Factors Influencing College Students Recycling Attitudes and Behaviors

Abstract

This study explored contextual factors that impact students recycling attitudes and behaviors on a community college campus in Texas, U.S.A. Previous studies revealed that it was unknown what community college students’ attitudes and behaviors impact their recycling on a community college campus. Participants for the study had to be enrolled at the community college for studies at the time of data collection. An online questionnaire was used to collect self-administered data via SurveyMonkey, and the researcher conducted a face-to-face interview. Three constructs were utilized: attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral controls of the theory of planned behavior to explore what could be impacting students’ active recycling participation on the community college campus. The population sample size was 13 community college students from Texas, U.S.A. A six-step thematic analysis was used to analyze data through the themes that emerged. The findings supported earlier research findings that people’s attitudes are mainly dependent on the moral values and general norms of their society. The results and future research implications were discussed. The study revealed that most students had positive behaviors and recycled. Future researchers can conduct statistical analysis and extend the research to more colleges.