rather than passive, are preferable to ‘top-down’ authority-led projects. But this general agreement on the need for participation of stakeholders in order to progress towards sustainable development exists alongside a dearth of evidence from comparative evaluations. A comparative study examined six distinct communication activities aimed at encouraging individuals to adopt more sustainable behaviours. Each used a variety of different approaches to communicate, some participative and others more top-down informational. Key theories from the fields of behavioural studies and communication were used to identify the variables to consider in this evaluation. Findings confirmed the added value of a bottom-up approach compared to other mechanisms and identified that the difference between the groups was in the extent to which they implemented their intentions to change behaviour, suggesting that participative methods offer a more supportive environment for this to take place. The measures used in this study may be useful to other evaluations comparing different communicative approaches.
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    The when and how of communicating climate change.
    (2009) Wilson, Caroline; Irvine, K. N.; Mill, Greig A.