Download - Organ Donation Awareness Campaigns in the PR Campaigns Course

http://jmc.sagepub.com/Communication Educator

Journalism & Mass

http://jmc.sagepub.com/content/61/4/411The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/107769580606100406

2006 61: 411Journalism & Mass Communication EducatorDeborah A. Silverman

Organ Donation Awareness Campaigns in the PR Campaigns Course

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication

at: can be foundJournalism & Mass Communication EducatorAdditional services and information for

http://jmc.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://jmc.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

What is This?

- Dec 1, 2006Version of Record >> at Aston University - FAST on August 25, 2014jmc.sagepub.comDownloaded from at Aston University - FAST on August 25, 2014jmc.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://jmc.sagepub.com/

http://jmc.sagepub.com/content/61/4/411

http://www.sagepublications.com

http://www.aejmc.com/

http://jmc.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

http://jmc.sagepub.com/subscriptions

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

http://jmc.sagepub.com/content/61/4/411.full.pdf

http://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtml



Organ Donation Awareness Campaigns in the PR Campaigns Course DEBORAH A. SILVERMAN

Public relations campaigns classes are generally regarded as capstone courses for students considering PR careers because they combine classroom instruction with service learning opportunities to design campaigns for real clients. This article discusses a case study, the author’s experiences in teaching a unique PR campaigns course, funded by a federal grant. Its purpose is to study the effectiveness of student-designed PR campaigns to increase organ donation registry efforts and awareness among college students. Through surveys of enrolled students, logs of signed donor cards, attendance records at campaign events, students’ post-campaign reflection papers, and students’ e-mails to the author, the study found that tactics such as information tabling, classroom presentations, and class members’ social networks yielded the largest number of signed donor cards. The percentage of class members who signed organ donor registry cards increased significantly, from 18.5% prior to the course to 52% at its conclusion. This paper provides preliminary findings and recommendations for communication professors who anticipate teaching a similar course.

Service learning courses are con- sidered an important component of undergraduate education because such community service “motivates students, prepares them for citizenship and can be used to foster critical think- ing and examine personal values.”’ These courses generally emphasize what Arthur Chickering and Zelda Gamson have termed “the seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education,” including the encour- agement of active learning, coopera- tion among students, respect for

diverse talent and ways of learning, and an emphasis on time on task.2

Scholars in a wide array of academic disciplines have studied service learning courses, ranging from geogra- phy, history, and foreign languages to marketing, health, and speech commu- n i~a t ion .~ In some locales, secondary schools or other entities may sponsor service learning courses, placing college students in day care centers, hos- pitals, or programs for the d i~abled .~ Elsewhere, universities are making an institutional commitment to service

Deborah A. Silverman [[email protected]) is assistant professor of communication, Buffalo State College. This project was made possible by a grant from Health Services Resources Administration [#R390T01205-01-00), Division of Transplantation. The contents of this article are solely the responsibility of the author and do not necessarilyrepresent the views of HRSA/DoT. The author also thanks Thomas Feeley, Donald Vincent, and this article’s reviewers for their assistance in its preparation.

411 WINTFR ‘n7 at Aston University - FAST on August 25, 2014jmc.sagepub.comDownloaded from


learning by establishing service learning offices to assist faculty with the development of such courses, as Rob- ert Bringle and Julie Hatcher have noted:

Faculty who use service learning discover that it brings new life to the classroom, enhances performance on traditional measures of learning, increas- es student interest in the subject, teaches new problem solving skills, and makes teaching more enjoyable.5

Public relations courses present an excellent opportunity for incorporating many service learning techniques, since they frequently engage students in class discussion, class presentations, and other active learning techniques, as evidenced by a recent survey of public relations faculty in the United States6

Within the public relations curriculum, service learning readily lends itself to the undergraduate PR campaigns course. Educators, public relations practitioners, and public relations students all recognize the value of experiential learning through the use of real public relations clients for such courses. Students feel they learn more about the “real” world of public relations, while clients say they are receiv- ing creative ideas and the opportunity for self-reflection, and educators point to enhanced learning7 Undergraduate communication majors also believe that service learning helps them to learn course content and makes them more aware of community problems.8 Likewise, at the graduate level, public relations educators are placing increasing emphasis on “foundations” courses

that allow students to work directly with professional clients to plan public relations campaigns as well as design the supporting communication materi- ais.9

Purpose of Study

Although the public relations campaigns course is a standard component of the public relations curriculum at many colleges, relatively few case studies of PR campaigns courses involving real health care industry clients have been published. Existing literature in- cludes several case studies for courses in related fields such as marketing or technical writing, but most focuses on the creation of mass media campaigns to reduce high-risk drinking among college students.lo One exception is a case study of a service learning project in a technical writing class, in which eight students were divided into two teams to develop information about consent rates in organ donation for use in an academic medical center.” The study showed that the students in the project over-professionalized, viewing themselves not merely as writers for an organ procurement agency, but as another party vying for control, along with doctors and the organ procurement agency, of communication about organ donation.

