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Senior Project Presentation
- 1. The Gift of Life: Current Organ Donation Attitudes and Persuasive MessagesJulie BalzariniNicole FedericoAllison O’DonnellKelly ReVillanova University
- 2. Agenda Overview Previous Research Method Results Discussion Limitations Conclusion
- 3. Agenda Overview Previous Research Method Results Discussion Limitations Conclusion
- 4. The Facts Currently 109, 935 are waiting to receive organs Between January and August of 2010 only 9,729people donated 19 people will die every day waiting for an organ www.UNOS.org
- 5. Two Questions Arise Why is this number so large? Why aren’t more people organ donors?
- 6. Agenda Overview Previous Research Method Results Discussion Limitations Conclusion
- 7. Previous Research Attitudes Media Influence Types of Messages
- 8. Research Questions & Hypotheses RQ1: Why aren’t Villanova undergraduates organ donors? H1: The most common reason why Villanova undergraduates are not organ donors is that they do not have enough information to make an educated decision. RQ2:Why are Villanova undergraduates organ donors? H2: The most common reason why Villanova undergraduates are organ donors is that they want to save lives.Â
- 9. Research Question & Hypotheses RQ3: What is the relationship between attitudes toward registering as a donor and actually registering?  H3: There will be a positive relationship between positive attitudes toward registering as an organ donor and registration.  RQ4: What type of organ donation message will be most effective in persuading people to register as organ donors. H4: A sympathetic/emotional message about organ donation will be more persuasive than messages intended to educate people about common organ donor myths or inspirational messages that show organ recipients with their families.
- 10. Agenda Overview Previous Research Method Results Discussion Limitations Conclusion
- 11. Method An experimental design was chosen for this study to analyze if exposure to a certain type of emotional message will yield persuasive responses. This experimentation allows for controlof the variable to determine if the message was successful in altering behavior.
- 12. Participants 60Villanova undergraduates Students were offered extra credit for participation Age range 19-24 College students are the ideal subjects
- 13. Procedure Introduction/Directions Pre-test Questionnaire Video exposure Post-test Questionnaire Opportunity to Register
- 14. Instruments McCroskey & Richmond’s six-item generalizedattitude scale Participants responded using six 7-point semantic differential items
- 15. Video Messages
- 16. Agenda Overview Previous Research Method Results Discussion Limitations Conclusion
- 17. Reasons For Not Registering “I had not given it enough thought” 13.3%
- 18. Reasons for Registering “I want to give my organs to someone who can use them” 25%
- 19. Confidence In Medical Systems Of the 11 participants that became organ donors as a result of the study 9indicated that they have a “great deal” of confidence in hospitals 8indicated that they have a “great deal” of confidence in emergency care providers.
- 20. Attitudinal Changes Video 1
- 21. Attitudinal Changes Video 2
- 22. Attitudinal Changes Video 3
- 23. Message Effects on Intent to Register
- 24. Signing Behavior Video 1 9 participants were already registered organ donors 11 participants were not registered organ donors After viewing Video 1, 6 participants signed an organ donor card Video 2 8 participants were already registered organ donors 12 participants were not registered organ donors After viewing Video 2, 3 participants signed an organ donor card Video 3 6 participants were already registered organ donors 14 participants were not registered organ donors After viewing Video 3, 2 participants signed an organ donor card
- 25. Agenda Overview Previous Research Method Results Discussion Conclusion
- 26. DiscussionVideo 1 Most effective in persuading people to register Most emotional/sympathetic message 20% of the participants indicated they learned something new
- 27. Discussion Video 2 More negative attitudes initially Decrease in attitudes on the “Good vs. Bad” item (McCroskey and Richmond scale) The majority of Video 2 participants (75%) indicated they learned something new.
- 28. Discussion Video 3 Yielded the most significant change in attitudes Least amount of signers Shortest in length 55% indicated they learned something new
- 29. Suggestions For Future Messages Emotional/Sympathetic Messages Airing PSAsduring popular medical TV shows Informational/Emotional DMV Video for new drivers Chapter in DMV Driver’s Manual
- 30. Agenda Overview Previous Research Method Results Discussion Limitations Conclusion
- 31. Limitations Small sample size of college students Extra Credit Reward Gender Ratio Peer Influence Unequal representation of race and religion Video Message Length Opportunity to register
- 32. Agenda Overview Previous Research Method Results Discussion Limitations Conclusion
- 33. 1 Person can save the lives of 8 people…
- 34. …and/or improve the lives of 50
- 35. As a result of our study, potentially 88 lives will be saved and 550 people will have an improved quality of life.
