From Theory to Intervention

Course goals

The entire course will be taught in English. This also includes assignments and exams.

By the end of the course, students are able to:

• Describe social, health, and organization-based interventions and reflect upon them according to a systematic intervention approach, by using theoretical knowledge from the field of social, health, and organizational psychology.
• Identify criteria for successful social, health, and organization-based interventions and reflect upon them.
• Develop a behavior change intervention based on a systematic approach.
• Adequately report their theoretical analysis and proposed evidence-based intervention for a social, health, or organizational issue.

Relationship between tests and learning goals

Throughout the course, relevant theories as well as practical, systematic guidelines are introduced. Students can use theory and guidelines when analyzing social, health, and organizational issues, when analyzing existing successful or unsuccessful interventions, and when designing their own intervention. To this end, concrete topics and themes from the social, health, and organizational field are discussed during the course (e.g., health, productivity, collaboration, conflict, diversity, wellbeing). Students will need to use their knowledge on behavior and behavior change in order to analyze and design interventions for existing health issues. Throughout the course, students are coached by the lecturers, when to move through the different phases of designing an intervention and applying their knowledge.

Content

In this course, a systematic method is introduced that guides the analysis of a social, health, or organizational issue. On the basis of this systematic analysis, an intervention will be developed. Furthermore, relevant literature from the fields of social, health, and organizational psychology is discussed, to form a basis for analyzing social behavior, health promotion, and issues in the organization context.  
 
Students will learn to apply their theoretical knowledge through a systematic intervention development approach, and to formulate an advice on how to tackle existing issues.
 
Potential topics for interventions are:

• Prejudice and discrimination
• Conflict and aggression
• Habitual behaviors and unhealthy lifestyles
• Loneliness among the elderly
• Social relations inside organizations
• Leadership, organization development, diversity at work
• Productivity, commitment, and performance at work