The need to educate Americans about the critical need for organ donation is great. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, more than 88,000 individuals are awaiting an organ donor, largely due to advances in medical science during the past decade that have made organ donation a safe, viable solution for medical problems. On average, each day seventeen people die while awaiting an organ, sim-

JOURNALISM & MASS COMMUNICATION EDUCATOR 412

at Aston University - FAST on August 25, 2014jmc.sagepub.comDownloaded from


ply because the organ they needed did not become available in time.12 The national shortage of organ donors has begun to attract attention from scholars in the social and behavioral sciences; health communication campaigns based on accurate audience analysis are viewed as key to building awareness about the need for organ donation.13

More recently, researchers have focused on attitudes toward, and knowledge about, organ donation as predictors of beha~i0r . l~ Conversations with family members are viewed as vitally important because organ donation does not take place without the consent of a person’s ne~t-0f-kin.l~ In addition, educational programs in schools can dispel myths about organ donation and help students to work through their ambivalence regarding organ donation.16 Students are consid- ered to be an understudied but important target group for organ donation message campaigns.17

The purpose of this case study is to explore the advantages and disad- vantages of teaching a PR campaigns course involving the creation and implementation of a public health campaign about organ donation for a real-world client within the relatively brief time frame of a fifteen-week semester.

Research Context: Advanced Public Relations

In 2003, the author extensively redesigned and taught a public relations course, Advanced Public Rela- tions, for undergraduates at a mid- sized state university in the Northeast, featuring a client, a nonprofit organ

donation awareness organization. Offered by the communication department, the course had previously been taught as a public relations special top- ics course, rather than a public relations campaigns course, by several adjunct faculty members and with no fixed syllabus.

The client had worked in 2002 with another university to create an organ donation awareness campaign for its students. Encouraged by the project’s success there, the client invited the mid-sized state university to col- laborate on a joint pilot project in the spring of 2003. The client gave both public relations classes a small budget with flexibility to spend the money as the students saw fit to communicate with their peers about organ and tissue donation. Several months later, the client and both universities received a three-year grant from the U S . Department of Health and Human Services. Its purpose is to study the effectiveness of student-designed PR campaigns to increase awareness about the need for more organ donors and to increase organ donation registry efforts among college students.18 The courses are expected to serve as models for similar courses at other colleges across the country.

In the spring of 2004 and again in 2005, the author taught Advanced Public Relations, each time with a modest budget of $2,500 from the research grant for campaign supplies as determined in conjunction with her students.19 The course description from the syllabus is as follows:

COM 453 is designed to give you “real world” experience developing and implementing an effective public relations

413 W l N T E R m7



campaign on campus. We also will explore the strategic aspects of public relations campaigns, with a special focus on the research, planning, and evaluation that are necessary for an effective campaign. Upon completion of the course, students will:

understand theories of how and why public relations campaigns work, based on the study of actual campaigns;

demonstrate mastery of research, problem solving, planning, writing, teamwork, and oral and interpersonal skills;

and demonstrate mastery of public relations campaign planning by creating and implementing a campaign for an actual client.

Working with the client, students will develop and implement a campaign to increase the number of students who sign organ and tissue donor cards (and, ultimately, get their parents or guardians to approve them, as well).

Participants. The professor was a woman with more than twenty years of professional public relations experience. The class enrollment each spring varied from thirty to thirty-five undergraduates, primarily seniors ma- joring in communication who plan careers in either public relations or advertising. Thirty-two students enrolled in spring 2005, the period described in this study. The class met

three days per week for fifty minutes for a total of fifteen weeks.

Students were divided into seven project teams, each handling a different tactical aspect of the campaign: four media teams (print media, broadcast media, Internet, and advertising); and three special events teams (information tabling; classroom presentations; and a team responsible for an event such as a dinner, fashion show, speakers’ forum on organ donation, or “Strikes for Life,” an evening of bowl- ing featuring a guest speaker on organ donation). Students were allowed to join the team of their choice, with three to seven students per team.

Course Structure and Content. The course was conducted in a lec- tureldiscussion format, with guest speakers on organ donation as well as a field trip to the local organ procurement organization. Students simulta- neously learned about public relations campaign principles and information about organ donation. Guest speakers in class included the PR client, researchers on organ donation issues, organ transplant recipients, and “donor parents”-parents who have made the difficult decision to donate their child’s organs after the child’s unex- pected death.

During the first eight weeks of the semester, the first half of each class was devoted to a lecture on public relations campaign planning or organ donation information, followed by team meet- ings and discussions of the class campaign. Lectures covered the basic com- ponents of public relations campaigns, including research, setting goals and objectives, media and non-media chan- nels, logistics (budget, staffing, and timetable), and evaluation. The students voted on a number of important




campaign decisions during this time, such as a campaign logo (designed by a class member), campaign theme, and various tactics that were later incorpo- rated into each team’s campaign plan book.

