What is lost?: A comparative analysis of what works in SBCC interventions in practice and in academic literature
Summary:
Social and behaviour change communication (SBCC) has a critical and potentially transformational role in addressing all of the sustainable development goals. Often, SBCC development projects lack a robust theoretical and methodological approach (i.e., experimental) and lessons from the field are not integrated into academic knowledge. What gets to be selected for academic systematic reviews ignores the substantial body of knowledge produced by field lessons. This study contrasts and tries to bridge these two perspectives, by exploring a collaboration between practitioners and academics to discuss best practice projects from the SBCC field in the light of recent advances in the field of social psychology. This study presents two literature reviews: a rapid literature review of practical SBCC interventions and an extensive systematic literature review of peer-reviewed journals that analysed interventions aimed at changing social norms and behaviour in those dimensions. The insights from these two reviews were compared to look for omissions and commonalities. More specifically, they tried to identify good practices, discussing the links with the theories and factors identified in the academic literature specifically Behavioural Science. In doing so, this study contributes to enrich the dialogue between theory and practice, as part of the ongoing work hosted at the Media and Social Norms Collaborator.
Background/Objectives:
Social and behaviour change communication has a critical and potentially transformational role in addressing all of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Often, SBCC development projects lack a robust theoretical approach and lessons from the field are not integrated into academic knowledge. What gets to be selected for academic systematic reviews ignores the substantial body of knowledge produced by field lessons. This study contrasts and tries to bridge these two perspectives, by exploring a collaboration between practitioners and academics to discuss best practice projects from the SBCC field in the light of recent advances in the field of social psychology.
Description of Intervention and/or Methods/Design:
This study presents two literature reviews: a rapid literature review of practical SBCC interventions and an extensive systematic literature review of peer-reviewed journals that analysed behavioural change interventions in real-world contexts. The rapid literature review analysed 100 media interventions adopting a social norms approach included in practice-oriented platforms. A group of applied researchers, with ext experience in the field, selected the top ten examples of best practices classified in several dimensions: development sector, type of media, media strategy, project design and context that works. The insights from this study were contrasted with the results of an extensive systematic literature review of over 90 academic field experiments published in peer-reviewed journals to look for gaps in approaches and commonalities. Finally, three behavioural scientists investigating poverty, evolutionary science and social identity propose ways in which behavioural science literature could take the SBCC theory and practice thinking forward.
Results/Lessons Learned:
The rapid literature review of practice projects revealed a segmented landscape of complex interventions guided by holistic approaches mainly in the Global South. The reports tend to emphasise implementation aspects that consider context, theories of change focussed on attitudes and social norms and evidence for success/impact. The systematic academic literature review revealed a bias towards more simple interventions with clear metrics, mainly related to alcohol abuse prevention with university students, in controlled settings in Western countries. These academic studies have positive results but often have weak effects on behaviour. The stark contrast between theories and methods from academic and practitioner literature reflects a siloed SBCC field with unclear standards of what counts as evidence.
Discussion/Implications for the Field:
This study contributes to the discussion of what types of evidence count in the SBCC field; what is valued for different audiences (donors, academic and practitioners); and how lessons from practice and academia can be triangulated to advance the SBCC field. The field would benefit from a more diverse pool of theories, stronger evaluation methods and from lessons from successes as well as failures documented in academic literature. Evaluations should be designed as part of interventions to produce data organically (e.g. through digital technologies) as evidence for impact.
Abstract submitted by:
Claudia Lopes - United Nations University
Kavita Abraham-Dowsing - Simplicity Impact Consulting
Paulius Yamin-Slotkus - London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Social and behaviour change communication (SBCC) has a critical and potentially transformational role in addressing all of the sustainable development goals. Often, SBCC development projects lack a robust theoretical and methodological approach (i.e., experimental) and lessons from the field are not integrated into academic knowledge. What gets to be selected for academic systematic reviews ignores the substantial body of knowledge produced by field lessons. This study contrasts and tries to bridge these two perspectives, by exploring a collaboration between practitioners and academics to discuss best practice projects from the SBCC field in the light of recent advances in the field of social psychology. This study presents two literature reviews: a rapid literature review of practical SBCC interventions and an extensive systematic literature review of peer-reviewed journals that analysed interventions aimed at changing social norms and behaviour in those dimensions. The insights from these two reviews were compared to look for omissions and commonalities. More specifically, they tried to identify good practices, discussing the links with the theories and factors identified in the academic literature specifically Behavioural Science. In doing so, this study contributes to enrich the dialogue between theory and practice, as part of the ongoing work hosted at the Media and Social Norms Collaborator.
Background/Objectives:
Social and behaviour change communication has a critical and potentially transformational role in addressing all of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Often, SBCC development projects lack a robust theoretical approach and lessons from the field are not integrated into academic knowledge. What gets to be selected for academic systematic reviews ignores the substantial body of knowledge produced by field lessons. This study contrasts and tries to bridge these two perspectives, by exploring a collaboration between practitioners and academics to discuss best practice projects from the SBCC field in the light of recent advances in the field of social psychology.
Description of Intervention and/or Methods/Design:
This study presents two literature reviews: a rapid literature review of practical SBCC interventions and an extensive systematic literature review of peer-reviewed journals that analysed behavioural change interventions in real-world contexts. The rapid literature review analysed 100 media interventions adopting a social norms approach included in practice-oriented platforms. A group of applied researchers, with ext experience in the field, selected the top ten examples of best practices classified in several dimensions: development sector, type of media, media strategy, project design and context that works. The insights from this study were contrasted with the results of an extensive systematic literature review of over 90 academic field experiments published in peer-reviewed journals to look for gaps in approaches and commonalities. Finally, three behavioural scientists investigating poverty, evolutionary science and social identity propose ways in which behavioural science literature could take the SBCC theory and practice thinking forward.
Results/Lessons Learned:
The rapid literature review of practice projects revealed a segmented landscape of complex interventions guided by holistic approaches mainly in the Global South. The reports tend to emphasise implementation aspects that consider context, theories of change focussed on attitudes and social norms and evidence for success/impact. The systematic academic literature review revealed a bias towards more simple interventions with clear metrics, mainly related to alcohol abuse prevention with university students, in controlled settings in Western countries. These academic studies have positive results but often have weak effects on behaviour. The stark contrast between theories and methods from academic and practitioner literature reflects a siloed SBCC field with unclear standards of what counts as evidence.
Discussion/Implications for the Field:
This study contributes to the discussion of what types of evidence count in the SBCC field; what is valued for different audiences (donors, academic and practitioners); and how lessons from practice and academia can be triangulated to advance the SBCC field. The field would benefit from a more diverse pool of theories, stronger evaluation methods and from lessons from successes as well as failures documented in academic literature. Evaluations should be designed as part of interventions to produce data organically (e.g. through digital technologies) as evidence for impact.
Abstract submitted by:
Claudia Lopes - United Nations University
Kavita Abraham-Dowsing - Simplicity Impact Consulting
Paulius Yamin-Slotkus - London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Source
Approved abstract for the postponed 2020 SBCC Summit in Marrakech, Morocco. Provided by the International Steering Committee for the Summit. Image credit: Julie Lunde Lillesæter/PRIO (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)