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To cite this article: Michael Clayton & Samantha Nesnidol (2017) Reducing Electricity
Use on Campus: The Use of Prompts, Feedback, and Goal Setting to Decrease Excessive
Classroom Lighting, Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 37:2, 196-206, DOI:
10.1080/01608061.2017.1325823
Article views: 61
Download by: [Central Michigan University] Date: 01 October 2017, At: 18:58
JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT
2017, VOL. 37, NO. 2, 196206
https://doi.org/10.1080/01608061.2017.1325823
RESEARCH REPORT
ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Energy conservation is an important factor in both sustainabil- electricity conservation; goal
ity programs and operating costs faced by organizations. The setting; performance
current study used visual prompts, performance feedback, and feedback; sustainability
goals setting to reduce unnecessary classroom lighting on a
college campus. A package intervention was applied weekly
over a semester using a multiple baseline design across three
units, with one unit serving as a baseline-only control. Signs
were hung in classrooms and updated weekly. The signs asked
users to conserve energy by turning off the lights when the
room is not in use, and indicated progress toward a goal for
the current room as well as the building overall. The combined
treatment successfully reduced unnecessary classroom lighting
and generated interest in campus sustainability programs.
and Biglan (2008) organized the toolbox around four primary behavior analytic
processes: consequent, antecedent, verbal, and biological.
While most green efforts have employed informational/educational cam-
paigns (antecedent processes), previous research has suggested that reducing
operating costs through proenvironmental behavior requires large scale beha-
vior change efforts within communities (Alavosius, Newsome, Houmanfar, &
Biglan, 2016; Houmanfar, Alavosius, Morford, Herbst, & Reimer, 2015).
Therefore, its now time to develop replicable methods for behavior change
in larger communities (Luke & Alavosius, 2012; Newsome & Alavosius, 2011).
Previous efforts toward increasing proenvironmental behavior can be orga-
nized into three broad categories of interventions: antecedent, consequent, or
combined package interventions. Antecedent interventions include commit-
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largest percentage received movie passes ($25 value) and the winning floor was
given a catered party ($300 value). Residents competed both individually
(against other residents) and as a group (against other floors) to reduce energy
use. The intervention resulted in approximately a 6.4% reduction of electricity
use, and residents reported engaging in more proenvironmental behaviors
during the competition (Sintov et al., 2015). A study by Schultz, Kohn, and
Musto (2016), in contrast, used essentially the same basic processes in sorority
houses over two years, but achieved only moderate reductions. Experimental
control, however, was somewhat unclear with weather patterns seemingly more
influential than the combined treatment.
With these recent efforts in mind, the current study attempted to decrease
excessive classroom lighting with visual prompts, performance feedback, and
goal setting, using a multiple baseline design. Signs placed in classrooms
asked participants to save energy by turning off the lights when the room
was not in use. The signs also provided visual feedback of the current rooms
performance compared to the building average over the preceding week and
implied a goal of performing better than the building average. In this way, we
planned to balance antecedent processes (informational/educational
prompts) with consequent processes (feedback, goal setting) into a combined
package treatment that would make building occupants more aware of
energy conservation and proenvironmental behavior.
Method
Setting/participants
A six-floor building on a medium-sized (12k) college campus in the
Northeast served as the setting for this intervention. The building included
both classrooms and faculty offices on all floors. There were 17 classrooms in
the building spread across six floors. Classrooms were in near constant use
from 8:00 a.m. until approximately 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. The
JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT 199
last person to leave the classroom was the intended target of the intervention.
This was normally the instructor, but may also have been a student.
Dependent variable
Data were collected on the number of unoccupied classrooms with ceiling
lights turned off, once per day, Monday through Friday. In all classrooms,
one switch controlled all ceiling lights such that lights were either on or off.
Data collection occurred each weekday beginning at 4:00 p.m. and lasted for
approximately 20 minutes. Data collection began on the top floor (5th) and
concluded in the basement. No classes took place between 4:00 and 5:10 p.m.,
as mandated by union contract, and scheduled classes after 5:10 p.m. rarely
occurred in this building. Janitorial staff commenced cleaning at approxi-
mately 10:00 p.m. and were expected to turn off remaining lights before
leaving.
