Using Entertainment Education to Promote Self-efficacy and Aspirations among Young Malawians: The Tisankhenji Radio Program

This 19-page peer reviewed case study, which appeared in the Cases in Public Health Communication and Marketing Journal, discusses the impact of the Tisankhenji radio programme, which was designed to prevent HIV among young people in Malawi, especially girls age 10 to 14, by increasing self-efficacy, encouraging open discussion, promoting career goals, and encouraging aspirations for education and careers. According to the impact study, "program exposure was significantly associated with increased self-efficacy to attain an education, and to engage in discussions with parents, teachers and elders about career plans and HIV prevention."

The Tisankhenji radio programme (see Related Summaries at bottom of page) aired from 2005 to 2008 as part of the Malawi BRIDGE I Project. The radio programme was designed to respond to findings from the formative research, which found that young Malawians felt powerless to prevent HIV, and that especially girls "did not have aspirations for their future and, if they did, they were not encouraged by others to strive to reach them." Formative research found that girls "lacked self-esteem and assertiveness skills, had poor communication with their parents, felt that their parents did not care about their educational attainment, and did not see the correlation between their daily actions and achieving their goals."

According to the report, schools are important intervention sites for both girls and boys as they reach young people before or shortly after sexual debut. Keeping girls in school also reduces their vulnerability to HIV. Encouraging girls to have education and career aspirations both gives them motivation to protect themselves from HIV and early pregnancy, and encourages them to stay in school. The Tisankhenji radio programme used entertainment-education (EE) to model desirable behaviours about having future goals and encourage discussion among girls and between girls and elders. The programme was designed primarily for girls, with boys, teachers, and parents as secondary audiences.

The report outlines the steps taken to develop the radio programme, which included contextualising the Sara Communication Initiative (SCI) comic books for Malawi, which was used for the first of Tisankhenji's 3 series. The series development also included community workshops with young girls, programme design workshops with the programme team and producers, and a creative process that included scripting and testing before broadcast. The project also included the establishment of 48, school-based, Tisankhenji Listeners' Clubs facilitated by schoolteachers, which provided an environment for girls to listen and share their reflections on the issues dealt with in each weekly episode.

According to the study, which compared intervention schools with control schools, the programme had a positive impact on girls' self-efficacy, or their belief in their own ability, related to education and careers. "Comparisons between the treatment and control students on post-intervention measures of self-efficacy to attain an education, and to discuss career plans or HIV prevention with parents, teachers and elders were all statistically significant." Students, both girls and boys, in the intervention schools had greater goals for their education. They were also more likely to express self-efficacy to discuss career plans with their parents, teachers, and elders. Students exposed to the Tisankhenji programme also demonstrated significantly greater feelings of self-efficacy to engage in discussions about HIV prevention.

According to the report, the perceptions of self-efficacy in all of these areas was positively associated with having aspirations and goals to attain education and pursue a career. "Exposure to the program was also associated with students actually engaging in discussions with others about their career plans, having stronger intentions to attain their career aspirations, and having higher educational attainment goals." The report notes that one surprising finding was the popularity and impacts of the programme among boys.

The report cites character and story development as key to the impact of the radio programme. Listeners found the story to be relevant and realistic to their own lives. It was also mentioned that the radio programme provided practical information that young people could use. As well, the programme was framed as a fun, after-school activity, which provided the students with information they could use. "In sum, the program did not tell people what to do; rather, it highlighted the fact that young people could make choices to enhance their lives."

The report concludes that EE is "a potentially effective, creative approach to promoting educational aspirations and achievement motivations, which may be helpful in fighting HIV." The authors recommend continued development of EE programmes that focus on young girls' needs, desires, and dreams. "Focusing on positive outcomes will enable them to plan for, and make progress toward, a future where HIV rates among young girls are diminished." The report also re-iterates that school-based initiatives can have the multiple advantages of accessing young people early in their lives, providing structured yet creative approaches, and encouraging girls to stay in school, and recommends more school-based programming.