No abstract

It has been more than 20 years since the value-belief-norm theory of environmentalism has been conceptualized. The said theory has been used as a lens and has guided scholars in exploring and understanding proenvironmental behavior, however to date, there has been no study conducted that attempted to explore and report the bibliometric properties of studies related thereto. Aimed at determining research opportunities and future research directions, this paper reports a study that explored the bibliometric properties of studies conducted pertaining to the above-mentioned theory. Data were extracted from Scopus database and analyzed using Microsoft Excel, Publish or Perish, and VOSviewer. Results showed that while there is an increasing trend of studies using value-belief-norm theory, there is still considerably small and limited number of papers published, as well as scholars, institutions, and countries engaged on studies using the theory. Considering the inter/multidisciplinary nature of pro-environmental behavior, it may be necessary to encourage the conduct of more context-specific studies using available and more advanced methods across cultures, sectors, and levels.

The acceleration of average temperature of lands and oceans, rising sea level, frequent extreme weather events and ocean acidification denote that climate change is a contemporary pressing dilemma facing the world. Everyday human activities such as open burning, deforestation, burning of fossil fuels and agricultural activities significantly contribute to Earth warming. Preventing the aforementioned activities reduce the greenhouse gas emission to the atmosphere and subsequently slows the changes in climate. Thus, climate change education is integral to educate people on the destructive consequences of their actions to the climate. Past studies revealed that well-established theories and models guided the designing of education to deliver behavioral change in many countries and reportedly improved participants’ knowledge, attitude and motivation. However, these theories and models exist as an after effect of the education and the long-term impact of the initiative frequently not found and less information available on the sustainability of such education. Additionally, effective climate change education is typically context-based and designed based on factors related to local students’ behavior. Hence, this study examined how knowledge and psychological factors such as belief and motivation explain the formation of climate conserving behavior among secondary school students. A total of 221 questionnaires was distributed to 14 years old Malaysian secondary school students to measure knowledge, motivation and belief. The data obtained were later analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach. The findings revealed that knowledge (β = 0.259, p < 0.05), belief (β = 0.295, p < 0.05) and motivation (β = 0.546, p < 0.05) positively affects the behavior. These findings reflected that knowledge, belief and motivation collectively explain a total of 65.5% of variances in the formation of climate conserving behavior among Malaysian secondary school students.