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Distilling Strategies to Influence Behavior
Jagger Kugler
American College of Education
ED5013
Professor Jess Place
November 30th, 2024
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Distilling Strategies to Influence Behavior
A student’s behavior and experience in the classroom is directly related to relationships
formed between students and teachers, the content of what is being taught, and the context of
how the information is being presented (Omar & Barzan, 2012). To achieve school-wide
academic success, educators must be able to manage and manipulate student behavior on an
individual, whole-class, and whole-school scale (Olive, 2010). An effective way to persuade and
influence audiences is by using narratives to promote a specific educational or ethical lesson
(American College of Education, 2024).
To communicate to the entire student body at Silvermine Elementary School, public
service announcements are created, published and distributed via the school social media
application ParentSquare, email newsletter and printed flyers. Figure 1 is an example of one
public service announcement used to increase student attendance for a school day with a two-
hour early dismissal time. When deconstructed, it is a simple incentive to persuade students to
attend schools, managing their behavior with a tangible reward. By including narrative
storytelling in the announcement to further manipulate the intended audience, student attendance
could possibly increase.
Figure 1
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Deconstructing the Message
The purpose of this public service announcement is to incentivize families to bring their
students to school on two-hour early dismissal days. In the past, Silvermine Elementary has had
student attendance issues, especially on days that have had different arrival or dismissal times.
To alleviate the problem of so many students missing school on early dismissal or late arrival
days, the school’s administration invested in a popcorn-maker cart, movie theatre quality
popcorn, and class-sized popcorn buckets to introduce Popcorn Half-Days. At the end of each
school day that has a two-hour early dismissal or a late arrival, classes enjoy freshly popped
popcorn delivered to their classrooms by an administrator, complete with sweet toppings for
students to add onto their salty snack.
The public service announcement is effective in its simplicity. Omar and Barzan (2012)
state that keeping students motivated is an ever-evolving task because the state of education is
always in flux. Educators are responsible for implementing strategies that will keep students
engaged in their learning (Omar & Barzan, 2012). Today, this also includes strategies to
influence students and their families to have students attend school consistently. To manage and
strengthen student’s attendance behavior on “half-days”, the school’s administration team
implemented positive reinforcement by providing the students with a sweet and salty treat
(Olive, 2010). Popcorn Half Days are intended to increase student attendance by changing
students’ behaviors and attitudes towards attending school during two-hour early dismissals or
late arrival days. Yet, according to Olive (2010), this strategy is temporarily managing behavior
instead of permanently changing it because the students’ positive behavior is connected to the
tangible reinforcer associated with it. In this case the tangible reinforcer, or the popcorn, is tied
to the student’s motivation to attend school. If Popcorn Half-Days didn’t occur, it is probable
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that student attendance would decrease instead of increase or remain the same.
Distilling a Strategy
To increase the likelihood of this public service announcement's effectiveness, an
entertaining narrative tied to the Popcorn Half-Day incentive could further motivate students and
their families to attend school on days with different arrival and dismissal times. According to
the American College of Education (2024), stories can effectively manipulate or influence
audiences when the narratives are constructed to effectively accommodate the intended
recipients. If a captivating narrative is tied to the popcorn incentive, students could possibly be
interested to participate in or observe the narrative’s progression, further motivating students to
attend school. This is a form of pseudo-participative manipulation, as described by Auvinen et al.
(2013) because fictitious characters can be created to fallaciously be affected by the audience’s
collective challenge.
For example, the school administrators could create and illustrate a popcorn kernel
character as the narrative incentive’s protagonist and introduce them to the student body on a
large poster. A captivating and relatable narrative can be written to explain that students need to
be in their classrooms during school hours to help the protagonist’s kernel friends pop just like
them. For every class that has 90% of their class attending full days of school for five
consecutive days, a popcorn kernel is popped and joins the protagonist. Each week, a school-
wide video or auditory announcement can progress the narrative of the popcorn protagonist,
accompanied by encouraging words of wisdom and jokes to motivate students. And if all 50 of
the popcorn kernels displayed on a front-of-school-facing bulletin board are popped, then there
could be a school-wide incentive that connects to popcorn that be enjoyed by the whole student
body, like a Movie Premiere Night, School Snack Potluck, or a Midyear Carnival Day. Instead of
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boring students with statistics and potential negative consequences directly connected to poor
school attendance, a captivating narrative involving a cute, funny popcorn character will change
their perception of the importance of school attendance. In using pseudo-participative
manipulation accompanied by a captivating narrative and an illustrated protagonist, expectations,
accountability, and perception regarding school attendance can be managed and eventually
changed (Roof & Kreutter, 2010).
Conclusion
Young people learn more effectively when educators care to create a learning
environment based on trust (Omar & Barzan, 2012). To achieve an environment that is safe,
welcoming, and controlled, behavior management must be implemented (Olive, 2010). By
creating a captivating narrative that directly connects to the community challenge and a created
incentive to solve the challenge, audiences like young students will engage in being part of the
solution to the challenge to further the narrative. Educators must be effective storytellers in the
classroom because of challenges like the one Popcorn Half-Days attempt to solve.
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References
American College of Education. (2024). ENG5013 High Drama- Evaluating Literary and
Commercial Works: Module 3 [Presentation transcripts]. Canvas.
[Link]
Auvinen, T., Lämsä, A.-M., Sintonen, T., & Takala, T. (2013). Leadership Manipulation and
Ethics in Storytelling. Journal of Business Ethics, 116(2), 415–431.
Olive, E. (2010). Behavior Management and Behavioral Change: How can we tell them
apart?. Reclaiming Children & Youth, 19(1), 3–6.
Omar, K., & Barzan, H. (2012). An Examination of the Effectiveness of Choice Theory on
Teachers’ Teaching Effectiveness and Students’ Subsequent Academic
Achievement. International Journal of Choice Theory & Reality Therapy, 31(2), 55–63.
Roof, L.M. & Kreutter, C. A. (2010). An interactive storytelling puzzle: Building a positive
environment in a second language classroom, Networks: An Online Journal for Teacher
Research; 12(1), 1-10.