Understanding of the Promoted Messages

The indicator measures the proportion of the target group members who correctly understand what the promoted messages are asking them to do - an essential pre-condition for ensuring that the social and behaviour change (SBC) messages lead to the intended results.

Determine the indicator’s value by using the following methodology:

1) Select the materials that your activities use to communicate those messages whose clarity you want to assess (for example, posters, billboards, radio recordings, etc.). If you use several materials with exactly the same message (i.e. no difference in the message's wording, format, etc.), choose only one material per one message.  

2) Set the minimum number of messages whose meaning the respondent needs to understand in order to meet the indicator (for example, at least 3 out of 5 messages).

3) Conduct individual interviews with a representative sample of the target group members:

RECOMMENDED SURVEY QUESTION (Q) AND POSSIBLE ANSWERS (A)

Q1: Now I would like you to [choose: look at this material / listen to a recording]. Let the respondent read it / listen to it. Do you think that this [specify the material / audio recording] is asking you to do anything in particular?

A1: yes / no

(ask the following question only if the previous answer is „yes“)

Q2: What exactly is the [specify the material / audio recording] asking you to do?

A2: _

1) the respondent clearly understands what the message is asking her/him to do

2) the respondent does not (clearly) understand what the message is asking her/him to do

Repeat the questions for all the messages you want to assess.

4) Count the number of respondents who correctly understood the minimum number of messages (understood what the messages are asking them to do).

5) To calculate the indicator’s value, divide the number of respondents who correctly understood the minimum number of SBC messages by the total number of respondents. Multiply the result by 100 to convert it to a percentage.

Disaggregate the data by education level, wealth quintile, and other relevant criteria.

1) Ensuring that people correctly understand what are the messages asking them to do is something that should be done through pre-testing (see guidance below) before the SBC communication activities start. The main purpose of collecting the data after the activities were implemented is to gain more representative information on how easy-to-understand the messages were from the target audience’s point of view.

2) Be careful about in which part of the questionnaire will you place the above listed questions, so that the answers are not influenced by previously asked questions and/or do not influence the answers to the subsequent questions. 

3) Make sure that the data collectors clearly understand the meaning of each assessed message and can assess whether the respondent truly understands what the message is asking her/him to do (including what to do if the respondent provides an answer that is too general).