Communication for development and behaviour change

In short

Development communication is the planned use of messages, channels and dialogue to help rural and urban families adopt better practices in nutrition, health, hygiene, child care, home management and income generation; behaviour change communication (BCC) is its sharper sub-field, aiming at measurable change in what people actually do, not merely what they know. Home Science extension is built on it: a worker who knows the science of weaning food but cannot move a mother from awareness to practice has achieved nothing. The syllabus examines communication models, diffusion and adoption theory, extension teaching methods, audio-visual aids, campaign planning and KAP evaluation. It is used daily by ICDS supervisors, NRLM/Kudumbashree community resource persons, NHM ASHA trainers, FSSAI Eat Right and POSHAN Abhiyaan communication staff, CSR and NGO programme officers, and by FMCG and nutrition companies in rural marketing and consumer-education roles.

Explained

What development communication and BCC are

• Communication: the process of sending and receiving meaning so that a common understanding results; from Latin *communis*, "common". It is a process (continuous, not an act), two-way, and symbolic.
• Development communication (devcom): communication deliberately used for planned social and economic change. Term popularised by Nora Quebral (1971) — "the art and science of human communication applied to the speedy transformation of a country and the mass of its people from poverty to a dynamic state of economic growth".
• Behaviour change communication (BCC): a research-based, audience-segmented process that promotes and sustains specific individual, community and societal behaviours, using a mix of channels and supportive services. SBCC (social and behaviour change communication) adds the social norms and enabling environment.
• IEC (Information, Education, Communication): the older Government of India term, still used in NHM and POSHAN budget heads; IEC is largely message-delivery, BCC adds audience research, segmentation and behavioural objectives.
• The ladder examined most: Information → Education → Communication → Behaviour change → Social change. Awareness is cheap; practice is costly in time, money and social approval, so the higher rungs need interpersonal support, not more posters.

Elements and models of communication

• Seven elements (Leagans' model, standard in extension exams): communicator (source), message, channel, treatment of message, audience, audience response, feedback. Leagans added treatment — how the message is presented — which is the extension worker's main variable.
• Aristotle: speaker – speech – audience. Oldest model, one-way.
• Shannon and Weaver (1949): source → transmitter → channel (with noise) → receiver → destination; gave the concepts of noise, channel capacity and redundancy. Criticism: linear, no feedback.
• Berlo's SMCR (1960): Source (communication skills, attitude, knowledge, social system, culture) – Message (content, code, treatment, elements, structure) – Channel (the five senses) – Receiver (same five attributes as source). Examined for homophily: the closer the source and receiver on these attributes, the better the communication.
• Schramm (1954): overlapping fields of experience; communication happens only in the shared area — the basis of the "credibility gap" between a graduate worker and a non-literate mother.
• Osgood–Schramm circular model: each party is encoder, interpreter and decoder in turn — the first properly two-way model.
• Westley–MacLean: adds the gatekeeper (C role) — explains how a mass-media editor filters an extension message.
• Rogers and Shoemaker / convergence model (Rogers and Kincaid, 1981): communication as mutual understanding converging through information exchange — the theoretical base of participatory communication.
• Barriers (noise): physical (distance, din), physiological (deafness, fatigue), psychological (prejudice, fear, low self-esteem), semantic/linguistic (jargon, dialect), cultural (taboo on discussing menstruation or family planning), organisational (too many links, distortion), and selective perception/retention.

Diffusion of innovations and the adoption process

• Innovation: an idea, practice or object perceived as new by the adopter. Diffusion: the process by which an innovation spreads through a social system over time via channels (Rogers, 1962; five editions to 2003).
• Four main elements of diffusion: innovation, communication channels, time, social system.
• Adoption process — five stages (classical, Rogers 1962): awareness → interest → evaluation → trial → adoption.
• Innovation-decision process — five stages (Rogers' revision, used in current syllabi): knowledge → persuasion → decision → implementation → confirmation. Confirmation allows discontinuance (disenchantment or replacement).
• Adopter categories by innovativeness (normal curve, percentage of the population, not cumulative): innovators 2.5%, early adopters 13.5%, early majority 34%, late majority 34%, laggards 16%. Cut-offs are at mean − 2SD, mean − SD, mean, mean + SD.
• Opinion leaders are mostly early adopters — more cosmopolite, higher social status, more media contact, more respected locally; the extension worker's first target, not the innovators (who are often seen as deviant).
• Five attributes of an innovation that explain its rate of adoption: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity (negative), trialability, observability. Rogers held these explain 49–87% of the variance in adoption rate.
• S-shaped adoption curve: cumulative adopters over time; slow start, steep middle, plateau. Rate of adoption = steepness.
• Channel role by stage: mass media are most effective at the knowledge/awareness stage; interpersonal and localite channels at the persuasion/decision stage. Quoting this correctly earns marks.
• Pro-innovation bias and individual-blame bias (named by Rogers himself in later editions): diffusion research assumes the innovation is good and blames the laggard; it under-reports structural constraints (no money, no water, no market), which in Indian villages are usually the real reason.

