Abstract: A six-step procedure was used to develop an instrument to predict environmentally responsible behavior in undergraduate students. One hundred eighty-seven examples of pro-environmental behavior were identified and classified into six different categories, and 15 undergraduate students at a major research university provided Thurstone-type judgments for each item. Students were asked to indicate the degree to which they felt the performance of each action was appropriate to a category of environmental action in which it appeared. The 144 items retained were pilot tested as two parallel 5-point Likert-type instruments with 828 students enrolled in an introductory biology course for nonscience majors. Development of the 28-item Environmental Action Internal Control Index (EAICI) incorporated SPSS-X techniques for correlational analysis, including factor analysis, regression analysis, and discriminant analysis. This instrument was field tested with another group of 853 students enrolled in the following quarter's offering of the introductory biology course for nonscience majors. Coefficient alpha indicated an internal consistency reliability of .94 for the total instrument. Item-scale correlations indicated that the six identified categories of environmental actions were also internally consistent. Concurrent validity of the EAICI was established by using a self-report of performance of the pro-environmental behaviors as the criterion. The EAICI correctly classified respondents in 82% of the cases. Convergent and discriminant validity were established using a multimethod multitrait analysis.
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↑ http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00958964.1995.9941967