2009 PROCEEDINGS - Public Relations Society of America

Using a Quasi-Experiment to Evaluate a PR Campaigns Class’s Efforts
to Promote Energy Conservation in Eight Residence Halls
Lynne M. Sallot, Ph.D., APR, Fellow PRSA
University of Georgia
sallot@uga.edu
While most public relations educators agree that teaching research methods,
measurement and evaluation are essential in the PR curriculum (O’Neil, 2005),
particularly in the capstone campaigns course (Benigni, Cheng & Cameron, 2004),
few—if any—have used quasi-experiments in PR Campaigns. This abstract reports
the results of a campaigns class that used a quasi-experiment to assess its efforts to
promote energy conservation to residents of eight dormitories at a large university in
the southeastern U.S. The class implemented a competition with a full complement of
PR tactics in the two halls equipped with meters measuring residents’ daily energy
consumption; some conservation PR strategies in four of the halls; and did no
promotions of any kind in two other “control” halls. A pre-experiment survey of
residents’ self-reported conservation attitudes and behaviors revealed no significant
differences among the eight halls. In the class’s post-experiment survey, there were
several differences among residents in the eight halls. In the two halls receiving the
full promotional treatments, residents were more likely to say energy conservation is
important to them, they make an effort to conserve energy, and they rated their
personal energy conservation habits higher than all but one of the other six residence
halls. Also, analysis of records of daily energy consumption in the two “competition”
halls revealed consumption dropped for up to 48 hours immediately following
implementation of specific PR tactics. However, the post-survey revealed that
residents in one of the “control” halls where the class had no public relations
activities became as energy conservation conscious as residents in the two
“competition” dormitories. The class investigated and learned that a resident majoring
in ecology in that “control” dorm had launched her own one-woman campaign
reminding her fellow residents in a variety of ways during the semester to conserve
energy, proving to the class that just one person using public relations tactics can
make a difference, such as effectively persuading residents of an entire dormitory to
conserve energy!
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