Stage 1 of Designing an Air Travel Intervention: Conducting a COM-B Survey — Applied Projects 2021
The Behavioural Innovations Society’s Applied Project Team working to reduce academic air travel within the UCL Psychology and Language Science Department are making good progress on what promises to be a valuable intervention. In our previous article, we introduced our intervention brief, the background for the issue and our chosen target behaviour. We now move on to Stage 1 of the development process:
1. Understand the behaviour
To do this, we designed, piloted and distributed a COM-B survey to identify the barriers and facilitators of travelling by train for academic business. The COM-B model, shown in the diagram below, theorises that for behaviour to occur there must be an interaction between capability, opportunity and motivation. Using this to structure a survey allows us to see the behaviour in context, in order to understand the barriers and facilitators of changing this behaviour. To create the questions relating to physical and psychological capability, physical and social opportunities, and reflective and automatic motivations, we undertook a literature review to identify examples of each from previous research.
Having each taken an area of the COM-B model to research and design relevant survey questions, we then prioritised the most promising as a group. We refined the questions to a total of 23, which included questions about the booking and travel planning processes, funding, perceptions of train travel, and identity as a sustainable traveller. The GoogleForms survey was distributed to PALS staff, and can be viewed here.
Following the collection of COM-B data, we split into groups to analyse the quantitative findings and qualitative comments which were optionally provided. Our initial findings were included as part of a presentation to the BIS Applied Projects Teams and are shown in the slides below:
These findings will now form the basis of our intervention design and the next stage of the process:
2. Identify the intervention options
In order to kickstart this next stage, we will meet with Dr Jo Hale, a research fellow on the CUSSH project (Complex Urban Systems for Sustainability and Health) within PALS, who has considerable expertise in the development of interventions for sustainability.
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