The effectiveness of covid-19 signs on a college campus

COVID-19 is a virus that typically spreads between individuals through close contact and fluid from sneezing, coughing, and speaking. As COVID-19 continued to spread within the United States, higher education institutions were tasked with promoting the practice of nonpharmaceutical interventions using signs. The Health Belief Model was selected for this study to explore COVID-19 preventative health-related behaviors resulting from the COVID-19 signs. This study focused on COVID-19 signs at a large urban and suburban community college located in a major United States city in Pennsylvania. The purpose of this study was to understand how this institution's COVID-19 signs influenced and promoted the practice of nonpharmaceutical interventions among the employee population. A mixed method explanatory sequential study was conducted using surveys, focus groups, and multimodal social semiotic analysis. The results found that certain COVID-19 signs were more effective than others and there were connections between one's health belief about this virus and sign adherence. The qualitative results found that COVID-19 signs were not only effective reminders but were also identified as effective for corrective actions for non-compliant behaviors. The overall conclusions found that the visual design of the signs impacted the sign's effectiveness; signs were effective in correcting non-compliant behaviors through non-verbal cues; one's health beliefs about COVID-19 affected the practice of nonpharmaceutical interventions, and it was found that static and digital signs are effective based on their use case and for supplementing one another.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ed.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Warfield, Stacey Renee

Contributors dc:contributor

• Kalantzis, Mary
• Cope, William
• Dhillon, Pradeep
• You, Yu-ling

• Covid-19
• Sign
• Signage
• Higher Education
• Effectiveness

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2023 Stacey Renee Warfield

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120403

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F120403