Tactics chosen by the 2005 class included brochures and news releases to the student newspaper and local daily and weekly newspapers (print media team); public service announce- ments to campus and local radio sta- tions and an appearance on a local early morning television program (broadcast media team); a campaign Web site (Internet team); posters and ads for newspapers and other publications (advertising team); presentations to large classes and student organizations (classroom presentations team); tabling in the Student Union, academic buildings, and dining halls (tabling team); and fashion show in the Student Union at lunchtime (fashion show team).

During the second half of the semester, the students executed and eval- uated their campaign, including a presentation to the public relations client, at which the teams discussed their campaign failures and successes.

The final grade was based on a team research report on one aspect of the public relations problem (10% of the grade); a test on assigned readings and lectures about organ donation (20%); a team campaign plan book and presentation to the client (50°/o); a post-campaign reflection paper from each student (10%); and class attendance and participation in the campaign (10%).

Methodology

The author chose to conduct a case study of her course using multiple

methods because of her interest in examining the benefits and challenges of this particular course, rather than testing hypotheses about college students’ attitudes toward organ donation in general. Her research dovetailed with that of the principal investigator, who studied the course’s effects upon the enrolled students, as well as the impact of the PR campaign upon the entire student population of both universities and the class members’ social networks. Two questions drove the research design:

RQ1: What is the effect of using the topic of organ and tissue donation as a project focus in a public relations campaign course on the enrolled students’ knowledge, attitudes, communication, and intentions to become donors?zo

RQ2: In a public relations campaigns course promoting organ donation awareness among college students, what strategies are most effective to reach the campus population, given time and financial con- straints on the campaign?

Data Collection

In order for the author to assess students’ knowledge, attitudes, and behavior change related to organ donation (RQl), the students enrolled in the author’s spring 2005 course completed two surveys administered by the principal investigator, one at the begin- ning of the semester and the second at the end. Each survey took approxi- mately fifteen minutes to complete;

415 WINTER ’07



participation was voluntary. Students provided a unique three-digit code to allow for within-subjects data analysis. The students’ knowledge about the organ donation process was tested using nine questions (see Appendix 1). These questions were, in part, taken from two previous studies on organ donation and college student sam- ples.21 Total knowledge was computed as the number of questions correct for each student.

To determine the most effective campaign strategies (RQZ), the author kept a log of the number of signed do- nor cards for each campaign tactic, tracked the distribution of campaign brochures and attendance at events, required each student to write a three- page post-campaign reflection paper worth 10% of the final grade, and asked students to complete an anonymous, open-ended survey in class during the last week of the course, in addition to the normal course evaluation. Additional qualitative data came from unsolicited comments from students via e-mail.

Survey Results R Q l . Of the 32 students enrolled

in the author’s spring 2005 course, 28 students completed surveys at time 1 and 24 students at time 2. Twenty students completed both surveys. The students’ knowledge about organ donation issues increased significantly from time 1 (61%) to time 2 (88%). Student knowledge scores on the nine-item quiz are reported in Table 1. A within- subjects ANOVA for the students who completed the knowledge quiz at both points in time was statistically significant, F (1, 17) = 87.68, p <. 01 (time 1 Mlsd = 5.8111.33, time 2 Mlsd = 8,5910.67).

rOLiRNALISM b MASS COMMUNZCATZON EDUCATOR 416

The four-item scale measuring attitudes toward organ and tissue donation showed acceptable internal consistency (time 1 a = .94, time 2 a= .93). The students’ positive attitudes increased significantly (using within- subjects ANOVA) from time 1 (M = 3.45, sd = 0.73) to time 2 (M = 3.81, sd = 0.37), F (1, 19) = 4.73, p < .01.

The two-item scale of willingness to communicate about organ and tissue donation (time 1 a = .80; time 2 a = .78) also revealed an increase from time 1 (M = 3.45, sd = 0.73) to time 2 ( M = 3.81, sd = 0.37), F (1, 19) = 4.73, p < .01.

The percentage of students who had communicated about organ donation in the last year also increased significantly. The percentage of students who had personally influenced another individual through conversation to become interested in organ donation increased from 9.4% at time 1 to 100% at time 2. The percentage of students who had spoken to their families about organ donation increased from 12.5% at time 1 to 50% at time 2. At the end of the course, only seven students reported that they had not spoken to their families in the past year about organ donation.

The number of students who reported signing the organ registry increased from time 1 (5127 [18.5%]) to time 2 (13125 [52%]). Of those who signed, 40% of signers at time 1 had their signing witnessed, while 30.8% of signers at time 2 reported having their signing witnessed.

These data suggest the class activities combined with the execution of the organ donation awareness campaign had a profound influence on students’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to the topic of organ donation.