A second observer independently recorded the number of unoccupied
classrooms with lights on during 40% of all observations during baseline
and treatment. Degree of interobserver agreement was calculated by dividing
the total number of agreements by the number of agreements plus disagree-
ments and converting the result to a percentage. Mean agreement across
baseline and treatment was 97% (range: 94100%).
Design
A multiple baseline design was used to evaluate the treatment, which was intro-
duced in a staggered fashion across grouped floors. The decision to use a multiple
baseline, as opposed to a reversal design, was influenced by the limited amount of
time available in a semester. The floors were grouped into units in order to balance
the number of classrooms, which varied by floor. Unit One consisted of the
basement and first floor and included four classrooms. The second floor (Unit
Two) included four classrooms and served as a baseline-only control condition.
The third floor (Unit Three) included six classrooms. Finally, the fourth and fifth
floors were combined (Unit Four) and consisted of three classrooms.
Baseline (A)
During baseline, data were collected on all six floors of the building and no
feature of the treatment was present.
200 M. CLAYTON AND S. NESNIDOL
Treatment (B)
During treatment, a visual prompt was placed in each classroom and
updated weekly (Monday mornings). While more frequent feedback is
preferable, the environmental cost of daily color printing was deemed
too high and was at odds with the overall goal of the study. The sign
was 11'' wide and 8.5'' high and was hung 60'' from the floor adjacent to
the light switch, usually to the right of the only door exiting the classroom.
The sign was printed in color and included two images of the school
mascot (Pete), as well as text (see Figure 1). Pete was a cartoon penguin
(5'' tall) and included black, yellow, and red components. The Pete on the
left conveyed the percentage of time the lights were turned off when the
current room was not in use, over the previous week. Pete was printed in
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such a way as to mimic a thermometer. That is, if the lights had been off
80% during the previous week, then the bottom 80% of Pete was filled in
and the upper 20% showed only the outline of the penguin. In this way,
participants could quickly see how often lights had been left on the
previous week. The Pete on the right was identical to the one on the
left, except it depicted the building average for unoccupied classroom
lighting over the previous week. This allowed for a direct comparison
between the classroom and the building average.
Figure 1. Example of the signs posted at the exit of each classroom during the intervention. The
penguin on the left represented weekly data from that specific classroom, and the penguin on
the right was the building average for that week.
JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT 201
In addition to the two cartoon penguins, the sign also included text. The
main text on the prompt (Help Us Complete PeteTurn Off the Lights!)
was printed in black 24-point font. Directly underneath, in 14-point font was,
The Percentage of Time Lights Were Off When Room Was Not in Use.
Underneath this text were the dates of the previous week (e.g., April 7th
April 11th). The exact percentage was printed (16-point font) immediately to
the right of both penguins to improve clarity.
percentage of rooms with lights off was 65%. During treatment, the overall
mean percentage of rooms with lights off was 82%. Figure 2 shows the
percentage of rooms with lights off during baseline (no sign) and interven-
tion (sign) across the four units. Means are represented by horizontal dotted
lines and show an increase in the mean percentage of lights off during each
phase change. Perhaps more importantly, the stability of the data increased at
the same time for all units receiving the treatment. The standard deviations
are included for each baseline and treatment phase in Figure 2. The inclusion
of a control floor (Unit Two) provides additional confidence in the design.
The mean percentage of rooms on Unit Two with lights off was 63% over the
course of the study.
As previously discussed, the use of prompts, feedback, and goal setting to
change behavior is not new, and their combined use in a package treatment
has been previously shown to be effective. It is the way in which these three
components were incorporated into a single antecedent stimulus that is
unique and warrants discussion. First, the signs served as a visual prompt
that requested users turn off the lights. On its own, this would be unconse-
quated and possibly a weaker treatment. Second, the sign utilized the school
mascot to indicate the prior weeks performance, and present a comparison
between the classroom and building average. The use of the mascot also
implied two goals for users to work toward: achieving a fully colored image
of Pete and beating the building average. That is, the performance of the
current room as compared to the building average may have served to
prompt competitive behavior among the larger group.
