Intervention Development Incorporating Behavioral Change Techniques (BCTs) into an E-learning Intervention

Interventions which are grounded on theories are believed to produce more potent and sustained changes in behavior. This paper demonstrates the process of incorporating theory-based strategies into an e-learning intervention as guided by the Intervention Mapping Protocol (IMP) framework. Behavioral Change Techniques (BCTs) were translated into intervention components and were consolidated into the online platform. This process culminated into an e-learning self-administered tiered instructional module intervention. The intervention was administered to 31 operating room nurses of a selected hospital in Cebu, Philippines. An increment was seen in the median e-learning self-efficacy scores of the participants, from 66 during the pretest to 72 during the posttest. Wilcoxon Signed-ranks test was used and a significant difference was determined between the scores with p<0.05 at 95% level of confidence (z=-3.303, p=0.002). This finding was attributed primarily to the incorporation of theories through the BCTs in the e-learning intervention. This study suggested that computer-based interventions may be developed using frameworks based from behavioral theories and that the product of this creative process may lead to detectable changes in behavior. Furthermore, the intervention developed in this study may be used in the academe to better prepare the learners for online learning.

Keywords – Behavioral Change Techniques, E-learning, Intervention Development, Intervention Mapping Protocol, Theory