Table 1 SURVEY RESULTS FOR STUDENTS IN ADVANCED PUBLIC RELATIONS COURSE ON KNOWLEDGE

Students reflected on what they learned about public relations campaigns and organ donation in a three- page post-campaign report. Some admitted that the class made them more aware of a community problem, the need for more organ donors, as the following excerpt indicates:

During the research for this class, I personally learned a great deal of information. I was never aware of the huge need for organ and tissue donors. I never realized how many people die each day because they are awaiting the transplant of a life-saving organ. There were so many myths and facts addressed in

Measure [Scoring]

Knowledge Q1 (YO Correct) Knowledge QZ

class lectures as well as during Internet research that my team performed, e.g., brain death vs. cardiac death and the importance of discussing organ and tissue donation with your family. I feel like a better person after having done this campaign because I can clear up any myths and confusion people may have about organ and tissue donation and replace that un- certainty with educational facts.

Another student speculated that his peers may not know much about the subject for two reasons: “College students are in their twenties and rare-

Time 1 Time 2 Change (n = 28) (n = 24)

36

64

92

83

+56

+19

41 7 WINTER ’07



~

Table 2 SIGNED ORGAN DONOR CARDS BY SOURCE,

SPRING 2005 ORGAN AND TISSUE DONATION CAMPAIGN

Source Event Number of Signed Donor Cards

Entire Class Tabling 191

Team Classroom 39 and Club Presentations

Individual Class Members - Conversations with 38 Social Networks Friends, Classmates,

Family Members

Internet Team Class Web site 3

TOTAL 271 ~

ly think about death and fatal illnesses; also, there isn’t much advertising aimed at the college demographic related to organ and tissue donation.” The comments in many students’ reflection papers could be summed up by a third student who wrote:

The experience I gained working on this campaign was in- valuable. It seemed as though this class was an introduction to the real world, half of it still rooted in the college environ- ment of learning, but the other half involved in actually help- ing real people and creating awareness about a very important cause.

RQ2. To determine the most effective campaign strategies for informing students about organ donation and encouraging them to sign the state donor registry, the author utilized several methods.

Log of Signed Donor Cards. The author kept a record of the number of signed donor cards for each communication tactic used in the spring 2005 campaign. As noted in Table 2, the 2005 campaign yielded 271 signed donor cards. The most successful tactics involved venues where large numbers of students were gathered, such as tabling in the Student Union during the lunch hour or in academic buildings when classes were letting out; or presentations to student clubs or large classes of 100 students or more. The classroom presentations included a specially-produced nine-minute video that addressed students’ concerns about organ donation. These venues allowed class members to educate their fellow students about organ donation as well as encourage them to sign do- nor cards.

Another important source of signed donor cards was the students’ social networks of family members, friends, and classmates; in 2005, nearly

JOURNALISM b MASS COMMUNICATION EDUCATOR 418



as many signed cards resulted from social networking (38) as classroom and club presentations (39). The class Web site registered three potential organ donors during the spring 2005 semester; the small number was most likely due to a delay in the Web site’s launch until mid-semester due to technical difficulties.

Distribution of Brochures and Attendance at Events. Counting the number of brochures that were distributed and the number of people at campaign events enabled the class to determine whether we had informed large numbers of students, faculty, and staff about organ donation. The students’ educational efforts in 2005 exceeded their expectations: they distributed 1,000 brochures; educated 1,400 students in classroom and student club presentations; and had 400 students, faculty, and staff at the fashion show, which featured models carrying signs about organ donation. The student newspaper, which has a circulation of 10,000, carried two major stories, and the faculty-staff online newsletter also ran a substantive story.

Reflection Paper. As noted in the discussion of RQ1, above, the author’s students turned in post-campaign evaluation reports. In addition to reflecting upon what they learned about organ donation, the students explained the rationale for the communication tactics that their teams chose to implement, such as the print media team’s brochure:

It was important to us that it was an improvement from the year before. We wanted to personalize it to college students more. This was why we began the brochure with a let-

ter to the students, talked about students our age who werefare organ donors, and offered some facts to clear common misconceptions. Some- thing that we thought was very important were the statistics that related to the age group we were targeting. We believed it to be a more personal touch than just standard facts offered in other brochures.

Still others offered perceptive thoughts on activities that the entire class participated in, such as information tabling at a dozen locations across campus:

The location of the table is very important. I think that tabling in the Student Union, except during the fashion show, is ineffective because the people passing by cannot hear what you are saying, are often in a rush to get some- where, or are just not motivat- ed to break away from a large group of people, such as the crowd that forms in the dining area, to see what the table is about. It’s better to set up tables in an area where it is quiet and small groups of people walk by, rather than large crowds. In a setting like this, conversations with people can become more intimate, and therefore, more persuasive.