Behaviour change theories examined

• KAP (knowledge–attitude–practice): the assumption that knowledge changes attitude which changes practice. The KAP gap — high knowledge, low practice — is the commonest exam point; e.g. almost universal awareness of handwashing with soap but far lower observed practice at critical times.
• Health Belief Model (Rosenstock, Becker): perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, cues to action, self-efficacy. Used for immunisation and screening messages.
• Stages of Change / Transtheoretical Model (Prochaska and DiClemente): precontemplation → contemplation → preparation → action → maintenance (with relapse). Match the message to the stage: information for precontemplators, skills and support for actors.
• Theory of Reasoned Action / Planned Behaviour (Fishbein and Ajzen): intention is driven by attitude toward the behaviour, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control. Explains why a mother-in-law's view decides infant feeding.
• Social Learning / Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura): observational learning, modelling, self-efficacy, reinforcement — the theory behind demonstrations, role models and entertainment-education.
• Social marketing (Kotler and Zaltman): applying the 4 Ps — product (the behaviour/commodity), price (money, time, social cost), place (where it is available), promotion — plus audience segmentation; e.g. ORS, iodised salt, sanitary napkins, condom social marketing.
• Diffusion of social norms and nudge: small changes in choice architecture (default options, placement, visible pledges, community-wide declarations) often beat exhortation; used in open-defecation-free (ODF) triggering under Swachh Bharat and in canteen/mid-day-meal plate design.
• Entertainment-education (Sabido method): embedding behaviour in serials; Indian examples include radio and television serials used for literacy, family planning and gender messages.

Extension teaching methods and audio-visual aids

• Classification by form: (i) written — leaflet, folder, pamphlet, bulletin, newsletter, wall paper; (ii) spoken — lecture, group discussion, meeting, kisan goshthi; (iii) objective/visual — demonstration, exhibition, model, specimen, poster, flashcard, flannel graph, puppet.
• Classification by audience reached: individual (farm/home visit, personal letter, office call, telephone/WhatsApp call), group (method demonstration, result demonstration, group discussion, field trip, training camp), mass (radio, television, newspaper, exhibition, campaign, folk media, social media).
• Method demonstration ("how to do"): teaches a skill — making a weaning mix, fortifying food, kitchen-garden bed preparation. Short, skill-focused, needs participant practice.
• Result demonstration ("what happens"): shows the outcome over time with a check plot/control — needs records and comparison; expensive but very convincing.
• Campaign: intensive, time-bound, single-message effort using many channels together (e.g. a nutrition week or anaemia-free fortnight).
• Edgar Dale's Cone of Experience: from direct purposeful experience (most concrete, best retention) up through contrived experience, dramatised experience, demonstration, field trip, exhibit, television, still pictures, audio, visual symbols, to verbal symbols (most abstract). Rule: use the most concrete aid that is feasible; combine channels.
• Aid selection criteria: audience literacy, size, cost, portability, electricity, language and dialect, cultural fit, and pre-testing with the actual audience.
• Folk media: street theatre (nukkad natak), puppetry, kalajatha, harikatha, villupattu, bhavai — high credibility, local language, two-way, cheap; limited reach per show.
• ICT channels in Indian extension: Kisan Call Centre (toll-free 1800-180-1551), Kisan Suvidha and mKisan SMS advisories, DD Kisan, community radio, the Poshan Tracker app for frontline workers (it replaced the earlier ICDS-CAS), and WhatsApp groups of SHGs. Mobile messaging now supplements, rather than replaces, printed leaflets in state programmes.

