The Imbact of Environmental Education and Monitoring on Waste Sebaration Behavior of Junior High School Students: Evidence from Two Longitudinal Field Experiments
Cities worldwide have been troubled by the "waste siege". The rapid growth of waste threatens human health and causes environmental disaster. This has become a global issue. Therefore, waste separation is adopted by many countries to reduce waste. Although residents in many regions with positive attitude, they do not always participate in the waste separating. We hypothesized that regular monitoring policy and environmental education are the key points to transforming the positive separation attitude to actual separation behavior. To verify the hypothesis, we conducted a one-year large-scale longitudinal field study among junior high school student. Based on the information-motivation-behavioral skills theory (IMB) and social learning theory. We proposed that regular monitoring policy and environmental education played vital roles in promoting waste sorting behavior of junior high school student.
With the comparison of intervention and control group (a total of 135 participants),
Study 1 used a series of environmental education intervention to explore the effects of environmental education on waste separation behavior. The pre- and post-test were employed to analysis the relationship between separation attitude, environmental behavior and waste information. The results indicated that, environmental education improved waste separation information significantly.
Since environmental education is not enough for improving separation behavior, the monitoring policy could play a vital role. A total of 87 participants of a middle school were employed to a longitudinal field study with monitoring policy between 2 classes in Study 2. One under the monitory policy was assigned to the intervention group, and the other under the voluntary policy to the control group. The weight of unsorted waste and the separation effectiveness rating were tested over 4 periods (baseline, intervention period I, withdraw, and intervention period II). The results showed that, monitoring policy was effective in promoting waste separation behavior while voluntary policy was negative. Once the monitoring policy was removed, the separation behavior worsened under the voluntary policy. Thus, we propose that long-term monitoring is necessary for successful waste sorting management.
The present study confirmed the effectiveness of monitoring policy and environmental education in waste separation. Environmental education improved waste separation information of junior high school students significantly. Waste sorting behavior could not maintain without long-term monitoring. These results emphasize the key role of long-term monitoring policy and environmental education. Our findings provide a deeper understanding on how to achieve the unity of attitude and behavior. And support practices to develop a better waste management policy.
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