Open-Ended Survey. Class members who completed an in-class, anonymous survey for the author dur-

419 WIhTER ’07



ing the final week of the semester (Appendix 2) thought overall that they had a positive experience with both the public relations campaigns course and the organ donation awareness campaign. Student responses included the following:

We created a great environ- ment for awareness about the need for organ and tissue donation.

As a result of this course, I feel more comfortable about talking about this issue as well as signing an organ donor card.

I learned a ton. The entire experience, while frustrating at times, was extremely positive. I learned so much about OTD, myself, and the PR practice.

I feel I learned a lot, which influenced me to sign a donor card. I think many other students felt the same way-hesi- tant at first, but then eager to sign up once they learned more about organ and tissue donation.

The cause itself was a very strong point of our campaign. When you have a good cause, the promotion part comes naturally and becomes easier.

E-mail Messages. Students who e- mailed the author at the end of the semester spoke highly of the “real world” experience they gained in exe-

cuting a public relations campaign, under deadline pressure, on behalf of a client. One student wrote:

This class has been, hands- down, the best class I have taken here. This class could have easily been formatted around notes and three exams, which most classes are. Be- cause I want to have a career in PR, this class is exactly what I want to be a part of. I hope that I am able to use what I learned during this campaign as a way to make myself more marketable in the PR field.

The results of the spring 2005 campaign suggest that the optimal communication tactics for reaching students at this particular university included the following, in rank order: tabling at various locations on campus, augment- ed by a fashion show that drew students to the table in the Student Union; presentations to large classes and student organizations; the class members’ own interpersonal networks; and the class Web site. Other tactics, such as news releases, broadcast announce- ments, newspaper ads, and posters, were not intended to yield signed donor cards; they were implemented solely to increase attendance at tabling, where donor cards could be signed.

Discussion

This article gives an overview of an ongoing project to promote organ and tissue donation awareness through student-designed health campaigns in one PR campaigns course, Advanced Public Relations. One of the greatest




benefits was students’ learning about organ donation as a result of taking the course. During the fifteen-week semester, there was a significant increase in student knowledge, attitudes, communication, and enrollment in the donor registry. The survey results showed that students’ knowledge about organ donation (on a nine- item quiz) increased by two standard deviations over the semester; the low- est knowledge score on any given item was 83%.

The author’s study was not designed to measure whether active learning took place in the classroom, but data from the enrolled students’ post-campaign evaluation reports suggest that it did. Charles Lubbers and Diane Gorcyca cite ten practices that encourage active learning in the classroom;22 they include six practices that occurred in the author’s class: (1) conduct of research projects; (2) field trips or volunteer activities; (3) student-ini- tiated trips, projects, or activities; (4) role-playing and simulation in class; ( 5 ) relating outside events to class and theories, and (6) student challenge of ideas and course materials. Although the author, as the instructor, provided guidance and structure for the campaign, most campaign ideas were developed and executed by the students. As one student wrote in the post-campaign evaluation, “I learned a lot about organ and tissue donation that I didn’t know, but I also gained a lot of experience in events planning and just how a PR campaign is run.” Another student observed, “Team- work, deadlines, and delegating responsibility are all important aspects of a PR campaign. It was a great hands- on experience.” Those thoughts were echoed by a third student:

1 421 WINTER ’07

I think that even with the extensive amount of work and time commitment that went into this class, it has been the most valuable course that I have taken here. After three years of lectures, bubble tests and five-page papers, this course finally put our knowledge and skills to the real test. The practical experience that I have gained both in planning a public relations campaign and working in teams and with other teams has been stressful at times, but definite- ly worth it.

This study design has limitations. Since the statistics for the two surveys refer to a one group pretest, posttest pre-experimental research design,23 only a true experimental design with a control group would provide more conclusive evidence of significant changes in organ donation awareness through service learning. Other expla- nations include maturation, history, testing, instrumentation, and statistical regres~ion .~~

Recommendations and Future Research

This study has many implications for future campaigns courses and research. First, these data demonstrate that students benefit greatly from service learning experiences in senior- level undergraduate communication courses. Both anecdotal evidence and formal course evaluations revealed that students find the execution of a public relations campaign, rather than simply planning a campaign, to be a valuable experience-one that can be listed on



their resumes and discussed with prospective employers.

Second, although many other classes will not have the luxury of a $2,500 budget for a public relations campaign, instructors may wish to share these findings with organizations that can provide limited funding to promote their cause as part of a public relations campaigns course. Professors of such courses ought to encourage payment from clients, at least for materials used for creating campaign plan books.25

Third, organizing the students into tactics-based teams, rather than teams offering competing plans for the same client, gave the students a unified sense of purpose-an esprit de corps- and enthusiasm about the class project. It is important to set deadlines for particular teams in order to keep the entire campaign on track. During the spring 2005 semester, for example, one problem arose when the original special events-kickoff team failed to come up with a satisfactory kickoff event by early March. Other members of the class proposed alternative ideas, including a fashion show, on short notice-only five weeks before the proposed event. Some students quickly volunteered to organize the fashion show in addition to their original team responsibilities and did an outstanding job with the fashion show, but if the kickoff event had been decided a month earlier, the instructor and fashion show team members could have avoided much needless stress.