Planning, implementing and evaluating a BCC campaign

1. Situation and audience analysis — baseline KAP survey, focus group discussions, barrier analysis; segment the audience (pregnant women, mothers-in-law, adolescent girls, husbands).
2. Set behavioural objectives — SMART and stated as a behaviour with a number and a date, not as "create awareness".
3. Choose the behaviour and position it — small, doable, visible actions ("one extra spoon at each meal") beat abstract goals.
4. Design messages — one message per piece; AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action); test for the 7 Cs: clear, correct, complete, concise, concrete, courteous, credible/coherent.
5. Select the channel mix — mass media for reach and legitimacy, interpersonal for persuasion, community media for norms, services for availability.
6. Pre-test — comprehension, attraction, acceptability, persuasion and self-identification with the actual audience; revise.
7. Train the frontline — AWW, ASHA, ANM, SHG resource persons; a message is only as good as its last mile.
8. Implement with a media plan — reach, frequency, timing (agricultural season, festival, Poshan Maah in September).
9. Monitor — process indicators: sessions held, households contacted, materials distributed, calls received.
10. Evaluate — output, outcome (KAP change), impact (nutritional status); endline versus baseline, ideally with a control area; use NFHS-type indicators for impact.
11. Advantages of BCC: low cost per person, works on demand side, builds local capacity, can shift norms that regulation cannot reach.
12. Limitations: cannot supply what is unavailable (no toilet, no water, no money); effects decay without reinforcement; attribution is hard; risks victim-blaming; message fatigue.

Indian programmes, institutions and the rules that bind messages

• POSHAN Abhiyaan / Mission Poshan 2.0 — Jan Andolan and Community Based Events; Poshan Maah (September) and Poshan Pakhwada; Poshan Tracker for monitoring.
• National Health Mission — IEC/BCC budget lines; ASHA as the interpersonal channel; Village Health Sanitation and Nutrition Committee and VHSND as the fixed-day platform.
• Swachh Bharat Mission — CLTS-style triggering, ODF declaration and verification; behaviour-first, subsidy-second design.
• DAY-NRLM and state missions (Kudumbashree in Kerala, Jeevika in Bihar, SERP in Andhra/Telangana) — SHG federations as the communication channel; community resource persons as peer communicators.
• Krishi Vigyan Kendras (ICAR) and Home Science / Community Science colleges — frontline demonstrations, trainings and extension literature; DD Kisan and All India Radio farm and home broadcasts.
• Message rules an extension worker must respect: the Infant Milk Substitutes, Feeding Bottles and Infant Foods (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 1992, amended 2003 (IMS Act) bans promotion of infant milk substitutes and feeding bottles, prohibits pictures of infants on such labels and bars company sponsorship of health-worker education; the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 with the FSSAI Advertising and Claims Regulations, 2018 governs nutrition and health claims; the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954 bars claims to cure listed conditions; the PCPNDT Act, 1994 requires the "sex determination is prohibited" declaration and bars advertising sex-selection; the COTPA, 2003 restricts tobacco advertising and mandates warnings; the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 makes misleading advertisement an offence and holds endorsers liable. The ASCI code is a voluntary self-regulatory code, not a statute.
• Note on figures: NFHS and HCES indicators change with each round, and scheme guidelines are revised — quote the round and year when using a number.

Key points

• Development communication — planned communication for social and economic change; Quebral's definition is the standard one.
• IEC vs BCC — IEC delivers messages; BCC sets behavioural objectives, segments audiences and measures practice.
• Leagans' seven elements — communicator, message, channel, treatment, audience, response, feedback; treatment is the extension worker's lever.
• Berlo's SMCR — source and receiver share the same five attributes (communication skills, attitudes, knowledge, social system, culture); homophily improves understanding.
• Schramm's shared field of experience — communication occurs only in the overlap, hence the credibility gap.
• Noise — any barrier (physical, psychological, semantic, cultural) that distorts the message; from Shannon and Weaver.
• Adoption process — awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, adoption; revised as knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, confirmation.
• Adopter categories — innovators 2.5%, early adopters 13.5%, early majority 34%, late majority 34%, laggards 16%.
• Opinion leaders — usually early adopters, not innovators; the first point of entry into a village.
• Five attributes of an innovation — relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, observability.
• Channel rule — mass media create awareness; interpersonal channels secure adoption.
• KAP gap — knowledge high, practice low; the central problem BCC exists to solve.
• Self-efficacy — belief that one can perform the behaviour; raised by demonstration and modelling, not by information.
• Subjective norm — what important others approve; why mothers-in-law and husbands must be audiences too.
• Method vs result demonstration — "how to do" a skill versus "what happens" with a control for comparison.
• Dale's cone — the more concrete the experience, the better the retention; verbal symbols are weakest.
• Pre-testing — comprehension, attraction, acceptability, persuasion, self-identification, tested on the real audience.
• Statutory limits — IMS Act 1992/2003, FSS Act 2006 with the 2018 Advertising and Claims Regulations, DMR Act 1954, PCPNDT 1994, COTPA 2003, Consumer Protection Act 2019.

