Using theories to develop practice
‘Theory’ can seem like the opposite of ‘practice’ –
something rather remote and inaccessible, even
irrelevant. We’d like to introduce a few ideas that
we think are particularly helpful and which provide
frameworks that can be pretty easily transferred across
into practice.
We hope that you will find that they make sense – not
just because we have described them beautifully(!) but
because you can see how they relate to, and help to
explain, issues and challenges that you recognise from
your own experience. The next step is then to use them
in the design of your own approaches.
A brief overview of some theories will be provided here,
but we have also included some references for more in-
depth reading if you find yourself inspired to read more.
We’ve obviously not included all the theories that might
be relevant - just a few that appealed to the innovators
we engaged with and which seemed the most readily
transferable into practice.
An accessible summary of these theories can be
found at https://www.rospa.com/rospaweb/docs/
advice-services/road-safety/practitioners/evidence-
based-intervention-guide.pdf.
The Theory of Reasoned Action
Developed to explain how and why individual
behavioural choices (like the decision to ‘use’ a
mobile phone) are made, the Theory of Reasoned
Action (TRA) states that behavioural intention is the
greatest predictor of behaviour, and that attitudes
and perceived social pressure (known as subjective
norms) influence that behavioural intention¹.
Attitudes exist in two forms according to this
theory; evaluation – the content of the attitude, and
strength of belief – the level of belief in the attitude.
Subjective norms can also be understood as
existing in two parts; normative beliefs - perceptions
of others’ expectations (what we think other
people think) and motivation to comply – personal
importance of others’ expectations (whether we
care what these people think).
Within our context, according to this model, risky
attitudes and the belief that others accept risky
behaviour (or a disregard for the opinion of others)
may lead to risky road user behaviour. So we may
expect people to be influenced by their own
attitudes as well as by how they think others think
about things.
You can find more relevant theory (particulary
criminological theory) in the section all about
offenders (p60).
¹ Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention,and behavior: An
introduction to theory and research. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Many of our ‘accessible
academics’ (p146-154) are also
experts in translating theories
like these into practice.
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