Fourth, successful campaign tactics are likely to vary from campus to campus, depending on such factors as the percentage of commuter students vs. students who live on campus; avail-

ability of a common gathering space where many students congregate; university policies regarding mass e-mails and posting of signs; willingness of other professors to allow PR Campaigns students to make presentations in large classes; availability of a local organ procurement agency to provide speakers; and, most importantly, the students’ initial knowledge of, and attitudes towards, organ donation issues as determined by a baseline survey of both students enrolled in the course and the campus population.

Fifth, to correct for a common problem with small group work in classes, “slackers” who do little work toward the group’s project, instructors may wish to build in peer evaluations as an assessment method. The author required each student to write a confi- dential, candid peer evaluation about other members of hidher team at the end of the semester; these reports matched the author’s own observations about non-productive team members, whose final grades were lowered by a half letter grade.

Sixth, instructors should encourage their students to recruit campus organizations, such as Greek organizations or the campus chapter of Stu- dents for Organ Donation (if it exists) as volunteers for tabling and special events. Tabling proved to be an effective campaign tactic due to its one-on- one, interpersonal nature, but it required many student volunteers to sit at tables in various locations across campus, and on several days. College Greek organizations and other clubs often have community service requirements that their members must fulfill; during the spring 2005 campaign, several members of Greek organizations fulfilled service requirements by assist-




ing the author’s students in setting up equipment for the fashion show.

Seventh, instructors may wish to encourage their campuses to establish long-term public relations programs for organ donation awareness in addition to the short-term campaigns described above. Attitudes towards organ donation are formed and change over a relatively long period of time; trying to stop students en route to class to get them to sign an organ donor card is difficult if the students haven’t been informed beforehand about the facts and benefits of organ donation. The campus chapter of Students for Organ Donation (http://www.studentdonor. org) or the Public Relations Student Society of America (http://www.prssa. org) could assume responsibility for such a long-term public relations program.

Finally, with careful planning by the instructor, it is possible to develop and execute a PR campaign within one semester-provided that students al- ready have grounding in public relations principles, experience with campus media and news writing, and the discipline and drive to maintain focus under the tight deadlines imposed by the semester format. If possible, the course instructor also should be famil- iar with the abilities of the students at the start of the semester, in order to place the strongest student writers on teams that require extensive writing (e.g., print media team) or organiza- tional skills (e.g., special events team). However, additional campaign planning time is desirable because the students generally enter the PR Cam- paigns course with little or no campaign planning experience. As one student noted in her post-campaign report:

I felt like this whole semester was a fast-paced race to finish a task. I know it may be hard to extend a class to make more time for campaign planning, but more time to plan would help create a more organized and in-depth campaign.

As an alternative to the one-semester format, instructors may create a two-semester format, with campaign planning during the first semester and campaign execution in the second semester. A variant on that format would be to have campaign planning in the first semester by the entire class, with some students opting to execute the campaign as an independent study project with the instructor during the following semester.

Future research would be productive in a number of directions. For example, what impact does a college’s size or location have upon the creation of a successful organ donation awareness campaign? The author’s course was taught at a large university (27,000 students) in a major metropolitan area. Because of the university’s size and the fact that many students are commuters, communication to students is frag- mented, and some potential communication tactics, such as mass e-mails to all enrolled students, are prohibited by university policies. Organ donation awareness campaigns at small colleges in rural areas may have different but equally significant challenges.

Another area where more research is needed is the role of social networks-families and friends-in con- vincing students to sign organ donor registry cards. Do all students who sign cards have conversations with’ their families either before or after signing

423 WINTER ’07 at Aston University - FAST on August 25, 2014jmc.sagepub.comDownloaded from


cards, and do the families and friends, in turn, decide to sign up as a result? In the author’s spring 2005 class, 14% of signed donor cards came from individuals in the students’ social networks. One student alone was responsible for 1 7 of the 271 signed donor cards; she convinced her family, friends, and other students to sign the cards because she firmly believed in the cause.

Finally, additional research should be conducted on students, both in the PR class and elsewhere on campus, who are exposed to the PR Campaigns class organ donation message but fail to respond by signing donor registry cards. This would be especially effective following classroom presentations to large classes; surveys could be administered to determine whether students had any previous experience with organ donation prior to the classroom presentation and whether the PR Campaigns students’ message was ap- propriately targeted.

Appendixes and Endnotes follow.