Formulas and examples

Example 1 — adopter categories from adoption time. 200 households in a block adopted iron-fortified rice; mean adoption time 24 months, SD 6 months.

• Innovators: adopted before 24 − 12 = 12 months → expected 2.5% of 200 = 5 households.
• Early adopters: 12 to 18 months → 13.5% = 27.
• Early majority: 18 to 24 months → 34% = 68; late majority: 24 to 30 months → 68.
• Laggards: after 30 months → 16% = 32. Check: 5 + 27 + 68 + 68 + 32 = 200. ✔

Example 2 — KAP gap and adoption quotient. Baseline on 150 mothers: 132 knew that complementary feeding should start at 6 months; 54 had actually started at 6 months for the youngest child.

• Knowledge = 132/150 × 100 = 88%; practice = 54/150 × 100 = 36%.
• KAP gap = 88 − 36 = 52 percentage points — a classic awareness-rich, practice-poor situation needing interpersonal follow-up, not more posters.
• Of 10 recommended infant-feeding practices, one mother follows 6, and one practice (bottle sterilisation) does not apply to her. AQ = 6 ÷ 9 × 100 = 66.7%.

Example 3 — campaign reach, cost per contact and cost per adopter. An anaemia campaign in a district of 80,000 adolescent girls spends ₹6,00,000: ₹1,20,000 on radio spots, ₹80,000 on wall paintings, ₹2,40,000 on 400 school sessions, ₹1,60,000 on printed flipbooks.

• Persons exposed at least once = 56,000 → reach = 56,000/80,000 × 100 = 70%.
• Cost per contact = 6,00,000 ÷ 56,000 = ₹10.71.
• Endline shows 9,800 girls now consuming weekly IFA tablets against 2,800 at baseline → 7,000 new adopters.
• Cost per adopter = 6,00,000 ÷ 7,000 = ₹85.71. Adoption rose from 3.5% to 12.25% of the target population.
• Per-channel comparison: school sessions reached 16,000 at ₹2,40,000 = ₹15.00 per contact; radio reached 35,000 at ₹1,20,000 = ₹3.43 per contact — radio is cheaper per contact, but 5,600 of the 7,000 adopters came from the session group, i.e. ₹42.86 per adopter against the campaign average of ₹85.71. Cheapest reach is not cheapest change.

Example 4 — effectiveness of audio-visual aids (pre-test/post-test). Three groups of 30 women, maximum score 25, taught the same lesson on food fortification.

• Working for the third row: effectiveness index = (20.5 − 10.0)/10.0 × 100 = 105%; relative gain = (20.5 − 10.0)/(25 − 10.0) × 100 = 70%. The ranking follows Dale's cone — the more concrete the experience, the larger the gain.

Example 5 — S-curve and rate of adoption. Adopters of a smokeless chulha in a village of 250 households: year 1 = 6, year 2 = 20, year 3 = 85, year 4 = 70, year 5 = 40.

• Cumulative: 6, 26, 111, 181, 221; cumulative % of 250: 2.4%, 10.4%, 44.4%, 72.4%, 88.4% — the classic S-shape, steepest in year 3.
• Remaining 29 households (11.6%) are non-adopters; a barrier analysis (rented house, no chimney wall, cost) will explain more than labelling them laggards.

