Project WE CAN
- Project WE CAN Overview
- Contact Information
- Available Downloads
- WE CAN Grant Related Projects
- Higher Education Center: What Other Campuses Are Doing
- Other Schools Social Norms Campaigns
Project
WE CAN:
Social Norms Marketing at Western Washington University
Project
WE CAN is a comprehensive alcohol and other drug prevention program with
the aim of reducing misperceptions of alcohol and drug use norms held
by all groups on campus and in the surrounding community.
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Goals and Target
Audiences:
The primary goal of the project is to correct student misperceptions of
alcohol and drug use norms and to limit student access to and availability
of alcohol and other drugs. Secondary goals include correcting inaccurate
beliefs about student drinking held by key stakeholders and opinion leaders
among faculty, staff, and community leaders.
Strategies:
1. Administer
and analyze the results from the biennial WWU Lifestyle Project Survey.
The WWU Lifestyle Project Survey is a multi-instrument self-report measure
sent to 2,500 students randomly selected from all students currently enrolled
at WWU. The survey has allowed WE CAN 2000 staff to compare data from
1993, 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2000.
2. Develop, market test, and publish two advertisements per week
in the campus newspaper. These ads contain positive images of Western
students engaging in popular student activities. They are photographed
in recognizable campus locations; they contain accurate statements of
campus norms; and they clearly state the source of the data. Using feedback
from focus groups over the course of the social norms marketing campaign
at Western, the slogan has evolved as follows:
- 1997: Most (66%) of Western students drink 4 or fewer drinks when they party.
- 1998: Most (72%) of Western students drink 1 to 4 drinks when they party.
- 1999: Most (84%) of Western students drink 0 to 4 drinks when they party.
- 2000: Most (84%) of Western students drink 0, 1, 2, 3, or at the most 4 drinks when they party.
3. Develop, market test, and implement neighborhood "door-knocker" campaign, utilizing student-designed social-norms marketing materials to inform students and community residents in neighborhoods surrounding the university of actual campus drinking norms.
4. Develop, market test, and distribute to faculty and staff a specially designed research paper on the relationship between WWU drinking norms and academic progress of students.
Experimental
Design:
Research
Questions:
1.
What is the cohort effect between groups of students on WWU's campus
who were not exposed to a mass media, social norms marketing campaign
and those who were?
2. What is the individual effect within students who receive multiple years of exposure to a mass media, social norms marketing campaign?
3. What is the individual effect within students and between students who (a) receive targeted, intensive social norms marketing via an "in the mail" strategy and (b) those who do not?
4. What is the cohort effect on faculty, staff, and neighborhood community leaders who receive specially designed social norms marketing?
Phase 1: Administered WWU Lifestyles Survey to a full random sample of WWU students (N=2500) in the Fall, 1997. The survey was coded in order to capture both (a) differences between cohort of students who exposed to the social norms marketing campaign and (b) individual differences within students who have multiple years exposure to social norms marketing campaigns and exposures to both mass media and targeted social norms interventions.
Phase 2: Implemented the mass media and targeted social norms marketing campaigns. The amount of mass media exposure included: (a) two ads per week in the campus newspaper and (b) posters which appeared around campus and in the residence halls. The targeted social norms marketing strategy included specially designed, in-the-mail, social norms marketing pieces addressed to randomly selected residence hall students.
Phase 3: Administered the focused social norms marketing campaign to faculty, staff, and key community stakeholders emphasizing (a) campus drinking norms; (b) student volunteer service norms; and (c) data correlating drinking norms and grade point average at WWU.
Phase 4: Conducted and analyzed focus groups and one-on-one interviews with faculty, staff and key community stakeholders who are members of the Campus-Community Coalition regarding perceptions of WWU students, their contribution to the community, and their drinking norms.
Results
1. Data collecting using sound and scientific survey methods at
WWU showed that the level of high-risk consumption held relatively constant
at 34 percent from 1993 to 1996. This period reflects the time at WWU
in which mass media social norms marketing campaign did not exist. Upon
implementing the mass media social norms-based social marketing campaign
in 1997, subsequent data revealed a drop in high-risk consumption rate
among the 1998 cohort. In 1998, there was a 20 percent decrease in the
high-risk consumption rate (from 34 percent in 1997 to 27 percent in 1998).