IOUANALISM b MASS COMMUNICATION EDUCATOR 424 at Aston University - FAST on August 25, 2014jmc.sagepub.comDownloaded from


Appendix 1 SURVEY SCALE ITEMS

I

Student Knowledge of Organ and Tissue Donation (True or False)

1. All organized religions support organ donation or leave the decision to the

2. A person’s next-of-kin must give permission before one can become an organ

3. Most people who need an organ/tissue transplant receive one. (False) 4. It is possible for a brain-dead person to recover from injuries. (False) 5. People who choose to donate a family member’s organs/tissues end up paying

extra medical bills. (False) 6. Given equal need, a poor person has as good a chance as a wealthy person of

getting an organ/tissue transplant. (True) 7 . Organsltissue for transplant can be bought and sold on the black market in the

United States. (False) 8. It is possible to have a regular funeral service following organ/tissue donation.

(True) 9. Signing the donor card, enrolling in the donor registry, or stating one’s inten-

tions in a will negate the need to tell family of one’s donation wishes. (False)

Experience (True or False)

individual. (True)

and tissue donor. (True)

1. I know someone personally who has received or is awaiting an organ. 2. I know someone personally who has donated an organ/tissue.

Intentions to Sign

1. At some time in the future, I plan to sign an organ/tissue donor card or registry.

Willingness to Communicate

1. I know how to talk to my family about my decision to be (or not to be) an organ

2. I am willing to speak to my family about my decision to become (or not and tissue donor.

become) an organ and tissue donor.

Attitudes ~ ~~

1. I support the idea of orgadtissue donation for transplantation purposes. 2. I believe that organ/tissue donation is an act of compassion. 3. I believe that orgadtissue donation is an unselfish act. 4. I view organ/tissue donation as a benefit to humanity.

I 425 WINTER ’07



Appendix 2 ADVANCED PUBLIC RELATIONS (COM 453) POST CAMPAIGN EVALUATION FORM

(1) Our campaign had two major goals-educating students about organ and tissue donation, and increasing the number of students who are enrolled in the state organ and tissue donation registry. Do you feel that we accomplished those goals? Why or why not?

(2) What do you feel were the strongest points of our campaign?

(3) What parts of the campaign do you feel could have used improvements?

(4) What alternate methods do you feel could have been used to increase awareness among students?

(5) What do you think we could have done differently to further boost the number of students who joined the registry?

(6) Do you feel the support systems we had at our disposal (university staff/ faculty, our client, the local organ procurement agency) were adequate and readily available to us? Which of the above were the most helpful?

(7) From a personal standpoint, and an educational perspective, what did you learn from the course, campaign, and/or experience as a whole?

(8) Could the class itself have been structured differently (timeldayd durationlfocus of each individual class), and how so?

(9) What effect did the course have on your own personal perspective on organ and tissue donation?

(10) Do you feel that this course and our campaign were successful?

(11) Please feel free to add any additional comments concerning the course, campaign, or National Organ & Tissue Donation Awareness Month (April).

IOURNALISM & MASS COMMUNICATION EDUCATOR 426 at Aston University - FAST on August 25, 2014jmc.sagepub.comDownloaded from


Endnotes

1. Mary Beckman, “Learning in Action: Courses That Complement Community Service,” College Teaching 45 (spring 1997): 72-76.

2. Arthur W. Chickering and Zelda F. Gamson, Applying the Seven Princi- ples for Good Practice in Undergradu- ate Education (San Francisco: Jossey- Bass, 1991).

3. See, for example, the following articles: Michael E. Ritter and Karen A. Lemke, “Addressing the ‘Seven Prin- ciples for Good Practice in Undergra- duate Education’ with Internet-En- hanced Education,” Journal of Geogra- p h y in Higher Education 24 (spring 2000): 100-08; Catherine Badura, “Re- Visioning Women’s History through Service Learning,” Journal of Ameri- can History 88 (March 2002): 1431-35; C.G. Lally, “ ServiceKommunity Learn- ing and Foreign Language Teaching Methods: An Application,” Active Learning in Higher Education 2 (July 2001): 53-64; Ed Petkus, Jr., “A Theoretical and Practical Framework for Service-Learning in Marketing: Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle,” Journal of Marketing Education 22 (April 2000): 64-71; P. Reams, “Service Learning in Health Care Higher Edu- cation: Risk or Not To Risk,” Education for Health: Change in Learning b Practice 16 (July 2003): 145-54; Martin Donohoe and Susan Danielson, “A Community-Based Approach to the Medical Humanities,” Medical Educa- tion 38 (February 2004): 204-17; and Ann (2. Staton and Stephanie D. Tom- linson, “Communication Education Outreach in Elementary School Class- rooms,” The Southern Communication Journal 66 (spring 2001): 211. ’ 4. Rich Cairn and Susan Cairn,

“Service Learning Makes the Grade,” Educational Leadership 56 (March

5. Robert G. Bringle and Julie A. Hatcher, “Implementing Service Learn- ing in Higher Education,” Journal of Higher Education 67 (MarchiApril

6. Charles A. Lubbers and Diane A. Gorcyca, “Using Active Learning in Public Relations Instruction: Demo- graphic Predictors of Faculty Use,” Pu- blic Relations Review 23 (spring 1997):

7. Linda Aldoory and Brenda Wrigley, “Exploring the Use of Real Clients in the PR Campaigns Course,” Journalism b Mass Communication Educator 54 (winter 2000): 47-58.

