The CACTIS (COM-B Assessment Criteria To Intervention Strategy) tool aims to help behavioural researchers and practitioners to use the COM-B model, the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) and the Behaviour Change Technique Ontology (BCTO) to develop an intervention strategy. It is not an alternative to the BCW workflow but rather a tool to help users to implement it.
It currently takes the form of a Google Sheets workbook, but we also have an online HTML version if your organisation doesn’t allow access to Google resources.
When you access the tool, carefully read the instructions (accessed by the leftmost tab at the bottom).
This is version 1.7.2 of the CACTIS Tool. Enhancements from version 1.6 are:
Each step in the process is now on a different tab to make it easier to see how to use the tool, to make it easier to use with smaller laptop screens and to provide additional space for explanations.
The potential ‘COM-B targets’ are now phrased as variables (e.g., ‘Level of X’) rather than questions (e.g., ‘How much …’). This is to make it easier to see how these relate to users' ratings.
The BCTs are organised under 'Behaviour Change Wheel’ Intervention Functions (e.g., Education, Persuasion) so that it is clearer how each BCT fulfils that function. Many BCTs can fulfil more than one function and so are repeated. The fuller BCT description in the ‘BCT List’ tab reflects the specific BCT/Intervention Function combination, and this is presented in the CACTIS Results tab and provides the prompt for the AI stage of the process.
There are now fuller explanations for ‘Behavioural Goal’, ‘Intervention Setting’, ‘Target population’ and each of the COM-B targets. These take the form of links to Google Docs, which will be updated as required in response to user feedback.
The ‘CACTIS Results’ tab provides a structured prompt that can be used with any AI system to obtain suggestions for the intervention strategy based on the information provided.
There are currently 27, instead of 26, COM-B targets, with the inclusion of a sense of ‘agency’, which is different from confidence in the ability to perform the behaviour.
If you would like training on the CACTIS tool, or consultancy to help use it in developing an intervention, go to the Training and Contact Us tabs.