MSI5520 · Understanding human behaviour to influence system change

Overview

Behavioural change approaches are an important, and often very cost effective, part of the mix of solutions to many sustainability and other public policy issues, such as water conservation, energy efficiency and immunisation. Considerable opportunities exist in this space, as comparatively little time and effort is usually invested in understanding the drivers of individual behaviour and designing solutions that target these drivers. With a mix of theoretical and practical work, this unit will enable you to understand individual behaviour in a way that identifies opportunities for change. It will take you through a process of unpacking public policy challenges and identifying real-life behavioural solutions. This involves prioritising behaviours and target audiences and understanding drivers of behaviour and potential solutions. You will also learn to to design, test and evaluate behaviour change interventions.

Offerings

The Handbook publishes no offerings for this unit.

Assessment

The Handbook does not list a final examination among the assessment items. That is not a guarantee there is none.

Assessment details may change. Please refer to the assessment information in Moodle closer to the start of the teaching period.

Requisites

The Handbook lists no prerequisite, corequisite or prohibition for this unit.

Learning outcomes

1. Clearly define human behaviour;
2. Identify and explore the range of behavioural drivers;
3. Understand and apply a methodical, research-based approach to developing behaviour change solutions to sustainability challenges;
4. Explore and apply different research methods and thinking tools to move from a challenge to a behaviour change solution;
5. Collaboratively design and effectively communicate a behaviour change initiative.

Workload

This unit will be delivered over a period of 6 weeks. This will include independent self-paced work on online materials and assignments across the teaching period. It will also include synchronous (live) classes. These will be four 2-hour online evening workshops, and one 2-day on-campus intensive (16 hours in total). The combination of classes and independent work will total 144 hours.

Student experience, not official rules. Nothing here changes what the Handbook says.