- 36. Q&A
Editor's Notes
- Julie: Hi everyone and welcome to our senior project presentation. My name is Julie BalzariniNic: My name is Nicole FedericoAlli: My name is Alli O’DonnellKelly: My name is Kelly ReJulie: Today we are going to talk to you about Current Organ Donation Attitudes and Persuasive Messages
- Julie: First we’re going to give you some general information about organ donation, then we will talk about some previous studies that have been conducted about organ donation. Next we will explain our study, followed by our results. Finally we will discuss the implications and limitations of our study
- Nicole: Now I will give you some background information about organ donation.
- Nicole: So the factsAccording to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), the private, non-profit organization that supervises the nation’s transplant system, 109 thousand, 935 individuals are currently waiting to receive organs; yet only 9,729 people donated their organs between January and August of 2010. Each month, the list will increase by approximately 300 people, and 19 people will die every day still waiting (UNOS, 2010). Obviously, there is a critical need for more donors in America.
- Nicole:Based on these statistics, two questions arise:Why is this number so large, and why aren’t more people organ donors?Previous research has sought to find answers to these questions
- Now we are going to discuss the previous research
- Alli: We identified three main areas of existing research about organ donation.Attitudes:Feeley (2007) discovered that while a majority of students had positive attitudes towards organ donationonly 23% of these students actually signed donor cards revealing a gap between attitude and behavior Media Influence: Morgan, Harrison, Chewning, Davis, and DiCorcia(2007) found that, despite national education campaigns of UNOS, viewers believe the myths about donating that emerge in television shows, influencing their attitudes and perceptions about organ donation in a negative way.Types of Messages: Siegel, AlvAro, CrAno, Lac and Ting (2008) studied four different types of appeals in organ donationpostercampaigns in academic settings. They found myth-refuting content to be the most effective. The research experiment of Feeley, Marshall, and Reinhart (2006) aimed to discover their attitudes about organ donation andto determine whether narrative or statistical messages are more advantageous. Their results yielded that narrative messages about organ donation were taken more positively because they were more relevant and credible than the others. Individuals readily believe narratives about organ donation because they arouse certain emotions, images, and sometimes memories that facts do not. Weber et. all (2006) studied the use of humor in persuasion. In his study, he discovered that humorous messages are more effective than non-humorous messages in persuading participants to become organ donors
- Alli: After reviewing the previous research we formulated these research questions and hypotheses
- Kelly: Now I am going to talk about the method we used in our study.
- Kelly: An experimental design was chosen for this study because we wanted to analyze if exposure to a certain type of emotional message would yield persuasive responses. Thisexperimentation allows for control of the variable to determine if the message was successful in altering behavior.
- Kelly: As for the participants, 60 Villanova undergraduates were recruited from sections of introductory and advanced Communication courses. Students were offered extra credit for their participation. The participants ranged in age from 19 to 24. According to Horton & Horton, college students are the ideal subjects for this study because the typical individual who signs an organ donor card or who registers on their license is young, educated, altruistic, and has a low fear of death.
- Julie:This is how we did our study. The participants were introduced to the study through a memorized script to ensure that the directions remained consistent across all groups. They then received a pretest questionnaire to identify their initial attitudes about organ donation and their demographic information. Participants were then exposed to 1 of 3organ donation video messages. After viewing the video, participants were given a post-test questionnaire to determine whether their attitudes about organ donation changed. To track which participants signed a donor card, each participant was given two cards. At the end of the study, students were given the opportunity to register. If they wished to register, they were instructed to sign both cards. They were asked to keep one card with them in their wallet, and one was returned to us with their materials so that we could track signing behavior.
- Julie:Attitudes toward organ donation weremeasured using a generalized attitude scale from McCroskey& Richmond. This scale asked participants to evaluate their attitudes about registering as an organ donorusing six 7-point semantic differential items.As you can see, the items were: Good vs. Bad, Wrong vs. Right, Harmful vs. Beneficial, Fair vs. Unfair, Wise vs. Foolish, & Negative vs. Positive
- Julie:These are the 3 video messages that we showed during our study. Each group saw one of these messages.
- Nicole: These are the results from our study.
- Nicole: During the pre-test, we asked unregistered participants why they were not donors. The most common response was that they had not given it enough thought. Since we predicted that students did not have enough information at the time of registering, this partially supports our first hypothesis. The reason why people had not given it enough thought may stem from their lack of information and the fact that they so young when they are first asked to make the decision.
- Nicole:Also during the pre-test, we asked registered participants why they were donors. The most common reason why villanova undergrads registered as organ donors is that they wanted to give their organs to someone that could use them, supporting our second hypothesis.
- Nicole:We surveyed students on the level of confidence they have in the medical systems. A Chi-Square test was conducted to determine the likelihood of participants to register to become organ donors given their level of confidence in hospitals and emergency care. Of the 11 participants that became organ donors as a result of the study, 9 indicated that they have a “great deal” of confidence in hospitals and 8 indicated that they have a “great deal” of confidence in emergency care providers.
