What are some of the systems, actions or processes you have used in your own life to make a large or unwieldy task more manageable?

it’s the easier we make a behaviour to do, the more likely it is to happen. This is true of both good and bad behaviours.

Behaviours which we are motivated to do but have no ability to do become frustrating and demeaning. We see this inability as a failure which reflects negatively on ourselves and our capacities and, as we continue to engage in this behaviour, we begin a process of negative self-talk which makes us less likely to do the behaviour in future. To move a behaviour along? the action line in the Fogg model (B=MAP), we can employ strategies that make the behaviour easier or harder to do.

Making behaviours harder to do Within the Fogg model, behaviours that fall below the action line are too hard to do and we have little motivation to do them. This is often the remit of authority figures such as educators and police – making a challenging behaviour less accessible and less desirable.

We often see this method of manipulating access in interventions designed to deprive people from a desired stimulus, such as:

· making cigarettes prohibitively expensive

· requiring payment of a fine for an infraction

· removing a lunchtime break from a student who has altercations at breaks.

In each instance, we are making the desired behaviour more challenging to access or more punishing to engage with. This can lower the chances of the behaviour occurring, it can also have unpredictable effects. While this is a legitimate stance and valid path to take the behaviour model, we will see why, in Education, it is not the most effective means of achieving durable behaviour change.

Making behaviours easier to do

In the Fogg model, behaviours that fall above the action line are easy to do, and we have a higher motivation to do them. As such, these behaviours happen with predictable regularity. To promote a behaviour, we can make it easier to do by improving accessibility and motivation.

The most common means of increasing ability or access for students is by supporting them with an SSO to help them co-regulate and find their way through challenging aspects of the desired behaviour. Unfortunately, this does not increase the student’s ability or teach them new behaviour regulation/management/control skills; co-regulation merely shifts the responsibility for behaviour regulation to the adult.

The process of increasing ability can take many forms. Take putting on your shoes, for example. It seems simple enough: get out the shoes, put on your feet, tie the laces, done. However, for some people, putting on shoes is a trial, as difficult a task to ask of them as having them move mountains. How can we help someone like this increase their ability to do this desired behaviour?

Planning for the increase of ability can be reduced to the simple mnemonic PAC:

PERSON (P) – Changing the person involves increasing their knowledge or understanding of the action to make it less difficult. If a person does not know how to tie their shoelaces, you can see how this may be a prohibitive barrier to prompting the desired behaviour.

Here’s one of the best examples I have ever heard to explain this aspect of ability to change: Imagine you have paid for your New Year’s resolution gym membership again this year and, once again, it’s March and you have struggled to even set foot through the door. Upon reflection, you realise that it’s not the physical effort or the time investment of working out that’s stopping you – you truly just do not know what to do in the gym. How do the machines work? What workouts should you be doing? Where is everything? What are the social norms?

You realise that this has been stopping you from the doing the behaviour you want to do. To remedy this, you watch YouTube videos and hire a personal trainer to support you in your first few visits until you become accustomed to the environment. Success! You are now going to the gym more regularly.

ACTION (A) – In this domain, you modify the frequency, intensity or duration of the behaviour to reduce the complexity, actual difficulty or perceived difficulty. In our example of putting on your shoes, you could change the following:

· frequency – only put on shoes when it’s time to go out

· intensity – you only have to put on one shoe, and I will do the other

· duration – only put on your shoes for 2 minutes

CONTEXT (C) – Finally, you can change the context the behaviour is being triggered in. This refers to the environmental factors or resources available to make the behaviour easier. In our shoe example, you may get shoes with no laces, or slip-on shoes. You may place the shoes at the door ready to go, or start with them pre-tied.

This PAC model can also be used in reverse, to make a behaviour more difficult to do and reduce the likelihood of it occurring.

Implement some of the ability changes you explored in the plan phase.

Using your habit tracker, record and document how each change impacted your ability and motivation to do your desired behaviour.

I encourage you to write your reflections in a journal or Word document using these guiding questions:

What surprised you about the main topic?

What was the most interesting piece of information you learned from the subtopics?

List 10 ways you can help students change their ability to do desired behaviours.