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A lot of my frustrations with the HE response to COVID, and the govt's response to obesity, is this underlying assumption that if people are given knowledge they will then choose the optimal path. In fact, behavioural change is rarely about knowledge. 1/?
Most people KNOW they should eat less calories, and they probably KNOW that the calorie information is sitting in their fridge. They don't really change their eating habits though. Why? Well, because ppl are messy and complicated & behaviour even more so. Ppl need motivation 2/?
Most lecturers KNOW that lectures are an ineffective way to learn, they know they need to change their slides, yada yada, but they don't. They are time poor, resource poor, and constrained by other forces. Getting them to 'know' the pedagogy theory doesn't help them change 3/?
Behavioural change is about motivation, attitudes, knowledge, & environmental context. You can't change the behaviour without addressing many, if not all, of these factors. I didn't eat 5 pieces of fudge last night thinking it was healthy. I ate it because I was motivated to 4/?
And I ate it because I've gotten into the habit of snacking playing video games. This is partly why I craft, incidentally, because having something for my hands to do when I'm watching telly keeps me from grazing through the larder 5/?
Financial incentives/penalties are a common example of affecting motivation. But even this is complicated. Like training pets, you need to keep the reward/punishment close to the time. This is why tax not great in calorie conversations. See: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12529-011-9202-5 6/?
Incidentally, reward usually more effective than punishment -but can't be too variable. I think this is where teaching awards fail, b/c often actually based on factors outside educators control, e.g. gender & ethnicity. Students also not good judges http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2016.08.007 7/?
And for me the really frustrating thing is that we KNOW knowledge is ineffective in behaviour change, and have known for some time, and yet we're still not good at changing our behaviours regarding behavioural change. http://link.springer.com/10.1007/BF02197104 8/9
Finally - I also KNOW I should be writing more blogs on my own platform to provide more considered and nuanced discussions than Twitter threads ... but I'm motivated to do this NOW, Twitter is fast, and I am time poor. Hence a Twitter thread. Behaviour is not knowledge driven 9/9