- Julie: A Chi-Square test was conducted to compare signing behavior across the three videos. Of the 20 participants who watched Video 1, 9 people were already organ donors and 11 were not. After viewing the video, 6 people signed an organ donor card. Of the 20 participants who watched Video 2, 8 were already organ donors and 12 were not. After viewing the video, 3 participants signed an organ donor card. Of the 20 participants who watched Video 3, 6 participants were already organ donors and 14 were not. After viewing the video, 2 participants signed an organ donor card.
- These results prompted the following discussion
- Julie: The results of the study indicated that Video 1 was the most effective in terms of persuading peoplebecause it led to the most people registering as organ donors. From this, we conclude that, of the three videos that we presented, emotional messages are the most persuasive regarding organ donation registration. Also, 20% of the participants who viewed video 1 indicated that they learned something new .
- Julie:Participants exposed to Video 2 were found to have more negative attitudes about organ donation initially than any of the other groups. While attitudes did improve after viewing the video, they were still not as positive as other groups. The participants who viewed Video 2 showed a slight decrease in their attitudes about organ donation as measured by the “Good vs. Bad” item on the attitudinal measure. One possible explanation for this occurrence is that hearing experts talk about common myths about organ donation could have brought the misconceptions to their attention. Therefore, the inaccurate negative ideas could have remained in their mind, instead of the myth-refuting information from the video. This video was most effective in providing educational information. 75% of viewers indicated that they learned something new. This can be attributed to the content of the video and the credibility of the source delivering the message.
- Julie:Video 3 was found to produce the least amount of signers; however, it yielded the most significant change in attitudes from the pre-test to the post-test. We speculate that perhaps because it was the shortest in length, there was the least amount exposure to the message, which resulted in the fewest signers. The fact that Video 3 had the greatest mean attitude change, yet the least amount of signers, means that our third hypothesis was incorrect. 55% of participants that viewed this video indicated that they learned something new.
- Nicole:Due to our results, these are the suggestions we have for future implications. Theemotional/sympathetic message resulted in the most people registering as organ donors, thus we suggest UNOS construct messages that use this kind of appeal.Because popular medical TV shows often discuss organ donation in their plot, we propose that organ donation PSAs be aired during the shows in order to give people reliable information about the topic while the subject is fresh in their minds.We found that the most common reason why Villanova undergraduates are not organ donors is because they had not given it enough thought, which may stem from the fact that they did not have enough information initially and were so young at the time of the decision. Based on what we found in our study, we recommend that the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) show a video that is both informational and emotional to newly licensed drivers. In addition, we would also suggest that the DMV include a chapter about organ donation in the drivers’ manual.
- Nicole:There are several potential limitations to the present study.
- Nicole:A primary caveat of the study concerns the use of a small sample size of college students, which cannot be generalized to an entire population. Future studies could look to gather a larger and more randomized sample of participants. If we were to do our study again, we would survey a bigger sample from more than one university. Students were also encouraged to participate with the reward of extra credit. From this, we are led to believe that some participants were solely interested in receiving extra credit, rather than seriously partaking in our study. Another limitation that concerns the participants is the unequal representation of gender. Of the 60 participants, 70% were female and 30%were male.Also, Given the fact that 20 participants were tested at the same time, in the same room, they could have been influenced by whether or not their peers were signing. There is also an unequal representation of race and religion. 85%identified themselves as Caucasian and 75% indicated that they were Catholic. Therefore, we would try to have a more equal representation of gender, race, and religion if the study were repeated. The video messages used in our study were of different lengths, a factor that could have affected the impact of the message. A longer message could have yielded a greater attitudinal change simply because the participants were exposed to the stimuli for a longer period of time. Future research can test to see if video length has an effect on persuasion. In the future, we can find or even create messages that are equal lengths, giving us more control in the experiment. Also, another limitation is that participants may have become organ donors simply because they were given the opportunity and not because the video persuaded them.
- Alli:Our study examined the current organ donation attitudes among students at Villanova University, and tested the persuasive effects of organ donation video messages. The majority of students who were not registered organ donors prior to our study specified that they had not registered because they had not given it enough thought. The majority of students who were already donors claimed that they registered because they wanted to give their organs to someone who could use them. We found that an emotional/sympathetic message is the most persuasive in terms of signing behavior, while an uplifting/inspirational message is the most effective in changing attitudes. Currently, there are over 100,000 people in need of a vital organ, however less than 10,000 donated their organs this year.
- and/or improve the lives of 50.
- As a result of our study, potentially 88 lives will be saved and 550 people will have an improved quality of life. If any of you would like more information about becoming an organ donor, please see us after the presentation.
- Now we would like to open up the floor for questions.