8. Julia B. Corbett and April R. Kendall, “Evaluating Service Learning in the Communication Discipline,” Journalism b Mass Communication Educator 53 (winter 1999): 66-76.

9. Linda Childers Hon, Kathy R. Fitzpatrick, and Margarete Rooney Hall, “Searching for the ‘Ideal’ Gra- duate Public Relations Curriculum,” Journalism b Mass Communication Educator 59 (summer 2004): 126-42.

10. See, for example, William DeJong, “The Role of Mass Media Campaigns in Reducing High-Risk Drinking Among College Students,” Journal of Studies on Alcohol 63 (March 2002): 182-92; and Laura Gomberg, Shari Kessel Schneider, and William DeJong, “Evaluation of a Social Norms Marketing Campaign To Reduce High-Risk Drinking at the University of Mississippi,” American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse 27 (May 2001): 375-89.

11. Ellen Barton and Laurie Evans, “A Case of Multiple Professionalisms: Service Learning and Control of Com-

1999): 66-68.

1996): 221-39.

67-80.

427 WINTER ’07



munication about Organ Donation,” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 1 7 (October 2003):

12. UNOS, United Network for Or- gan Sharing, 24 May 2005, http://www. unos.org (24 May 2005).

13. Jenifer E. Kopfman and Sandi W. Smith, “Understanding the Audi- ences of a Health Communication Cam- paign: A Discriminant Analysis of Po- tential Organ Donors Based on Intent to Donate,” Journal of Applied Communi- cation Research 24 (February 1996): 33-49.

14. See, for example, Susan E. Mor- gan and Jenny K. Miller, “Communi- cating about Gifts of Life: The Effect of Knowledge, Attitudes, and Altruism on Behavior and Behavioral Intentions Re- garding Organ Donation,” Journal of Applied Communication Research 30 (May 2002): 163-78; and Susan E. Mor- gan, Jenny Miller, and Lily A. Arasara- tnam, “Signing Cards, Saving Lives: An Evaluation of the Worksite Organ Do- nation Project,” Communication Mono- graphs 69 (September 2002): 253-73.

15. Dave Wendler and Neal Dickert, “The Consent Process for Cadaveric Organ Procurement,” Journal of the American Medical Association 285 (17 January 2001): 329-33.

16. Margareta A. Sanner, “A Swe- dish Survey of Young People’s Views on Organ Donation and Transplan- tation,” Transplant International 15 (December 2002): 641-48.

17. Thomas H. Feeley and T.J. Servoss, “Examining College Student Intentions to Become Organ Donors,” Journal of Health Communication, in press; and Jenifer E. Kopfman, Sandi W. Smith, James K. Ah Yun, and Anne- marie Hodges, “Affective and Cognitive Reactions to Narrative versus Statis-

413-38.

tical Evidence Organ Donation Messages,” Journal of Applied Commu- nication Research 26 (August 1998):

18. Thomas Feeley, associate professor of communication at the Univer- sity at Buffalo, is the principal investigator on the grant. Since 2003, several additional colleges in New York State have joined the project, offering courses culminating in an organ donation campaign, but not participating in the research component.

19. The final semester of federal funding for this course was in spring 2006.

20. My sincere thanks to Thomas Feeley, principal investigator on this grant, for allowing me to reprint the results of his research (Research Ques- tion 1) here. The data given are for the author’s course only; data are excluded for the PR class members at the other university that is part of the grant.

21. Feeley and Servoss, “Examin- ing College Student Intentions to Be- come Organ Donors”; and Raymond L. Horton and Patricia J. Horton, “Knowl- edge Regarding Organ Donation: Identi- fying and Overcoming Barriers to Or- gan Donation,” Social Science 6. Medi- cine 31 (October 1990): 791-800.

22. Lubbers and Gorcyca, “Using Active Learning.”

23. D.T. Campbell and J.C. Stanley, Experimental and Qu asi-Experim en tal Designs for Research (Skokie, IL: Rand McNally, 1963).

24. Campbell and Stanley, Experi- mental and Quasi-Experimental De- signs for Research, 7-12.

25. Vince Benigni, I-Heui Chei, and Glen T. Cameron, “The Role of Clients in the Public Relations Campaigns Course,” Journalism 6. Mass Communi- cation Educator 59 (autumn 2004):

279-300.

259-71.




Download - Organ Donation Awareness Campaigns in the PR Campaigns Course

Top Related