Where it is used

• Government nutrition and health programmes: ICDS supervisor and CDPO roles under Mission Poshan 2.0, NHM BCC cells, Poshan Maah planning, VHSND counselling, School Health and Wellness Ambassador training.
• Livelihood missions and SHG federations: DAY-NRLM, Kudumbashree, Jeevika — community resource persons, master trainers and SHG-level nutrition and financial-literacy modules.
• NGOs, CSR and development agencies: programme officers and communication specialists in child-nutrition, WASH, adolescent-health and gender projects; monitoring and evaluation roles running baseline and endline KAP surveys.
• FSSAI Eat Right India and food-safety work: Eat Right Campus and Clean Street Food Hub communication, food-safety training of handlers, nutrition-label literacy drives.
• Industry: rural marketing, consumer education and shopper communication in FMCG and nutrition companies; agri-input and dairy extension; social-marketing of ORS, sanitary napkins, fortified staples and cookstoves.
• Academia and media: KVK home-science extension officers, AIR and DD Kisan farm-and-home broadcasters, community radio producers, and content designers for frontline-worker apps.

Interview questions

• Q: What is the difference between IEC and BCC? A: IEC concentrates on delivering information and education and is measured by outputs such as materials distributed; BCC starts from audience and barrier research, sets specific behavioural objectives and is measured by actual change in practice.
• Q: Why are mass media alone insufficient to change behaviour? A: Mass media are efficient at creating awareness but cannot teach skills, answer individual doubts or supply social approval; persuasion and implementation need credible interpersonal channels.
• Q: Name the stages of the adoption process and say where each channel fits. A: Awareness, interest, evaluation, trial and adoption — mass media work best at awareness and interest, interpersonal and localite sources at evaluation, trial and adoption.
• Q: Which adopter category should an extension worker approach first, and why? A: Early adopters, because they are respected local opinion leaders whose example others follow; innovators are often seen as unrepresentative or deviant.
• Q: What is the KAP gap and how do you close it? A: It is high knowledge with low practice; it closes by addressing barriers — cost, time, skill, family approval, availability — through demonstration, counselling, peer groups and service delivery rather than more information.
• Q: Difference between a method demonstration and a result demonstration? A: A method demonstration teaches how to do a skill in a single short session; a result demonstration shows what happens over time, with a control for comparison, and needs records.
• Q: What is pre-testing of communication material and what do you test for? A: Trying the material on a sample of the real audience before production, checking comprehension, attraction, acceptability, persuasiveness and whether the audience identifies with it.
• Q: Explain self-efficacy with a nutrition example. A: It is a person's confidence that she can perform the behaviour; a mother may know about weaning mix yet not make it until she has prepared it once under guidance, which is why demonstration beats a lecture.
• Q: What does the IMS Act mean for a nutrition educator? A: The Infant Milk Substitutes Act, 1992 (amended 2003) bars promotion of infant formula, feeding bottles and related foods, prohibits pictures of infants on such labels and prohibits company sponsorship of health-worker education, so materials must be free of brand promotion.
• Q: A campaign shows a large rise in awareness but no rise in practice. What is your diagnosis? A: Either the behaviour is blocked by supply or cost, or the message addressed the wrong audience and ignored the decision-maker in the family; a barrier analysis and audience segmentation come before any new material.
• Q: Which innovation attributes best predict fast adoption? A: High relative advantage, compatibility with existing practice, trialability and observability, with low complexity.
• Q: What is the main criticism of diffusion theory in the Indian rural context? A: Its pro-innovation and individual-blame bias — it assumes the innovation is beneficial and treats non-adoption as a personal trait, understating structural barriers such as land, credit, water and market access.

Common mistakes

• Writing the adopter percentages wrongly (the pair 34% and 34%, and 16% for laggards) or placing innovators at 2.5% of adopters instead of 2.5% of the population.
• Confusing the adoption process (stages a person passes through) with diffusion (spread through a social system) and with the innovation-decision process names.
• Claiming mass media secure adoption, or that interpersonal channels create awareness efficiently — the stage-channel match is reversed.
• Stating behavioural objectives as "to create awareness" with no number, audience or date, so the campaign cannot be evaluated.
• Treating a KAP survey's knowledge score as evidence of impact; impact needs practice and status indicators, measured against a baseline and preferably a control area.
• Calculating the adoption quotient on all recommended practices including those not applicable to the respondent, which understates adoption.
• Designing material for the person who performs the behaviour only, ignoring the mother-in-law, husband or shopkeeper who actually controls it; and skipping pre-testing, so dialect and imagery fail in the field.

Related topics

Agricultural extension · Self-help groups and microfinance · Community nutrition and public health nutrition · Programme planning, monitoring and evaluation · Research methods and statistics in home science · Rural sociology and group dynamics