The Research Academy is now working with brand, communications and behaviour change research agency Monkey See to create innovative teaching materials. Developed for the Research Academy’s MRS Diploma course, these new teaching materials will use Monkey See’s widely praised StepJockey initiative as a real-life case study. StepJockey, which is backed by the Department of Health and Mayor of London, aims to tackle obesity and promote fitness by labelling stairs of the world for calorie burn.
Monkey See carried out extensive research to develop and evaluate the StepJockey initiative for the Department of Health. They found that it sparked an increase in stair climbing by up to 29%, and that behaviour change was particularly marked among a key audience that most exercise-oriented communications fail to reach, i.e. infrequent exercisers with a higher BMI. The design and execution of this programme evaluation will now be used to help Research Academy students expand their knowledge of new research methodologies. Helen Nuki, Partner at Monkey See, says, “We’re very proud of the new techniques we used for this work, but to see it put to use to help teach and challenge others is even more satisfying”.
This new partnership is part of an ongoing initiative by the Research Academy to provide the highest-quality tuition possible for MRS Diploma and MRS Advanced Certificate students. “Monkey See’s proof-of-concept research for StepJockey is what great market research is all about these days: challenging old ways of thinking about what drives human behaviour, and using experiments and observation to generate credible evidence for a behavioural intervention. I am sure our MRS Diploma students will enjoy learning from Monkey See’s approach”, says Research Academy MD Mia Lorenz.