2. Students who took the 1997 survey received a code number, which allowed them to be followed through a second year of exposure to a mass media social norms marketing campaign. The amount of high risk consumption reported in the 1999 follow-up survey of those students decreased from 27 percent to 22 percent, suggesting that individual students who receive multiple years of exposure to a mass media, social norms marketing campaign may further decrease their high risk drinking.
3. Students perceptions of the frequency of high-risk consumption on campus also changed dramatically between the 1997 cohort and the 1998 cohort. The percentage of students who thought other students drank heavily once a week or more decreased from 89 percent in 1997 to 45 percent in 1998.
4. The percentage of students who reported at least one negative effect of alcohol use on the Rutgers Alcohol Problem Inventory (RAPI) decreased from 61% in 1997 to 51% in 1998.
5. Given the limitation of a low return rate on the 1999 coded follow-up survey (30 percent), preliminary data analysis does not support any definitive conclusions, but some interesting trends were noted. More low- to moderate-quantity drinkers returned the 1999 Lifestyles Follow-up Survey than did their heavier-consuming counterparts. Two-thirds of the sample decreased their typical number of drinks by one or more. Thirteen percent remained constant in the number of typical drinks, and 20 percent increased their typical number of drinks.
- Students who had previously reported (May 1998) low- to moderate-quantity consumption on typical occasions showed the greatest change in perception of their peers' drinking norms one year later on the 1999 Lifestyles Follow-up Survey. Students who reported low use had the greatest decrease in their overestimation of their peers drinking. These students reported a 30% decrease in their perception of others who drink five or more drinks on a typical occasion. Those who had previously reported heavy consumption (May 1998), reported a 10% decrease in their overestimation of others who typically drink five or more drinks on the 1999 Lifestyles Follow-up Survey.
- These data suggest that the social-norms mass media campaign may have had a differential effect on different drinking populations: The social-norms intervention had its most significant effect with low- to moderate consumers, but nevertheless it appeared to have had some effect with the heaviest drinkers.
6. Focus groups and one-on-one interviews with key stakeholders have not yet been conducted, but anecdotal observations at regular meetings of the Campus-Community Coalition support the idea that a more positive perception of WWU is emerging among community members.
Lessons
Learned.
Multiple years of data collection at WWU (1993-1997) recording students'
alcohol consumption, perceptions, and consequences allowed the full measure
of impact of a mass media social norms marketing campaign on subsequent
cohorts. Targeted, in-the-mail social norms marketing campaigns can enhance
the effect of mass media social norms marketing campaigns, producing a
measurable additional effect on correcting students' misperceptions of
alcohol use norms on campus and on their high-risk consumption. Targeted,
mass media social norms marketing campaigns can be designed to reach key
community stakeholders whose misperceptions of student drinking norms
may contribute to the "reign of error" that perpetuates students' inaccurate
view of their peers' use.
For
further information, contact: top
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Patricia
Fabiano, Ph. D.
Western Washington University
360-650-3074
Pat.Fabiano@wwu.edu
Available Reports for Download top of page
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Focus Report: Longitudinal Findings From the 1999 Lifestyles Survey, September 2000
WE CAN Related Grant Projects top of page
- WE
CAN WORKS - 2000
Read about the Model Program design at WWU based on Project WE CAN.
- WE
CAN Social Norms Marketing Project
View the development of the Social Norms Marketing ads from 1997 to 2001 that comprised a vital strategy in Project WE CAN.
Higher Education Center top of page
Higher Education Center's, What Are Campuses Doing: http://www.edc.org/hec/socialnorms/campuses/
Western Washington
University: www.edc.org/hec/socialnorms/campuses/wwu.html
Rutgers University: www.edc.org/hec/socialnorms/campuses/rutgers.html
University of Missouri-Columbia: http://www.missouri.edu/~mopip/index.htm
University of North Florida: www.edc.org/hec/socialnorms/campuses/florida.html
University of Oregon: www.edc.org/hec/socialnorms/campuses/oregon.html
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater: www.edc.org/hec/socialnorms/campuses/wisconsin.html
Washington State University:
www.edc.org/socialnorms/hec/campuses/washington.html
Other
Social Norms Campaigns
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Hobart and William Smith Colleges; The Alcohol and other Drug Education
Project: academic.hws.edu/alcohol/
Montana State University-Bozeman; Montana Social Norms Project: www.mostofus.org
Northern Illinois University; Social Norms Project:
http://www.socialnorm.org/
University of Arizona: www.SocialNorms.CampusHealth.net
University of Virginia: http://www.virginia.edu/studenthealth/hp/norms/index.html