Behaviour Change Methods: design programmes

01

Before this course, and what a programme is

In simple words

A recipe tells you exactly what to cook, how much of each thing, and in what order. "Eat better" is not a recipe. A behaviour-change programme is a recipe: one clear action, for clear people, at a clear time and place, with steps that fit.

Before this course: Self-Regulation Science: attention and willpower (course 9.12.3). You already know how to read a self-control study (design, size, effect size, preregistration, replication), the ego depletion story, the marshmallow test follow-ups, switch costs, the habits-not-heroics finding and the claim checklist. Before that you learned rewards, friction, commitment devices and feedback (9.12.2). This course puts it together: designing a programme that helps a group of people change one behaviour, and teaching others to do the same.

Key facts

Personal plan vs programme: a personal plan is for you. A programme is a repeatable plan for a group (a class, a team, a club) that someone else could run from your notes.
Target behaviour: one observable action, stated so precisely that two people would agree whether it happened. A common way to specify it:

Part	Vague	Precise
Who	"Students"	"First-year students in my study group"
What	"Study more"	"Review flashcards for 10 minutes"
When	"Regularly"	"Right after dinner, Monday to Friday"
Where	"Somewhere"	"At the kitchen table"
How often	"A lot"	"5 days a week for 4 weeks"

The Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW). Michie, van Stralen and West (2011, Implementation Science) reviewed 19 existing frameworks of behaviour-change interventions and found that none covered the full range of options. They built the BCW: a "behaviour system" at the hub (COM-B: capability, opportunity, motivation), surrounded by 9 intervention functions, surrounded by 7 policy categories. Lessons 2 and 3 use it.
Limits stated by its authors: their review may have missed some frameworks; sorting functions and policies involves judgement, with no guarantee the chosen version is the best; and the wheel may be hard to use in practice.
Education only: in this course you design programmes for everyday behaviours with adults (or with a school's agreement) who choose to take part.

Step by step

Write one vague goal a group you know cares about (for example "move more", "save more", "study more").
Rewrite it as one target behaviour using the five rows: who, what, when, where, how often.
Check it is one action, not a result ("walk 20 minutes", not "lose weight").
Ask two people to read it and say whether they could tell if it happened.
If they disagree, make it more precise.
Check: your target is observable, countable and something the group agrees to work on.

Watch on YouTube

The Behaviour Change WheelKnowlege Translation · YouTube · youtube.com

Videos by other creators on YouTube, for reference. They are not made by or affiliated with The Future Market.

LESSON 01Before this course, and what a programme is

LESSON 01 / ANIMATED LESSON / AI VOICE00:00 / 01:00

Voice

Read the video script

[Host] "'Eat better' is not a recipe. A recipe says exactly what, how much and when."
[Text on screen: Who, what, when, where, how often] "A target behaviour is one action, so precise that two people would agree whether it happened."
[Text on screen: COM-B, 9 functions, 7 policies] "The Behaviour Change Wheel puts capability, opportunity and motivation at the hub, with nine intervention functions around it."
[Host] "Its authors are honest: it involves judgement and can be hard to use. We'll use it step by step."

Try it now

Write three target behaviours for three different groups, each with all five rows filled in, and get one person to test each for precision.

ClaudeStuck? Copy a ready-made prompt for Claude

Copy this, open Claude, paste it, and Claude will walk you through the lesson step by step.

For a grown-up: Claude is for adults (18+). Copy this, paste it into Claude, and use the answer to explain the lesson to your child.

I'm learning "Behaviour Change Methods: design programmes" on The Future Market. Lesson 1: "Before this course, and what a programme is".

What the lesson teaches:
- Personal plan vs programme: a personal plan is for you. A programme is a repeatable plan for a group (a class, a team, a club) that someone else could run from your notes.
- Target behaviour: one observable action, stated so precisely that two people would agree whether it happened. A common way to specify it:
- Part - Vague - Precise
- Who - "Students" - "First-year students in my study group"
- When - "Regularly" - "Right after dinner, Monday to Friday"
- Where - "Somewhere" - "At the kitchen table"
- How often - "A lot" - "5 days a week for 4 weeks"

The exercise I'm working on:
Write three target behaviours for three different groups, each with all five rows filled in, and get one person to test each for precision.

I'm stuck. Please:
1. Explain the main idea in plain, simple words with one everyday example.
2. Walk me through the exercise one small step at a time. Ask me what I've done so far before giving the next step.
3. Don't just give me the final answer. Help me do it myself, and check my work when I share it.

I'm a parent helping my child (about 8 years old) with a lesson called "Before this course, and what a programme is" from the course "Behaviour Change Methods: design programmes".

Here's what the lesson says:
A recipe tells you exactly what to cook, how much of each thing, and in what order. "Eat better" is not a recipe. A behaviour-change programme is a recipe: one clear action, for clear people, at a clear time and place, with steps that fit.

The activity:
Write three target behaviours for three different groups, each with all five rows filled in, and get one person to test each for precision.

Please explain this so an 8-year-old understands: short sentences, a fun everyday example, and no hard words.
Then give me 3 simple questions I can ask my child to check they understood, and a way to do the activity together, one tiny step at a time.

Open Claude

Sources

Michie, van Stralen & West (2011), "The behaviour change wheel: a new method for characterising and designing behaviour change interventions," Implementation Science: doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-6-42

My notes

I learned this

02