Youth and sustainable waste management: a SEM approach and extended theory of planned behavior

Abstract

The present study aims to develop the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to explain comprehensively the establishment of intention and behavior toward source separation of waste. The extended TPB involves the significant structures affecting the behavior along with the original variables of TPB model. Data were gathered from 420 students in Ferdowsi University, Iran, using questionnaires, and analyzed by cluster analysis, discriminant analysis and structural equation modelling techniques (SEM). The cluster analysis identified three distinct grouping according to TPB constructs, and it was validated by discriminant analysis. SEM results displays that motivation had the most important impact on intention, followed by moral obligation, perceived behavior control, subjective norm, situational factor and attitude. Fit statistic of the extended TPB model was good and had better explanatory power compared to the original TPB. It describes 81 and 57% of the variance for intention and behavior toward source separation waste, respectively.