The second stage introduces the models that explain behavior at the level of the individual decision maker: perceived threat and weighed benefit against barrier, and intention built from attitude, perceived norm and perceived control. What is graded is not whether you can define the constructs but whether you can defend choosing one model over another for a specific behavior, and then show each construct producing content. Your section may print this as MPH 505 or MPH505; it is the same course. Chamberlain publishes no syllabi outside Canvas. The placement here is our teaching judgment from the course's catalog arc; your section's rubric decides what your week actually asks.
What MPH-505 Week 2 asks for
Two caregivers decline the same recommended adolescent vaccine at the same family practice, twenty minutes apart, and their reasons have almost nothing in common. The first says her daughter is healthy and not at risk of anything the vaccine prevents; the second says she intends to do it, thinks it is sensible, and cannot get an afternoon appointment without losing a shift. A model built around perceived susceptibility and perceived benefit explains the first refusal and is nearly useless for the second. A model built around intention, norms and perceived control over the act explains the second and adds little to the first. Choosing between them is the assignment.
The territory is the family of individual-level explanations. One tradition holds that action follows from believing you are susceptible to a condition, believing the condition is serious, believing the recommended action would reduce the threat, judging the barriers to be tolerable, and being triggered by some cue, with confidence in your own ability running underneath all of it. Another tradition holds that behavior follows from intention, that intention is built from your attitude toward the act, what you believe important others expect, and how much control you feel you have, with actual control determining whether intention becomes action. They are not rivals in a simple sense; they emphasize different levers, and the lever your audience is actually stuck on is what decides which one fits.
Two cautions belong here and get tested in the written work. First, these are explanations of individual decision making, and they were never designed to carry the weight of conditions such as cost, distance, clinic hours or discrimination. Perceived barrier is not the same construct as an actual structural barrier, and a plan that converts a transport problem into a perception problem has misapplied the model in a way graders identify quickly. Second, a construct only counts as applied when it is generating content. If the theory section could be deleted without changing anything else in the paper, the theory was never applied.
Expect a written analysis comparing at least two models, or applying one to a behavior with justification. Where a discussion runs, expect classmates to test whether your model fits your example, since that is the easiest thing in this course to check and posts cannot be edited after submission.
The MPH-505 Week 2 method, step by step
Six moves for choosing a model and proving it earns its place.
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Diagnose where your audience is actually stuck
Not intending, intending but not acting, acting inconsistently, or blocked by something no belief can move. Each of those points to a different model, and the fourth points away from communication entirely.
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Write the two candidate models against your behavior
Half a page each, applied rather than described. The one that produces the more specific predictions about your audience is the one to keep, and the comparison itself is a graded move.
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Define constructs from the model's own literature
Models drift as they pass through textbooks. Cite the work that introduced or formalized the construct, then bring in a recent application in a population like yours to show it operating.
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Fill each construct with local content
Perceived barrier becomes a named barrier your audience reported. Perceived norm becomes what a specific reference group is believed to do. A construct with no local content is a definition sitting in a paper.
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Separate perceived from structural, explicitly
Sort your barriers into two lists: those a message could change and those requiring a schedule, a cost or a policy to change. Say which list you are addressing and who would have to address the other.
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Show the construct arriving in a message
For each construct you keep, write the sentence a member of the audience would actually read or hear. That single move converts a theory section into an application section.
Compare the models and budget the words
Our frame for a model selection and application paper, sized for roughly 1,200 to 1,500 words. It is our own outline rather than anything the university issues, and your week's scoring guide outranks it wherever the two disagree.
| Section | What belongs in it | Word target |
|---|---|---|
| The behavior and the sticking point | Your objective restated, plus where in the decision the audience stops, with evidence for that diagnosis. | 150 to 190 |
| Model A applied | The first candidate's constructs used on your behavior, with what it predicts and what it cannot see. | 250 to 300 |
| Model B applied | The second candidate through the same behavior, in parallel structure so the comparison is readable. | 250 to 300 |
| The choice, defended | Which model you keep, the criterion you chose on, and what you accept losing by not using the other. | 180 to 230 |
| Constructs filled locally | Each retained construct with the audience-specific content that will populate it, sourced. | 250 to 300 |
| Structural barriers set aside | What no message can move here, who controls it, and how you will avoid blaming the audience for it. | 130 to 170 |
Evidence craft for theory application
Cite the primary formulation, then the application. A construct defined from a summary table reads differently from one defined from the source that formalized it. Use both: the original for the definition, a recent study in a comparable population for evidence that the construct predicts this behavior.
Report predictive strength honestly. These models explain some of the variance in behavior, not all of it. Where a study reports how much a construct predicted, name the figure. It calibrates your claims and it demonstrates that you read the paper rather than the abstract.
Match the verb to the design. Most evidence for these models comes from cross-sectional surveys, which support was associated with and predicted. Reserve caused and increased for designs that manipulated something and compared groups.
Name the population the evidence came from. A construct that predicts strongly among university students may behave differently among caregivers of young children with irregular work schedules. Ten words of setup before each cited result is the cheapest credibility in this course.
Five mistakes that cost points in this week's territory
- Definition without application. A paragraph defining every construct, followed by a plan that never uses them, is the single most common failure in this material.
- Stacking models to look thorough. Two models with no stated division of labour do less than one used properly, and reviewers read the stack as uncertainty.
- Structural problems relabelled as perceptions. Calling a shift-work conflict a perceived barrier converts a scheduling failure into a belief the audience is expected to fix.
- Fear used as a lever with no efficacy attached. Raising perceived threat without also raising confidence and offering a clear action reliably produces avoidance rather than change, and the literature says so.
- The wrong reference group in the norm. Perceived norm is about the people whose approval matters to this audience, not about the general public.
Before you submit
- The sticking point in the decision is diagnosed with evidence before a model is chosen
- Two models are applied in parallel structure to the same behavior
- The choice between them names a criterion and an acknowledged loss
- Every retained construct carries audience-specific content, not just a definition
- Perceived and structural barriers are sorted into separate, labelled lists
- At least one drafted message sentence appears per retained construct
Choosing a model this week?
Send the scoring guide and the behavior you settled on. A premium original draft comes back in 24 to 48 hours with two models applied in parallel and every construct carrying local content, and revisions run until the grade lands.