Staff Understanding of Effective Social and Behaviour Change

Output

Outcome

% of relevant staff who demonstrate understanding of the key principles and practices of effective social and behaviour change (SBC) interventions

This indicator assesses the extent to which staff involved in designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating projects that promote different practices understand the key principles and approaches of effective social and behaviour change (SBC) interventions. Such understanding is an important precondition for effectively promoting the adoption of desired practices. The indicator is relevant to interventions across a wide range of sectors, including health, nutrition, WASH, agriculture, environment, gender and education. It measures staff understanding of SBC principles rather than their ability to apply these principles correctly in practice. The findings can help identify knowledge gaps and inform targeted staff training and support.

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

 

1) Define whose understanding of social and behaviour change (SBC) you want to measure. In particular, these should be those responsible for writing project proposals, designing activities that promote different practices, and ensuring their implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. Prepare a list of all staff who meet these criteria, including relevant partner staff where appropriate. Decide whether to assess everyone or a representative sample. Record the number of eligible staff and how many complete the assessment.

 

2) Define the essential SBC-related knowledge that the prioritised staff should have. There may be different expectations from different staff (e.g. those who write proposals versus those who work at the community level). If so, you might need to prepare multiple lists of the essential knowledge, depending on the type of work a staff member does. The steps below will apply separately to each list / staff line of work in such a case.

Depending on staff responsibilities, the assessment should cover the most important principles of effective SBC, such as defining the priority behaviour, understanding what influences it (including barriers, social norms and access to resources), engaging the intended population, selecting activities based on evidence, and monitoring whether the desired changes occur. Avoid focusing only on communication and awareness-raising techniques.

 

3) Prepare a simple test to assess whether the project staff have the essential SBC knowledge defined in step 2. The test can use a combination of the following:

• questions assessing people’s knowledge related to the key principles and practices of effective SBC interventions

• scenarios where the person is asked to describe how they would respond to a given situation (using predefined scoring criteria while allowing different valid answers)

• questions asking people to choose between two or more statements (one being correct, one or more being incorrect)

• questions assessing whether people can recognise common misconceptions related to the design, implementation and M&E of SBC interventions

Include some open-ended questions or scenarios where they help assess staff understanding of SBC principles. If you do not specialise in SBC, engage a relevant expert in preparing and evaluating the test. For open-ended questions and scenarios, prepare a simple scoring guide that describes what a correct or partially correct answer should include. If several people score the tests, check that they apply the criteria consistently.

To avoid having unrealistically high or unnecessarily low requirements, verify the difficulty of the test by pre-testing it with several people.

 

4) Decide how many marks will be allocated to each correct answer. For example, for a correct answer to a simple question, you can give one mark; for correct answers to more complex questions / scenarios, you can give two marks.

 

5) Decide how many marks a person needs to get to be considered as “understanding the key principles and practices of effective SBC interventions” (e.g. a score of at least 30 out of 40). There is no universal passing score for this assessment; the example above is illustrative. Set a realistic threshold before administering the test, based on the essential knowledge staff need and the pre-test findings. Where certain knowledge is particularly important, consider requiring correct answers to those questions in addition to achieving the overall minimum score.

 

6) Administer the test. If you want to measure changes in staff understanding before and after a learning activity (e.g. training), assess the same staff using the same or equivalent questions and scoring criteria. Where different versions are used, ensure that they cover the same essential knowledge and have similar difficulty. Keep in mind that changes in test scores indicate changes in assessed understanding, but do not necessarily demonstrate improved performance at work.

 

7) Count the number of staff who achieved the minimum acceptable score (see point 5).

 

8) To calculate the indicator’s value, divide the number of staff who achieved the minimum acceptable score by the total number of staff who completed the test. Multiply the result by 100 to convert it to a percentage.

This data can be disaggregated by staff role and gender, and, if relevant and feasible, also by age group, years of relevant work experience and employing organisation.

1) Your organisation may have a set of SBC principles and best practices that apply to all (or most of) the interventions that promote different practices. If this is the case, consider developing a standard test that includes both:

• the essential SBC principles and practices (that apply to all interventions); plus

• additional questions assessing people’s understanding of measures that are specific to a given project

Having such a partially pre-prepared test will make it easier for you to use this indicator across different projects. Engage relevant experts in developing the test to ensure its quality.

 

2) Share individual test results privately with respondents and explain the correct answers. This can provide a useful learning opportunity. Discuss common knowledge gaps with the wider team without identifying individuals or sharing their scores. Use the findings to plan any necessary follow-up training or support.

3) Keep in mind that passing a knowledge test does not necessarily mean that staff can apply SBC principles effectively. If you want to assess the practical skills of staff or volunteers who directly promote behaviours, consider using the indicator Capacity to Promote Behaviours Effectively.

Also consider using the following indicators:

• Capacity to Promote Behaviours Effectively (assesses whether people promoting priority behaviours have the practical competencies needed to do so effectively)

• Use of Provided Knowledge and Skills (helps assess whether staff who received SBC capacity-strengthening support subsequently apply what they learned)

• Prevalence of Barriers to Change (measures barriers experienced by target populations, helping teams apply SBC knowledge to the design and monitoring of interventions)