Monitoring factor-level outcomes works a little differently than monitoring behavioral outcomes.  With behavioral outcomes we measure changes in the actual priority behaviors.

But with factor-level outcomes, we monitor the factors that continue to stop adoption or have started to support adoption, where they didn’t before.  Are the new motivators because of something your program is doing?  Are the barriers that still exist the same and you just haven’t managed to address them yet?  Have new barriers popped up?

Monitoring changes in factors is usually easier than monitoring behavioral outcomes because the results are direct and clear.  Here’s a few examples:

• If “limited accessibility to needed products” was the critical factor you identified: Perhaps women cannot properly wash their hands because they have no basins for handwashing. Things to monitor might be…are the basins in the marketplace?  Are they affordable?  Are they being purchased?  Do you see those same basins in households? And are they being used for handwashing?  If yes, how many and how often?
• If “negative service experience in clinics” was the critical factor you selected: Maybe youth feel uncomfortable going to the clinics to discuss family planning because women and children fill the waiting areas. Then you might monitor…has space been provided for youth to wait for counseling services?  Has a special day of the week or time of the day been set aside (and announced) for youth family planning counseling?  Have providers been coached to talk with youth?  With new space, or days, or times in place, are youth visiting?  How do they feel about the visits? If they are visiting, then for how often, how long, and how do youth feel about it?

Monitoring the “whys” continues to be essential.  Like your initial guiding research, you need to understand the changes to your critical factors – the changes in the “why” someone is doing or not doing something – as it can affect what and how you are conducting your activities.

There’s another important aspect of monitoring factors: in some cases when one factor disappears or is overcome, another one pops up.  Sometimes it’s a direct result of that factor being overcome.  Sometimes it’s because circumstances have changed.  In either case, you need to be aware of it and adjust based on what you learn.

For example, your youth are finally visiting the clinic during “youth hours” and are very happy with the services provided.  But now their parents are unhappy because their teenage children are visiting the clinics for family planning services.  This disagreement between parents and teenage children starts stopping the youth from visiting the clinics again.  Perhaps you could have anticipated this immediate outcome of overcoming the factor for youth of “negative service experience in clinics” (as you were thinking through strategies in Step 4 when developing your Behavior Profile).  Or perhaps not.  Whatever the case, it still needs to be dealt with now.

Your monitoring will have helped by surfacing a new barrier that needs to be addressed and acted upon with updated activities.  This may just feel like more work because your monitoring has raised yet another issue to tackle.  However, monitoring has also helped you solve a challenge before it starts to reduce your behavioral outcome (in this example, something like “Youth over 16 and in a longer-term relationship use modern contraceptives to delay pregnancy to at least 18 years old.”)

We stand by our recommendations for monitoring behavioral outcomes in the previous step.  And we encourage you to do that again here for factor-level outcomes:  Get out there.  See what’s happening.  (Or not happening.)  Talk to people.  Continue to learn.  Experience what your primary actors are experiencing.

Your primary actors are why you work so hard to bring about change.  Your program is why they work hard with you to bring about that same change.  Let monitoring support your efforts by giving you the feedback you need to keep the behavior change train rolling.

If you are keeping on top of monitoring, then nice job! As you monitor, let’s keep in mind adapting your activities based on your learning.

When you need more guidance: try checking out this offline tool. 

And we’re always on stand-by to lend our expertise and support. Just send us an email.

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