One aspect of the methodology that detracted somewhat from the sustain-
ability goal was that the colored signs had to be printed out each week and
placed in all of the classrooms. Operating the color printer and using recycled
paper still exacted an environmental toll. A second weakness relates to the
package treatment nature of the intervention. This type of treatment can be
very effective, but it precludes a component analysis. Its possible that some
components were more effective than others, and conversely, the effect may
202 M. CLAYTON AND S. NESNIDOL
100
60
40
= 1.13 = .59
20
Unit Three
0
0 10 20 30 40 50
100
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80
60
40
20 = .95 = .58
Unit Four
0
0 10 20 30 40 50
100
% of Rooms w/ Lights Off
80
60
40
= .93 = .70
20
Unit One
0
0 10 20 30 40 50
100
% of Rooms w/ Lights Off
80
60
40
= .79
20
Unit Two
0
0 10 20 30 40 50
Successive Days
Figure 2. The percentage of classrooms in each unit with the lights turned off at the end of the
day. Unit Two was a control. The standard deviation (s) is given for both BL and Tx phases for
Units 1, 3, and 4. The dotted horizontal lines represent the means for that data.
JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT 203
have required their combined use. Further research is needed to compare the
effectiveness of these component parts with the combined package. Third,
the choice of a multiple baseline design was influenced by the limited amount
of time in a semester, but may not have been the best design choice. With
adequate time a reversal, even within a multiple baseline, would have
increased experimental control. Additionally, evidence of generalization/
maintenance of the treatment effects would have been valuable, but the
data were not available. The building was closed at the end of our study to
undergo significant renovations. Lastly, its not possible to determine
whether the signs actually generated goal-directed behavior. We simply
postulate that they may have done so.
Future research might include the use of an antecedent commitment in the
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form of a brief memo to faculty describing the problem and promising to turn
off the lights when the room is not in use. This memo could be signed and
returned to the researchers as a promise of future behavior (Geller & Lehman,
1991). Promise cards have been distributed to college students at a large uni-
versity (Geller, Kalsher, Rudd, & Lehman, 1989) and military personnel at the
largest U.S. naval base (Kalsher, Geller, Clarke, & Lehman, 1989), and in both
cases a significant number of promise-card signers increased their use of safety
belts following their commitment behavior. Another possibility is to take
advantage of improvements in technology as a comparatively cost-effective
response. The university had previously installed motion-sensing light controls,
but they were removed after faculty and students found them to be distracting. If
the instructor remained in one location for an extended period, the lights would
shut off. This differential reinforcement resulted in a lecturer that periodically
waved their arms during class, in order to avoid having the lights shut off while
class was in session.
A recent study by Pandey, Diller, and Miller (2016) utilized technology as
an intervention tool. Building occupants were prompted and given feedback
using the university e-mail system. Although the findings were somewhat
underwhelming, the convenience of e-mail obviated the need for printed
signs or other materials to be generated. The authors also incorporated the
increasingly popular energy dashboard system available on some campuses.
This system breaks down energy use by building and provides more detail
than previously available.
In sum, the current study used a low-cost treatment package consisting of
prompts, feedback, and goal setting to reduce unnecessary lighting in a uni-
versity building. The biggest offenders were units One, Two, and Three, and
they experienced the largest decrease (except Unit Two, which served as a
control) in unnecessary lighting. That this was accomplished without a con-
tingent reinforcer for completing Pete is notable. Most recent studies using
feedback to reduce energy use on college campuses have included some form
204 M. CLAYTON AND S. NESNIDOL
and cultural change. If our method reduced unnecessary lighting and, more
importantly, got people talking about sustainability, then it was a worthwhile
endeavor that was accomplished in a socially valid manner.
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