Define the behavior. Discuss the who, what, when, where, why, how of the problem. Who does this behavior most affect? Teenagers? How funny that you happen to be conducting your intervention on teenagers! Maybe talk about the history of the behavior. Basically, give me some background on this behavior. Introduce your theory. Here is where you introduce which theory you are going to use. Define it, reference it, explain its components. Previous Interventions Matching YOUR Theory with YOUR Behavior. Discuss 3-4 interventions that have matched your behavior and theory. What did they do? What components of the theory did they use? How did they use them? For example, if they used the Health Belief Model, how did they increase perceived susceptibility or decrease barriers? If they used the Transtheoretical Model, how did they get participants from Precontemplation to Contemplation? Components of Your Intervention. In this paragraph(s), you want to discuss exactly which components you are going to use and why. For example, Parkhill et al. found that perceived barriers really mattered and that they intervened and were able to decrease barriers and this had a positive effect on the behavior. You would’ve already told me all of this in the previous section. So in this section, you need to tell me about how you are going to use this information to inform your intervention. You can simply tell me that you intend to decrease barriers because Parkhill et al. found that by doing so, they changed behavior. You absolutely must make the connections back to the previous section if you want full points here. Methods Participants Who will they be? How will they be recruited? Do NOT say you are going to use a small number and then say that’s a limitation. Not cool. Procedures What will happen from recruitment to dismissal? How will you contact participants? Where will the intervention be held? How frequently? Make sure to address each component of your theory that you intend to use. If you are going to intervene on perceived barriers, tell me how you intend to decrease barriers? How will you know which barriers to decrease? If you intend to intervene on self-efficacy, how will you increase self-efficacy? Be explicit. Materials These are the scales (measures) you are using to determine if you did change behavior. So if you are intervening on tobacco use, how will you measure tobacco use at the beginning and at the end? If you are seeking to decrease barriers, how will you measure if you have actually done so? There are scales (measures) out there for almost anything you want to assess (https://www.apa.org/pubs/databases/psyctests/) Discussion Strengths Discuss two strengths. These should be things about your design that are brilliant. Limitations Discuss two limitations. What types of things were inherent in your design that were flawed, BUT, that you couldn’t change even if you wanted to because they were central to your design? For example, you are using children and trying to change their diets while at school. BUT, they also need to change their diets at home, which is outside the scope of the intervention. So, your limitation is that you can’t control what they’re eating/doing at home. It’s just a part of your design. Another example, you are conducting a qualitative design (e.g. focus groups). This means you have to write out narratives instead of traditional “number” data. This is a limitation because qualitative data is harder to analyze than quantitative data. BUT, you do get some really good information out of narrative data. Implications Discuss two implications. What will these results mean for the greater population? How could this intervention really change things?
