Pro-Environmental Behaviors and Barriers to Engagement for On-Campus Residents

While human interactions with the environment have been studied, there has not been extensive research amongst university students to understand their drivers for acting in environmentally friendly ways. More specifically, on-campus students who live in residence halls on campus have been studied even less. This is despite the positive role residence halls have played in fostering other types of behavior change. This study examined the psychosocial drivers of pro-environmental behavior (PEB) engagement, as well as barriers to engagement, for on-campus residents. The study site was a large, public research institution with a large on-campus population within the United States. An online survey was distributed to freshman, on-campus residents to quantify the frequency in which they engaged in conservation and environmental citizenship behaviors. Additionally, questions created to mirror constructs in commonly utilized theories to examine PEBs were incorporated. The purpose was to identify; 1) what PEBs on-campus residents report engaging in, how residence hall style affects engagement, 2) the relationship between psychosocial drivers and engagement, and 3) which commonly utilized theoretical framework best accounts for engagement. It was found that the most students engaged behaviors included turning off the lights and television when leaving a room, running full loads of laundry, and taking alternative transportation. The least engaged behaviors were talking to others about their environmentally friendly behavior, unplugging fully charged electronics, and adjusting the heating and air conditioning to conserve energy. Style of residence hall was found not to significantly impact engagement. In terms of the best framework to account for engagement, the data were inconclusive due to response rate limitations that required condensing the survey instrument. However, after condensing the instrument, it was determined that for conservation behaviors, intention had a positive relationship with engagement and that environmental citizenship behaviors had a positive relationship with intention, environmental citizenship attitudes, and perceived behavioral control. This dissertation adds to the growing body of knowledge of factors impacting PEB engagement by focusing on a population that has not been extensively studied.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Administration

Grantor

Texas A&M University

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Bowles, Kristianna Marie 1995-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Stanley, Christine

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Musoba, Glenda
• Ponjuan, Luis

• Education, Higher

Language dc:language.iso

English

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/1597556

OAI record oai:identifier

https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/server/oai/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=dim&identifier=oai%3Aoaktrust.library.tamu.edu%3A1969.1%2F1597556