Crystal Smit

Chapter 2 32 The study was approved by the ethical committee of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The study is registered at the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry: ACTRN12614001179628. Setting and Procedure The study took place from January through March 2014 and lasted for a total of nine weeks (baseline measurements were taken in the first week, followed by the intervention during the following eight weeks). Prior to the intervention, all children completed the baseline questionnaire at their schools concerning their consumption behaviors and other factors related to water drinking. Along with the baseline questionnaire, the children completed sociometric questions to identify the influential peers by means of peer nominations. Identical measures were assessed eight weeks after the intervention was started. In the post-intervention questionnaire, children were asked to give a description of the aim of the study. Most children wrote down an aim in line with or related to water consumption. None of the children except the influence agents indicated that the study was an intervention using the power of peer influence to promote water consumption. Researchers delivered the training of the influence agents during school hours in one session that lasted 90 min. The aim of the training was to give influence agents the knowledge and skills to promote water consumption within their social networks. More specifically, the objectives of the training were: (1) to emphasize the benefits of water, (2) to encourage influence agents to consume more water themselves, and (3) to teach them how they could promote water consumption within their social networks. To assess the influence agents’ current knowledge about the health and environmental benefits of water drinking, the training started by making a word web. Afterwards, the researchers highlighted the benefits of water and also showed a short movie-fragment about the problems for animals associated with the Great Pacific garbage patch. One way to reduce this garbage patch is by drinking tap water from reusable bottles.